Spontaneous Marketing
In a recent story, a 16-year-old employee at Target, Alex LaBeouf, went from being a mundane bagger to an Internet sensation worldwide, when someone posted a photo of him working at Target on Twitter. “Twitter users everywhere began sharing the photo, which spawned the lightning-speed creation of several memes as well as an #AlexFromTarget Twitter hashtag.” Alex grew like a forest fire, soon escalating to the point where he was invited onto the popular Ellen DeGeneres Show. This all happened in the span of a week.
Target was extremely happy to be in the world spotlight, gaining all the attention they could’ve ever dreamt of through this one teen. It’s crazy to think that something like this could happen all by itself, especially to Alex, who’s completely overwhelmed by the situation. The plot thickened as a few days after the craze, Breakr, a startup company that “connects fans to fandom,” claimed they were responsible for creating this sensation—a successful social experiment that tested “how powerful the fangirl demographic was.”
Breakr’s credibility was proven flawed, as when Breakr’s CEO stated, “Abbie, one of our fangirls from Kensington posted this picture of Alex Lee on Twitter,” both Abbie and Alex denied any connection with Breakr. Although it seems that Breakr shouldn’t be trusted, respect goes to them for reacting fast to monopolize the situation (smart, on-the-fly marketing) to bring attention to their company.
“The Truly Odd Marketing Story Behind ‘Alex from Target'” Business 2 Community. Web. 9 Nov. 2014. <http://www.business2community.com/social-buzz/truly-odd-marketing-story-behind-alex-target-01062613>.