The gap between Hollywood Stars and Youtube stars keeps shrinking. The most recent example: Youtube phenom, Freddie Wong and his recent videos about the upcoming film, Cowboys & Aliens.

Freddie Wong has been making funny little special-effects videos on his YouTube channel for some time now. He has well over a million subscribers, and routinely sees his clips garner a ton of social sharing activity and millions of views.

Last week, Freddie’s weekly video was longer than normal, and centered around the new film, Cowboys & Aliens. His description says he got to shoot on the Universal back-lot, and the video co-stars the film’s director, Jon Favreau:

That video has over 3 million views and has only been live for six days. Even the behind-the-scenes feature he created went viral, grabbing another 700,000 views:

Now I have no idea if this was Favreau’s idea or the studios, but I don’t care. It’s genius either way. Why? I think Favreau says it best to Freddie himself in the behind-the-scenes video:

“You got a really devoted audience, you do really innovative stuff, and it’s a lot of fun–you guys are looking like you’re having so much fun doing what you’re doing.”

Universal and Favreau made a pretty savvy choice by working with Freddie – their movie’s topic and tone fit right in with fans and subscribers of Freddie’s videos. Partnering with him on a piece like this gave the film a certain level of guaranteed exposure with its intended target audience, and was a lock to go viral and gain social video traction.

We will see continually interesting hybrid marketing like this in the future–Hollywood studios and Youtube’s rising stars are a great fit, perhaps we will not even be able to tell them apart soon.

We are hugely proud and excited to announce that Jay Webster has joined Sharethrough as Chief Product Officer. Jay is an ad industry O.G. With more than twenty years of experience leading product strategy and development for highly successful advertising technology startups (and some not so small companies), Jay brings an enormous amount of insight, talent and guitar pedals to Sharethrough.

And he’s getting right to work on Sharethrough’s social video platform, so get ready, we’re about to turn it to 11.

If you are one of the few that have not heard of the mighty Jay Webster, allow us to inform you. Jay previously served as Chief Product Officer of Quova, where he guided product development until their acquisition by Neustar. Previous to Quova, Jay was President and COO of Consorte Media, GM of Lead Generation for Yahoo!, GM of Performance Marketing and CTO for BlueLithium (acquired by Yahoo for $300 million), VP of Engineering for Adteractive, Inc., as well as President and CTO for Fathom Online.

Wow! Must spend all his time just building amazing advertising technology, you might ask. Nope! Jay is active in philanthropy through his association with Little Kids Rock and manages to fit in an active hobby schedule including motor sports, guitar, and triathlons.

Wanna know more? Read our full announcement here: http://bit.ly/mSyqd8

Toyota is getting some viral traction (and social video action) this week with a fantastic video from their Toyota Motor Europe division showcasing what some of the cars of the future might be able to accomplish, particularly as it pertains to the windows.

In the video, called “Window to the World,” a girl sits in the back seat while someone (presumably a parent) drives the vehicle. And she uses her window in a number of ways that are both exciting and cool.

Modern technology might not be quite there yet, but we’re close–all the things she does are completely conceivable if not likely capabilities for our future automobiles.

And that’s why the ad works. We can believe this is a car of the future… the very near future. Toyota knows that one of the best ways to encourage social sharing behavior around a piece of branded video content is to wow the viewers. Give the audience something that causes awe and wonder, and they’ll take care of the rest.

You wanna know who is awesome? Nikki Arias is awesome.

She is not a coffee drinker, but her sixth sense told her that the coffee we currently have in our office tastes like camel balls. And her sixth sense is dead on. On top of that, the RedBull consumption in the office (as a coffee substitute) was getting out of hand (Bryan had chugged then crushed RedBull cans on his head one too many times). So, as she explores new coffee options for the office, she organized a coffee tasting with Bicycle Coffee Co. http://www.bicyclecoffeeco.com/.

Believe it or not, their coffee is delivered by bike to SF, Berkeley and Oakland. Like Hansel, so hot right now.

When I asked some peeps around the office to describe the coffee in one word, two things became abundantly clear.

1. People think full sentences are “one word”

2. People loved the coffee…

Abir: Tasty. Bold. Floral. Aromatic. Coffee-esque. (5.5 words)

Jenna: Yes, it was great. WAY better than we have now. (10 words)

Winnie: It’s creamy. (2 words)

Evan: Creamy.

Davina: No, in a different word.

Evan: Um, smooth. How’s that? (4 words)

Jessica: Full flavored and delicious. Definitely a nice mid-morning treat! (10 words)

Bryan: It was bold. It was yummy. (6 words)

Davina: How would you say it compares to Redbull?

Bryan: I choose Redbull.

Davina: You can’t win ‘em all.

Chris: “Um, I guess I’d have to go with smooth. I drank it without milk. Usually hot black coffee doesn’t work for me, since I’ll want some milk or something, since it’s a little bit bitter. This one didn’t need anything.” (40 words)

Nikki, thank you for ridding our office of camel balls. And thanks to Bicycle Coffee Co. for coming to visit and letting us taste your delicious brews.

Jimmy Saunders has entered the building! We are thrilled to be growing out our Midwest sales team with our hire of Jimmy as Midwest Sales Director.

Wanna know a bit more about Jimmy? We did too. So here goes…a brief Q&A with Jimmy.

Sharethrough: How did you first get into the online ad sales industry?

Jimmy: Funny enough, my first job in advertising sales happened because of a wedding card.  I sent a wedding card to a woman who I worked for as a temp at the Atlantic Monthly.  She later called to thank me and we met up for lunch where she told me about an open position on the online sales team at Bloomberg.  She recommended me and the rest is history.  If you’re reading this, thanks Danna!

Sharethrough: Where did you first hear about Sharethrough?

Jimmy: I first heard about the company Sharethrough through my now Chicago counterpart, Beth Grossman, who has maintained an admirable passion for the brand since she first stumbled across them.

Sharethrough: What was your first impression of Sharethrough?

Jimmy: The CEO is HOW old?  Seriously though, I was amazed at the market opportunity that Rob and Dan had the foresight to pursue.  There is certainly a need for the distribution of branded video and I instantly wanted to be a part of their evolving solution.

Sharethrough: What makes you most excited about Sharethrough?

Jimmy: There is nothing about Sharethrough does not excite me to the point where this is an impossible question to answer.

Sharethrough: What do you think is the key to successful social video campaign?

Jimmy: I think a brand has to do a few things, but the two most important are to touch on an emotion that a viewer relates to in one way or another, while cleverly inserting their brand.  Humor’s great, but there are a lot of other ways to evoke emotion as well.  What started out as a Super Bowl advertisement for Chrysler turned into an amazing piece of web content because it induced such a feeling of pride among folks from Detroit and the rest of the US.

Sharethrough: What is your favorite thing to do on the weekends?

Jimmy: It may sound cheesy, but so long as I’m with my wife and three kids, the activity doesn’t much matter…  Now if I could get my 3 year old daughter to enjoy watching football, I will discover eternal bliss.

Sharethrough: Lastly, tell us a funny story about your kids

Jimmy: When I asked my then 2 year old daughter where she got her beautiful curly hair from, she replied, “Santa Claus”.  I actually don’t have curly hair.  My then 3 year old son taught his grandparents how to change their car navigation from day mode to night mode.  He also taught his Grandmother how to use her own Direct TV remote and open the new windows in her house.