Gawker’s Adrian Chen explaining how Rebecca Black’s rise to fame further legitimizes virality as a vehicle for stardom. (techcrunch)
Author Alexia Tsostis makes a great point comparing Black’s path to fame to Justin Bieber’s, the white swan to Bieber’s black:
Justin Bieber and Rebecca Black are two sides of the same Internet fame coin: Black is like the anti-Justin Bieber, her “Friday” video has all the trappings of pop star gloss, with none of the talent.
Bieber on the other hand, had the talent, and enthralled fans with that despite the rawness of his homemad YouTube music videos (nice Simpsons poster Justin), which he posted before putting out a more polished album and becoming the online and mainstream fame tornado that he is today.
Marketing on ChatRoulette - Is it Possible?
Hundreds of articles exist that explore the significance and nature of latest web phenomena Chatroulette, which if you don’t know by know (where have you been?) is a website where one can connect randomly with strangers via webchat, disconnecting and changing chatting partners at will - a very simple and fun concept.
A majority of the articles are reporters recounting their individual experiences with the site, with insights commenting on the fleeting but intimate moments connecting with strangers the exposure to and avoidance of male genitalia (summarized in the graphic below) and other pranks (great list of trolls here).
(via Collegehumor)
The NYT recently had a great piece speculating that Chatroulette can become less radical and more like other social networks over time.
Even if that is not the case, the fact is that Chatroulette is a major trend amongst the internet community, which means a potentially large audience to market one’s brand to.
Can Chatroulette be used as a marketing platform? Of course! Should it? Well let’s examine 2 different cases I’ve encountered.
Fancy Feast
One enterprising creative (Yotube name: mtgentry) has utilized the platform to show how clever advertisements can capture the short attention spans of Chatroulette users and expose a brand - Fancy Feast cat food.
The Ad - click here to view - shows a cat on a desk chair with a crown on its head, which is cute enough to keep Strangers connected, and then the chair transforms into a throne and the background into a castle. The shot pans out and the Fancy Feast brand appears with the byline: celebrate the moment. Very quick and clever ad playing to the collective love internet users have for all things cute, especially cats.
While this ad is admirable for its ability to capture interest, as it stands it is not a strong marketing push because its reach cannot be measured. The anonymous and fleeting nature of the ad does not allow marketers to track customer experience.
However, had the advertiser inserted a bit.ly link within the chat during the exposure, maybe he could start tracking the reach.
French Connection
French Connection has recently launched a Chatroulette marketing push as well. The brand challenges users to score a date off Chatroulette. Should they succeed, they will be rewarded with $375 dollars worth of vouchers to be spent at French Connection stores. The catch is, the contest is only open to males - which follows the male dominated site (remember the graphic above?).
French Connection is smart to utilize Chatroulette not as a space in which to advertise video, a la Fancy Feast advertiser, but to play on the hype of the web-phenomena and lead users back to their site’s campaign. What’s more, as Blackbook Mag points out, the real marketing opportunity comes not with the winner, but with the comedic potential of the losers.
The real buzz behind Chatroulette for many - at least its virality - lies not in making real connections with strangers, but in mining the platform for laughs via pranks, games, and visual jokes (many NSFW). Buzzfeed has a great list of funny screenshots and video of these. French Connection could easily go viral with a compilation of failures, which they recognize: we also wanted to see failed flirts with ladies.
I’m excited to see how and if brands will take advantage of the Chatroulette hype to push their own brands creatively. One idea that could have potential is using the augmented reality applications that users have utilized to troll/prank others in such a way as to advertise their own campaigns. A slightly inappropriate example via Buzzfeed:
Replacing the insult with a brand’s website/viral campaign or changing the message/graphics creatively could make for an interesting advertising push and become viral. What are your thoughts? Is Chatroulette a viable marketing platform, and do you have ideas for brands to use it?
