India’s “most-viewed ad,” according to Adweek, uses one of advertising’s most terrifying tropes: the dancing CGI baby. But the spot for mobile operator MTS Telecom, which accumulated almost 25 million YouTube views in 3 and a half months, takes the uncanny valley to a new sordid level: Viewers are taken into the delivery room as an infant dances out of his mother’s birth canal to the tune of Diana Ross’ “I’m Coming Out.” Get it? (Of course you do, it literally couldn’t get more literal than that).
The minute-long spot, called “Born for the Internet,” tackles another disturbing element—that babies are probably more digitally savvy than their parents. The independent kidlet cuts his own umbilical cord, puts on his own shirt, grabs the doctor’s smartphone, takes a selfie (Snapchats won’t come until he’s at least 2 weeks old), and Google Maps his way out of there.
MTS Telecom entered the ad in the Cannes Lions Festival — the Oscars of the ad world — and in spite of the terror it inflicts, it’s hard to discount the spot. The dextrous CGI baby is a polarizing force with die hard fans.
According to Unruly Media’s viral video chart, this Evian dancing baby ad is the sixth most shared ad in the world of all time:
Its predecessor, “Roller Babies,” is the 11th most shared ad ever:
Pepsi NEXT experimented with the medium for a break dancing baby:
And Ubisoft Rocksmith had a digitally enhanced baby play an electric guitar:
Guys, the 3-D dancing baby became famous for being a representation of Calista Flockhart’s mentally instability in Ally McBeal. Stop using the hallucination to sell stuff!
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