This has got to be one of the oddest campaigns I’ve seen to date. It’s a video of a cow giving birth to a man (via Take Me To Your Leader). The man emerges from behind the cow, clad in a loin cloth, sunglasses, and dripping with goo — looks around, then runs away.

The ad’s provocative, as well as a little disgusting. But what the hell does it have to do with Rayban? Virality for the sake of virality isn’t a good thing. Seth Godin does a great job of summarizing this point. The video is all viral and no message, it contains no reference to Rayban.

Adage has a grat article covering a case study in the pitfalls of branding campaigns too subtly. While only lightly branding your campaigns can increase consumer’s willingness to share, it can also lead to confusion. Gatorade launched a TV campaign featuring sports figures closed with an ambiguous “G” at the end. On the day of the commercial, searches for “G commercial” surged. Those searches were supposed to drive users to a YouTube channel for “whatsg1965″. However, many viewers never found it despite the high search volume. It even lead to some confusion, with some thinking is was a commercial for Gap, or even a new Saturday Night Live sketch.

Great campaigns shouldn’t sacrifice their message for the sake of being viral.