Sex and Social Networking Sells: Fake User Profiles in Marketing Campaigns
Increasingly marketing firms are using
popular social networks on the Web as part of their campaigns - creating fake user profiles to sell their products. On one hand this is not a
good thing for social networks, because the last thing they want is to be clogged up with
marketing campaigns masquerading as users in their systems. But the reality is that
marketing campaigns are becoming a popular aspect of social networks now - and in virtual
worlds such as Sims - and so they help drive page views and therefore advertising for
those social networks.
One interesting marketing campaign crossed my desk recently, which has stats to show how successful it was (see below). Niccolò Magnani from the Italian office of MRM Worldwide told me about a campaign he ran for an Italian beverage company called Campari. Now I should at this point warn you that the following material is not necessarily work safe!
The theme of the Hotel Campari website is of a raunchy hotel. Purely for research purposes of course, I browsed around the site. It is a Flash-driven website with sensual music and a lot of interactivity (mainly involving the opening of doors). The campaign and website features the lovely Salma Hayek too.
Campari Social Networks
To complement the website, MRM developed a social network campaign based on youtube, myspace, flickr and many more.
The MySpace profile features the same soft porn music as the Hotel Campari website - and is fronted by a "28 years old" female from Milano in Italy, called "Red Passion". Her interests include "Photography, movies, traveling..." and she is a fan of the movie Eyes Wide Shut. She is on MySpace for "Dating, Friends" and lists her orientation as "Not Sure". There are also some, ahem, photos of her that adorn the MySpace page. All of this of course is a fake profile, but I guess the casual MySpace user might think it's real should they come across it (especially ever hopeful teenage boys).
As for the Flickr site, it has a lot of photos and once again comes across as a real person's Flickr site (well, a real person who lives the high life in Italy that is!). The YouTube profile features some videos from the campaign, prompting one YouTube user to comment: "masks are cool". You get the picture.
Campari MySpace
Campari Flickr
Campari YouTube
Results
Niccolò told me the results of the social networks campaign have been very good. The Hotel Campari website got 170,000 views. For the social network sites, they got more than 3,000 "friends" and 2,500 comments across the sites. The number of views across the social network sites is currently around 92,000.
All up, 13.5% of the total traffic to Hotel Campari was thanks to the social networking sites. Niccolò also told me they achieved "a lot of buzz around the website" and he pointed me to a del.icio.us page showing relevant links.
On the strategy of the social network campaign, Niccolò said:
"Our strategy was to focus on viral seeding and social networking, no traditional media adv online. I have no idea of the exact number of people going from Social Networks to Website [...] because we worked with a lot of social networks.
More than quantity, what I like to point is the quality of the relationship between users and Campari. Client is very happy about the close relationship between the brand and the users.
What I like is that we created a community of people that we can further talk about red passion."
Some people might argue about the quality of the community - because the profile of "Red Passion" (the 28 year old Italian woman) is fake. How can you have a real social networking community around a fake, marketing-driven user profile?
But there's no arguing that as a marketing vehicle, the fake social network profiles did their bit to drive traffic and interest in the Hotel Campari website. We're going to see a lot more of this type of usage of social networks. From a business angle, it makes sense. But on a personal level it makes me feel a little uncomfortable, because most of the appeal of social networks is that you are networking with real people. So I'm interested in knowing what Read/WriteWeb readers think about this...
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I hate when companies pretend to be real people in their social netowrk profiles. I'd rather socailize with your brand, or even your "mascot".
In that case, as long as she isn't pretending to be real, it's ok.
"It was only a matter of time" would seem the right take on this. Full marks to Campari and MRM Worldwide for keeping up with Internet technology, but at the same time, a curse on them for doing essentially the same thing that spammers did to email.
There's definitely something about marketing that makes people check out of their ethics.
Myspace is completely fair game. Facebook is not.
Just remember, one SNS can have a completely different rule set than another. It's for that reason that I think a few major SNS sites can coexist peacefully. Myspace is Times Square. Facebook is town hall. And so forth.
Rpost, it did not like greater than and less than symbols.
As long as these marketer’s character MySpace accounts are not bothering anyone, I think they are fine. What bothers users is when someone like a webcam girl sends out fired request saying "check out my web cam" and befriending users who have less than 200 friends. A user that has this few friends might indicate that this user do not accept friend request from just anyone, and is more sensitive to reporting spammy accounts which then get shut down. When there is an overtly strong call to action (visit my webcam), your will be annoyed and call it spam, report the account, and it will get shut down. It is spam if most people think it is. If it annoys most people, it is. You need to know how to walk the line.
Does the marketer’s character MySpace accounts add value to the user they are befriending? If the marketer’s character MySpace account has blog entries worth reading (fake or not), a profile story that is interesting (fake or not), hot pictures, links to a YouTube vlog, hot pics on their Flickr account, then the answer is yes. Is this marketer’s character MySpace account someone you want people to think you are friends with because this marketer’s character MySpace account appears to be leading an interesting life or can get you access to something, it adds value. There is a difference between the fake Coke blog or the fake L'Oreal blog and a fake but successful marketer’s character MySpace account. One marketer fully understood the medium, and the other did not. One took itself very seriously (failed character blogs), and the successful marketer’s character MySpace accounts do not.
I can start fake MySpace account, go and send friend request to hot chick only with more than 2000 friends and be pretty sure they are going to accept my friend request because I can see that they don't discriminate. Then I can have all hot chicks in my top 8. I can then solicit testimonials from them. Now I have instant (but fake) social proof (although you can find out if it really is fake if you pay close attention by finding out if all the friends are in the same geographical location, not worth your time). The people you have befriended will not know each other, so for all anyone but your true friends know, you do actually know some of the people you have befriended.
A problem exists if all of this really bothers you. You do not have to befriend or accept friend request from people you don’t know. They are not going to affect you at all you are not linked to them. You have a problem if you are like Jonathan Abrahms, founder of Friendster who really wanted the network links to be of people who actually knew each other because the whole think was an experiment in who really knows whom. Friendster deleted fake accounts and took measures to deter mass befriending by asking you for the friends last name or e-mail address. This all lead to the demise of Friendster.
Now lets take a look at Lonleygirl15. If she had admitted she had two friends helping her, or did something tounge -and-cheeky to let you know that it was not real, they team might still have a real marketing channel. Instead, a lot of people who were following it were upset when they found out it was not real. Why did they care? Because: they liked the content, it had some kind of value to them.
BTW, if you are impressed by my analysis, I am available for hire in this medium.
PEACE.
It seems that, similar to the 3-dimensional world, people are engaged in various levels of pretense.
There are people who dress like skateboarders yet cannot skate. There are people who dress like Catholic schoolgirls but haven't seen the inside of a school in over a decade.
The "social network site" provides a lot of tools for pretense and social performance. Perhaps the potential for posing and deception will make the decision to add a friend to one's list pivotal in identifying/ostracizing fakes. If the signal to noise ratio gets too watered down, we may see a decrease in the 9,000 friends phenomenon.
First of all this is just plain clever :)
But to be fair compare this to TV ads. You get sued when you lie in US. Remember the whole scandal with the Million Little pieces book? The guy sort mixed up reality and creativity and it just did not fly.
I do not think these tricks are reasonable, acceptable or fair. Its clever and elegant, but its not really legit.
Alex
I'm not such a fan of creating fake profiles by companies unless they also make it known that it is a fake profile. On the other hand, I think it is good for companies to add real value to social networks while at the same time garnering the marketing benefits inherent in such a move.
i've done this; and even a guy in our mrketing group is responsible for myspace. basically this is what myspace is all about; everyone marketing to everyone else, while myspace advertises to you. brilliant.
"How can you have a real social networking community around a fake, marketing-driven user profile?"
That's easy: the same way you can have a social community around a fictional character like Harry Potter. The people in the community are still real, and still interested in interacting with each other. Why does the object at the center have to be a real person?
See also: William Gibson's novel Idoru, which predicted this by about a decade.
Well MRM is successful on both counts: marketing and faking. I wonder if social responsibility is part and parcel of the company's ethics. All it did was to make non-sense of those people who go there seeking real friends. Or there's no such thing as social responsibility for as long as they get their point/traffic/profit?
If only to prove their point, it's a no brainer. Post any porn on any site, site meter will go haywire. You post it at the largest social networking site, what do you expect?
Abuse of technology with all the hype. I haven't watched the video, is it Salma Hayek? If not, does know about it? Or is it technical tweaking?
Well, I'm right after all about MySpace.
"The people in the community are still real, and still interested in interacting with each other. Why does the object at the center have to be a real person?"
Andrew, that's a great point. In this case though, it's not entirely clear that Red Passion is not a real person - whereas with Harry Potter it's very obvious.
ipanema, the video is not of Salma Hayek. And yes, sex does sell on the Web...
hello,
I am one of the monster that contributed to this campaign:)
First of all, thanks to everyone for your clever comments.
In my opinion the most interesting point is:
"The people in the community are still real, and still interested in interacting with each other. Why does the object at the center have to be a real person?"
This is really the most interesting point.
I fully agree that Herry Potter is known by everyone as a character. But remeber Lonelygirl15. Was it clear that she was fake? No it was not. It became clear when she became famous, not before.
Think about this: All the children believe in Santa Claus and, guess what, it originally was a powerful marketing tool by Coca Cola. And still it is. The difference is that we got used to Santa Claus and Lonelygirl15...
Other points I'd like to clear:
Me and my company are aware of dangers of porn for young people and that's why the campaign is not porn at all.I guess that a 13 years boy can find easily porn everywhere else in the web.
We never pretended to abuse of the users: destination website url was clearly shown at the beginning of the campaign in every profile. We never forced anyone to buy or sell or anything. Just have some fun all together around a sort of femme fatale.
These profiles are a just game, a sort of entertaintment. Most of flickr users did not care about fake or real becouse they were interested in the quality of the pictures. Most of the comments are about that, not about trying to date the girl:)
All the story was a game and I guess almost everyone enoyed it.
"How can you have a real social networking community around a fake, marketing-driven user profile?"
The faceless internet is an inefficient way to build community. "Real" community requires accountability and trust, both of which are incredibly hard to come by on the 'net.
In my opinion, MySpace and the like aren't really social networking community sites, they're just (as the previous comment says) "just a game, a sort of entertainment." It's because of this reality that corporations can get away with making fake identities.
Interesting, very interesting! Isn't it a great time to be online!
Talk on all, talk on!
There are also those comapnies on myspace that have just take out a page for themselves - mobilealibi.com - comes to mind. They're up front about what they are and their friends can see that it's company - without any need to spam.
Well I see no problem in it, all of these sites are already exploiting their users for promotional purposes..so why not.
I think that building a community around lies is a big shame when you do it wrong.
In this case it is wrong because everyone was just peeping a chick, did you have a look at the comments? Nobody was interested in the story she and the photos were trying to tell.
Did you also read the number about the "community interested in red passion"? Those communities have millions of users, 3.000 "friends" are so many? Looks like people smelled something...
Regarding the hotel aspect rather than social networking:
http://www.mgmgrand.com/ is the best virtual hotel experience I've had. The Campari Hotel was cool, but actually kind of disappointing by comparison. MGM was genuinely original.
If people on flickr really didn't care if "Red Passion" was real or fake, you should have clearly stated "she" was a marketing campaign, not a person.
I imagine if you added that now to the profile posted a photo of "her" with an explanation, there would be people who are upset, who assumed it was
a real person like most flickr accounts.
Marketing companies should realize that people value being open and transparent.
But then again, you might have to post pictures of people falling down drunk, throwing up, going into rehab, and eventually dying of cirrhosis of the liver.
Also, did you check to make sure everyone who "friended" or made "her" a contact was over 21?
I think disclosure will always be a problem. For now I think that most of us can determine what is real and what is fake by the quality of images/videos etc. But with SLR's, etc coming into the market, it's going to be increasingly difficult to see what is real and what is marketing.
All of this overlooks the basic fact that Campari tastes like ass.
I wonder what kind of backlash he had, like Edelman had with their Wal-Marting Across America fiasco that's gotten them suspended from WOMMA, who's guidelines they helped draft and then promptly ignored.
If it is done in a manner that is reasonable obvious that it is a marketing campaign, where anyone who didn't figure it out would see it was obvious in hindsight then I think it should have a high degree of success in certain social networks (but not all; it depends on the culture of the network.)
On the other hand, if the marketer attempts to really deceive people into believing it is actually a real person, then those who've invested significant emotion into interacting will feel taken advantage of. People really dislike that feeling and rage will be their likely response; it won't be pretty.
I am not all suprised to hear that companies are creating fake profiles for the purposes of marketing their products. I'm quite sure they are delighted to reach such a vast audience of people for free. Maybe the social networking sites should ban this type of practice. Or better yet make the companies pay...
Nicce article. But this methodology is really working for small firms. Free of cost marketing and getting traffic. There is really no harm in doing so as people can get to know more abt world from a smaller view. Its like a binaculor.
The results claimed are phoney or just plain sad. 170,000 views, 3000 friends, 2500 comments, and 92,000 views across the social network sites? Is that all? Seems like a lot of effort for very little return.
The key points to all of this are.
1. Sex sells
2. The Internet is a bit like the wild west without a sherrif
3. You need to entertain your customer to capture mind space.
4. The most important long term marketing aspect is building brand trust.
Hmmmm .....
Smart....its all a marketing gimmick.
I agree wit u scotty..and Jonathan ...
With all those big website up, myspace,hi5,friendster etc.. most admins are using some kind of fake-profile makers, but NOT me. Why? Because It's easy to spot a fake..
johnathan you are dreaming... make the companies pay? good luck on that one! shocked? you must be kidding...