Corning ‘breaks all the rules’ of viral videos, draws millions of views

It’s not funny. It’s not short. There are no celebrities doing quirky things. So how did this video become a YouTube hit in just two months?

Anyone familiar with Disneyland or classiccartoons likely knows how fascinated mid-20th-century Americans were with the “home of tomorrow.” But that fascination is a thing of the past, right?

If the interest in Corning’s “A Day Made of Glass” YouTubevideo–more than 11.5 million views in about two months–is any indication, people are as interested in the near future as ever.

“It provokes them to think about how the future is going to be changing, but not so far out that it isn’t imaginable that they’ll see it in their lifetime,” says Dan Collins, Corning’s vice president of corporate communications.

The video “breaks all the rules” of viral videos, says John Mannion, executive vice president of client relations for Doremus, the communications firm that produced “A Day Made of Glass.” It’s not funny. It has no famous people in it. It’s about six minutes long. It wasn’t shot with a Flip camera.

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