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If David Hasselhoff downloads videos to his mobile, we know what's at the top of his playlist: “Hammer & Coop.”

The short films promoting the 2007 Mini Cooper are a tribute to classic buddy and talking-car TV shows like Mr. H's “Knight Rider,” says Mark Netter, director of business development for viral entertainment network Zannel.com. With the help of Mini USA's ad agency Butler, Shine, Stern & Partners and Zannel, the carmaker is enabling consumers to download the videos to their phones and share them with friends.

The six “Hammer & Coop” episodes were directed by Todd Phillips, who directed the movies “Old School” and “Starsky & Hutch.” A similar sensibility to those movies is evident, given the “Hammer” trailer tagline, “Sometimes to get what you want, you've got to kick some asphalt.”

Results for the viral campaign, which began in early March, weren't available at press time. But Zannel COO Steve Hoffman says the viral approach is perfect for the car, because owners are so fanatical for the brand.

Advertisers that work with Zannel get their own “channel” within the site, where they can insert their own messaging. For now Zannel isn't accepting the type of hard-sell ads one might see on TV, focusing more on what Hoffman calls “branded entertainment advertising.”

“That will change as people build up their channels and we insert ads between different pieces of content,” he notes. “As we evolve as a company, we will move a little more toward the current television paradigm. But right now we're more about filling these channels with very entertaining things, and if some of them happen to be advertising, that's great.”