Barkley Blows Sonic's Throwdown

The local Kansas City agency that earned mad love for its cool rocket and car on cup promotion just gave it all back.

Barkley, the agency of record for Sonic Drive-Ins, saw spoofs of Sonic's silly in-car ads popping up on YouTube. They cleverly responded by posting a video of Pete and TJ challenging people to create their own ads. So far so good.

But it all goes wrong when Barkley violated major Web 2.0 etiquette and disabled users from embedding the video on Web sites or blogs. A little research from Teresa Valdez Klein over at the Blog Business Summit reveals that Barkley doesn't distribute the Sonic commercials online because they didn't pay the talent accordingly. What a waste of a seemingly good throwdown.

So in return, I'm throwing down the gauntlet. That's right Barkley; I'm talking to you and your cohorts over at Citizen Brand, Risley Ranch and Woolard Speak. You guys need to give the content to the people, and that means making all your Sonic ads available online or everyone who reads this blog will come after you.

So as your commercials state, you'd better watch out for my mom and her neighbor.