No, we don't expect you marketers out there to adopt Bikini Bandits as "spokesladies" for your brand. And, yes, we realize it's somewhat risqué. However, there is a great viral marketing case study here that is extremely relevant for those hoping to reach out to the new-media generation.

Bikini Bandits is an original web series we developed way back in 1999. (Yes, Quaker City Mercantile even pioneered viral web films.) The original film we made sparked a bidding war amongst Internet film companies, whom at the time were plump with venture capital. Atom Films, which is now owned by MTV, won
the bidding war and spent literally millions of dollars advertising Bikini Bandits on MTV and other national networks. (Funny enough, the TV campaign for Bikini Bandits was created by Crispin Porter + Bogusky.) Atom Films then funded a whole series of new Bikini Bandit short films which we shot all over the world.

Since then, we've released two Bikini Bandits feature films, which were regular fodder on MTV Europe, and had four best-selling DVDs which are distributed all around the world. And, we got signed to UTA, the same Hollywood talent agency that represents Jim Carrey.

Bikini Bandits has been viewed over 30 million times. In fact, since we moved the franchise to Spike.com (also owned by MTV) in December of 2005, we've had over 10 million people view the episodes. And the point here is that, while everyone can create content for the web, very few can create content people
actually watch. And an extremely few can create bona fide smash hits on the web. Bikini Bandits was not a flash in the pan. Eight years later it's still a giant web franchise dressed in a tiny little bikini.