The Italian job: Mind-boggling cosmetics ad exceeds 2 million views

Korean subtitles over Italian

First of all, watch the video. We'll wait.

OK, what did you see? If you're like us, you saw a strange reality-show 'experiment' involving a make-up product, and you surmised that the film was produced in Europe because the participants and voiceovers were in Italian, as were the on-screen graphics. You noted the Korean subtitles and assumed the video was an import, adapted for the South Korea market. 

Perhaps you also noted the inherently fake aspects of the set-up: the scientists who are clearly not scientists, the questionable looking scientific apparatus, the conspicuous level of attractiveness of all of the participants/actors, the over-the-top and/or forced reactions/performances.

But even if you noted all of the above, you have failed to appreciate how fake this video actually is. For our contacts at Seoul-based agency Innored assure us that they produced the film—in Korea. In other words, the agency went to great lengths to hire Italian-speaking participants/actors and to produce a video that looks like an Italian-made video subtitled in Korean. (It also has English, Japanese and Chinese subtitles, which you can access through the YouTube controls.)

When asked for an explanation for this curious creative approach, a spokesperson replied that the agency intended to garner attention "by use of Italian's unique intonation". 

The video has scored more than 2.2 million views in 10 days, so you can't really argue Innored was wrong (although we will note the that product itself was already a runaway success before the video debuted).

To add another layer of odd, the Innored spokesperson asserted that despite the deliberate fakery, viewers should trust in the results of the 'experiment': "The Italian TV programme is not a real programme. However the experiment and shooting was a real situation. Our team didn't announce detail information of this experiment for guys' reaction."