Opel Accepts Viral YouTube Views of Its Latest Model As Vehicle Payment

Forget bitcoin: here's a truly intangible currency already in use. JL

Tim Nudd reports in Adweek:

Opel accepts views of viral videos involving its vehicles as payment for them.It works like this: Consumers are encouraged to create videos of Opel’s new “Online Edition” while loaning the vehicle for a test drive. (Please don’t film while driving, though.) Then, they can upload them to YouTube—and if the video goes viral, which of course gives the car huge exposure, Opel will accept the views in lieu of cash as payment. It’s a clever way of hacking the monetary value of YouTube views.
YouTube views are a valued currency for many advertisers. And now, J. Walter Thompson Amsterdam is turning them into an actual currency—convincing automaker client Opel to accept views of viral videos involving its vehicles as payment for them.
It works like this: Consumers are encouraged to create videos of Opel’s new “Online Edition” while loaning the vehicle for a test drive. (Please don’t film while driving, though.) Then, they can upload them to YouTube—and if the video goes viral, which of course gives the car huge exposure, Opel will accept the views in lieu of cash as payment.
It’s a clever way of hacking the monetary value of YouTube views, and it also, of course, encourages creativity among the automaker’s target market. YouTube itself calls it “a world’s first,” and JWT says the campaign “is already so successful in the Netherlands that Opel is looking to roll it out across Europe.”
Exact metrics are not clear, but JWT does say that at least one Dutchman, Yuri Schuurkes, was able to buy a new Opel Astra with YouTube views. His goofy video below, in which he dresses up as Spider-Man for his test drive, has gotten 5.2 million views and counting. (That would seem to be good enough to buy five Opel Astras, though the automaker presumably limits it to one.)