US teen's YouTube promo for jobless dad scores big

A YouTube video by an enterprising 14-year-old showcasing the talents of his laid-off dad, a Florida-based marketing specialist, has scored thousands of hits and several job interviews.

When the economy started nosediving Mark Gullet tried to prepare his son for the worst, explaining that millions were losing their jobs around the nation.

Then on March 12 Gullet was laid off as a vice president in the marketing department for the National Hockey League (NHL) Tampa Bay Lightning team.

Undeterred his son, Ben, 14, got to work and came up with the idea of creating a YouTube video as a promotional tool to help his father find work.

Ben wrote the video's script, which his father then edited. "Then he (Ben) worked on it on his lap-top computer at the kitchen table, laying down the music," Mark Gullett told AFP.

The result is the YouTube video, entitled "Mark By Ben," which has received over 59,000 hits. "We had thousands of hits from Brazil and, for some reason, now we're getting hundreds of hits from Switzerland," said the proud dad.

And as an added result he has some job interviews lined up this week.

(c) 2009 AFP