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A YouTube video showing a psychotic bride hacking off her tresses could generate millions of dollars in free publicity for Unilever Canada's Sunsilk brand.

But experts in online marketing say there's sometimes a risk when advertisers pull a bait-and-switch on consumers.

“This execution fails in the same place that a lot of other ones do in that it's not 100-per-cent transparent,” said Nick Barbuto, who buys Internet advertising for clients at Cossette Media. “All of the good that you build up with a user . . . can instantly be reversed by them understanding that this is not as transparent as one might think.”

Late Thursday, Unilever Canada came clean about its role in creating the blockbuster video after published reports suggested that the women in the “Bride has Massive Hair Wig Out” video dreamt up the idea to promote their acting careers.

Since its Jan. 18 release, the six-minute video, featuring the bridezilla character and her foul-mouthed brides, has been viewed 2.8 million times and spawned vigorous debate about whether it was actual footage of a bride's very bad hair day or an elaborate hoax.

Geoff Craig, Unilever's vice-president of brand development, said the company thought viewers would take the video for what it is: A dramatization.

Of course, the ad would never have received as many hits as it did if millions of viewers hadn't thought it might be real.

“I don't think we tricked the consumer,” Mr. Craig said. “We were just trying to dramatize in an interesting fashion the challenges that women have in a wig out moment.”

Sunsilk had planned to create several more videos, but decided the first one was so successful that they didn't need any more. Mr. Craig said the YouTube video creates a hair problem connected to the term “wig out.”

In Phase 2 of the campaign, Sunsilk will run television commercials in Canada that pick up on the “wig out” phraseology and offer solutions.

The video, created in partnership with Toronto ad agency Capital C, shows bridesmaids joking around (and even swearing) as they get ready for the wedding. The bride walks in, fresh from the stylist, and upset about how bad her hair looks. She melts down and begins cutting it off. There is no product placement or mention of the Sunsilk brand.

The payoff with this kind of viral campaign comes from the media attention, said Michael Gramlow, interactive creative director at ad agency Dentsu Canada. The ad has been parodied on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. And on Friday, the actresses appeared on Good Morning America.

Mr. Gramlow said there should be no worries that the campaign will backfire when consumers realize they were duped. “I'm not sure on a site like YouTube that people are going to be angry because [it's] not real,” he said. “This site is full of humour and fake and funny stuff.”

This isn't the first time a marketer has produced phony content to draw attention to its brand.

Amber Bezahler, a vice-president with Blast Radius in Vancouver, said the agency created a similar campaign for Nintendo a couple of years ago.

“The question is, how many other companies can get away with this before it becomes stale,” she said.