As a strategy, mass marketing may make more sense for pharmaceutical companies as patients are become more involved in their own healthcare, or for companies needing to counter a backlash of public opinion, in the case of Monsanto, the GM giant. The benefits of mass marketing biotech products and platforms remain to be seen, though YouTube offers a low cost laboratory in which to test the waters.

As anyone who's surfed YouTube knows, the complete openness of the site is both its charm and its curse - it's hard to stand out with millions of new videos uploaded every month. So videos that are edgy, funny, and importantly, short, stand a better chance in being promoted virally. But companies promoting through YouTube need to beware, since public mockumentaries can appear side-by-side with a company's more serious endeavors. And as politicians are discovering lately, those mockumentaries can get a lot of play.