Over the last few weeks, I’ve been passively looking for the identity of the Afro-Ninja. I posted a $50 question on Google Answers, but it didn’t turn up anything for several weeks.

Tonight, I finally got an answer! Edward Shen informed me that it was Mark Allen Hicks, a stunt man auditioning for a Nike commercial with Allen Iverson and Jim Kelly.

Edward works with people who know Mark, and one friend saw him come out of the audition “pissed off with a bloody nose.” Looking at his IMDB photographs, it’s clear this is the same guy. Compare for yourself.

Now, can someone get me in contact with Mark? I’d love to ask him some questions about the video.

In the last few days, Mazda started a new viral marketing campaign in the unfortunate style of “Raging Cow.” Take a look at HalloweenM3, a Blogspot weblog supposedly written by a 22-year-old New Yorker named “Kid Halloween.” (Update: The blog was taken down, see details below.)

With little effort, it’s clear this was designed to promote the new Mazda3 model. The clues are obvious: links to videos featuring the Mazda3 (here and here), the HalloweenM3 username, and rich media hosted at Rackspace, an expensive dedicated hosting provider. Plus, Mazda has tried the viral marketing thing before.

But this is the most half-hearted attempt at viral marketing I’ve seen, especially in light of recent web efforts like the elaborate I Love Bees and Be More Chill campaigns. Four entries in a Blogspot blog isn’t very impressive.

One interesting point is that this entry claims to have recorded the Mazda commercial off the Manhattan Neighborhood Network public access channel, and several seconds of MNN footage are edited into the beginning of this video clip. I wonder how MNN would feel about being exploited for commercial use by Mazda. (I e-mailed them to find out.)

Thanks to Witz.org for the tip.

Update: Autoblog has some thoughts about the campaign.

October 22, 2004: The blog was taken down! Fortunately, Yahoo has a cached copy. And you can still view the user profile and videos.