The Week's Best Viral Videos & Video Marketing Lessons - Car Crash Edition

Every week we try to bring you a cross section of some of the week's best viral videos from brands and individuals. In most cases, there's something we can learn and apply to our own video marketing efforts for every one of the examples--though if you're only watching for fun, and not for any higher learning purpose, it's fine by me. This week's collection includes some crazy car crashes, incredible artwork, an adorable hummingbird, and much more. Enjoy!

Amazing Art

Video is a fantastic medium for artists, providing perhaps the world's most flexible and adaptable canvass. This week we have a few outstanding examples of video-as-art.

Do you enjoy the work of self-taught artists so passionate about their work that they quit they're full time job to pursue it? Then you'll love the short film, The Chase, on Vimeo:

To try and describe this next video would almost certainly fail to do it justice. Just watch this amazing painting/art-project video:

Like fan films? Like stop motion? How about a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles stop-motion fan recreation of the show opening:

Animal Antics

Sometimes the best way to sell a video is to succinctly describe the action it contains, like this: "Fish chasing laser pointer."

I've seen dog snoring videos, and cat snoring videos... of course I've also seen videos of humans snoring. But until this week, I'd never seen a snoring hummingbird:

Give a dog a tennis ball, and he'll be your friend. Give him a thousand tennis balls, and he'll have trouble choosing:

Musical Marvels

If you have any musical talent, consider putting it to use in your videos. If you're exceptionally talented... you can make a career out of creating great musical videos... like the Piano Guys:

Here's a great piano-based cover of Foo Fighters "Everlong," which reached viral levels when the band shared it on their social media outlets:

Looking for a winning online video strategy? "Take two things that work online and mash them together." Like the dubstep trend in modern music and a pretty girl who plays a musical instrument... combining to form the dubstep violin girl:

Car Crashes

Lots of car crashes got viral views this week, all from the world of professional stock-car racing. In one of the races leading up to the Daytona 500, Danica Patrick had a crash that got the web talking:

By now most of you have already heard about the massive jet-fuel crash at the Daytona 500. There are many versions of this video online going viral... here's just one of them:

In the same race, there were several other crashes, including this one:

Movie Marketing, Real & Fake

You can't really talk about the week's best viral videos without mentioning Hollywood. And this week saw another slew of movie trailers grabbing viral attention.

Like the new Avengers trailer, which frankly does a better job of selling the film than all the previously released promotional material combined:

Tim Burton is remaking an early short film from his own career in this year's Frankenweenie:

Neighborhood Watch could be promising, with Vince Vaughn, Ben Stiller, Jonah Hill, and a ridiculous premise--oh, and it's directed by one of the Lonely Island guys:

Another week, another Jimmy Kimmel viral hit... this time a fake movie trailer for "Movie: The Movie"

Grab Bag

There were some truly fantastic videos this week that just didn't fit into my categories above, and that's why God invented the "Grab Bag" category.

Here we have a man that shoots self in chest to prove the bullet-proof vest works. Smart? No. Viral? You bet:

Rio de Janeiro gets the tilt-shift treatment in The City Of Samba--nope, still not remotely tired of tilt-shift:

Did you know there's a new World Record for paper airplane throwing distance? Well, now you do:

If you've ever watned to see a helicopter fall apart, this is your lucky day. Also... what the heck is wrong with you that this is what you wish for?

I shared a video like this last year, and this new one is just as entertaining, thrilling, and scary. It's the Urbano Manizales - urban bike race:

Pretty soon the "drifting" trend with vehicles will start to die off. Until then, we keep getting viral videos of crazier and crazier vehicles being drifted. Like tricycles:

Here's a little bit of meta fun for you: an astronaut building a Lego space station... in space!