How do you make a viral video? Childhood friends former Qantas pilot Marty Spargo and accountant Steve Macdonald reckon they have hit upon a recipe.
Come up with a simple challenge that appeals to people's sense of fun and adventure (free), film a quirky video ($12,000) and pay Facebook to put it in people's faces ($8600). Sit back and watch the magic.
![Actor Matthew Knott, seen here bungyjumping, stars as Deadpan Guy in a Facebook advertising campaign for Reize energy drinks.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170620080711im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/w/9/8/5/k/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gw9btg.png/1495293674450.jpg)
As a craze, deadpanning has a long way to go before it rivals fidget spinning or planking. The 2012 viral videos Gangnam Style (106 million YouTube views) and even Australia's own Dumb Ways to Die from 2012 (148 million YouTube views) leave Deadpan Guy in the shade. But with 2.2 million Facebook views since last October, you can say Deadpan Guy is gathering viral momentum. Not that he'll be smiling about it. That's the point.
"We found somebody who never reacts to anything" the video starts, as Deadpan Guy, played by actor Michael Knott, leaps from an aeroplane to plummet through the air with an utterly straight face. At 14 seconds he is rally driving to a catchy beat ("Oh Oh Oh it's beautiful"), equally unsmiling, and a second later he's bungee jumping, again with complete indifference ("Seriously, we have tried everything!").
![Steve Macdonald (left) and Marty Spargo, co-founders of REIZE energy drinks, have scored success with their Deadpan Guy ...](http://web.archive.org./web/20170620080711im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/w/9/8/5/o/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gw9btg.png/1495293674450.jpg)
Then comes the sell. The product is a home-delivered energy drink that comes in a sachet sold by subscription. It fizzes and crackles in the glass while Deadpan Guy happily declares it "most flavoursome". "Tag someone who is hard to impress," urges the advertisement on Facebook.
With views in the millions (including 350,000 paid for), "likes" in the thousands, and shares and comments in the hundreds, it has exceeded expectations "by a lot", says Mr Macdonald, 35, who was born at about the same time in the same small town hospital as his mate and co-founder of the Reize Energy Drink business Mr Spargo.
Hundreds of people have also taken up the challenge, submitting videos and photos of themselves feeling or feigning a complete lack of emotion to situations you'd expect to elicit a scream or at least a smile, including a father cradling a newborn baby, mates on a terrifying theme park ride, and a man with a whopping fish catch.
The business partners were looking for a way to get people to fill in a survey about what they liked in an energy drink so they could refine their formula, which boasts no sugar and less caffeine than rival energy drinks.
A filmmaker friend gave them the deadpanning idea. "We thought it was hilarious," Mr Macdonald says. They chose Knott as the actor for his everyman looks, in contrast with the ripped males and bikini-clad girls used to sell market leaders such as V and Redbull. That decision gave the campaign broad appeal and "shareability", Mr Macdonald says.
Social media success is one thing, but has it sold the drink? They have 30,000 new email addresses on their database, 500 monthly subscriptions and are getting ten new subscriptions a day. They're smiling, but don't tell Deadpan Guy.
"You have to pay money if you want to reach more than about 10 per cent of the people that like your [Facebook] page," Mr Spargo says. "The days of things going viral on Facebook without some budget behind it are over unfortunately."