Product Placement Creeps Into Amateurs' YouTube Offerings

Harding's travels got started in 2003 when he decided he didn't love his job at a video game company quite enough to stay around. So he quit and used his savings to do some traveling. As a passing joke, one of Harding's friends suggested, in Vietnam, that he do that goofy dance of his and videotape it. It became a running gag. When he got home, he posted the results to his personal Web site. Within weeks, the video had gone viral.

Later, Stride contacted Harding to see if he wanted to travel the world again and make another video -- this time on its tab. Though he felt trepidations about corporate sponsorship, Harding said he was impressed that the company didn't want him to hawk their product.

"Nobody really wanted to mess with what he does and what he is," said Emily Liu, senior brand manager for Stride, who said that the company did not consider trying to make Harding's latest video more of an overt commercial. "We think Matt embodies the spirit and the personality of our brand."

Stride, which markets itself as "the ridiculously long lasting gum," didn't want to talk about the particulars of its sponsorship. Harding says he's doing well enough for himself, though he still drives the same car he drove before Stride came along.

Harding is reluctant to offer up an explanation of why his videos have struck a chord with millions of online viewers because "the less you say about what you think it means, the more open to interpretation it is and the more potent it is."

But he does offer up this much: "We all need to be reminded sometimes that we're all pretty much the same. We all giggle in the same way and we all get goofy in the same way, or in a similar way."

Stride officials say they're open to another project with Harding. He says he's busy staying on top of his e-mail at the moment and hasn't figured out what's next. When I talked to him, he was at home in Seattle, about to have lunch with his mom.

"I just got home," he said. "It's funny, you spend a year making a four-minute video and people say, 'That's great! When's the next one coming out?' "