Wendy's Goes Viral. Just Kidding.

Wendy's joins the amateur video club with "Crazy Lettuce." By now you know the score: two guys are involved. One can never hold the camera straight. At the very last second some zany shit happens.

In this case, a bushy head of lettuce consumes a wee little Wendy's burger. Link to meatatariansunite, a nightmare of poor wallpaper that does nothing but hurt eyes and demand emails.

If this is the one trick to succeeding in so-called "viral marketing," the medium ought to die fast and painfully. Unfortunately for Wendy's, the eyes-deceive-thee! gimmick that served Levi's, Ray Ban and Nike so well is all used up. People finally get the joke: these amazing feats in online video? They never happened. Know what else? They're ADS.

"Crazy Lettuce" has drawn less than 1100 views on YouTube, a mediocre rating (2 stars) and mixed response (of which there are 12).

But lest we hasten to dub this a flop, agency Kirshenbaum Bond & Partners pointed out it spent a mere $25K of its client's cash on this piece, as opposed to the $300K it might have cost to produce a TV ad. With the money it saved, it can make 11 more, argues Silicon Alley Insider, which makes online video a great medium for experimenting with new ad ideas.

Except Wendy's lacks the cajones of an adventurous brand. Since its decision to prematurely dump its red wig campaign -- and Saatchi & Saatchi with it -- Kirshenbaum's strained its creative juices to be as countercreative as possible. Wanna see $900K fly by? Witness the fruits of the "It's Waaaay Better than Fast Food" campaign: food porn and good-good.

Atrociously stale stuff, and I don't even wanna know what the burgers taste like.