Busted Buzz - The Story of Karen26

A few days ago video of young and very cute Danish mother seeking for the father of her baby appeared on YouTube.

Funny story that made Danish socialville into the detective quest on proving the video is a scam. They succeeded in a very short time. Found the actor who played mothers role and now speculates on what company is behind. It is impressive how good people are today at using internet to solve advertising mysteries in a real CSI style. Just read it here, here, here, here and here. It takes us definitely towards more and more transparency and helps us to avoid being cheated by companies making fake ads. It requires pretty good skills to hide the evidence from the ominous eye of internet panopticon nowadays.

What's interesting about this story is to see how hype gets build along the social media experts and mainstream media pick-up the story and boost the hype even more and drive traffic to YouTube video and "campaign website".

The video raised even the question about ethics! You can read about it on Mindjumpers and Virkeligheden blogs. I find the ethical aspect rather misplaced in a situation when we talk about campaign which focus is on creating buzz, not any public engagement. YouTube here is just a channel that is used to present the content balancing in the grey zone, on the verge of mystery and reality. This is not social campaign, this is broadcasting that gets people to view the video and talk about it and wonder whether it is real or fake. The fact that buzz marketing is using social media tools like YouTube or Facebook doesn't make it social marketing. As Anders on Virkelighedens blog wrote - the video fulfills the requirements for viral campaign. However, it is not a social campaign, as it doesn't involve any interaction with people, as I mentioned before it doesn't create any public engagement. This is very tactical viral solution aiming at creating fast response.              

Of course, it still needs to be ethical, meaning being respectful, which I can't see violated in this case. There is also the question of deceiving people, as there are many people who express the compassion with Karen26. Yes, people get deceived in this video, but we have seen this before - blurry boarders between reality and fiction are broadly used mechanics in viral videos - Quicksilver- being the most popular example. There were plenty of people all over the world who were convinced it really happened. Videos gain viral effect from creating speculations - fake or real and the viewers tend to accept this as this is the part of story telling. The rule of tactical buzz marketing is: the more controversial you are the more people respond (see examples from Cult and Fleggard) and Karen26 seems to get it.

Anyhow, video with Karen26 is entertaining and it would be great buzz for "De unge mødre" TV show (Young Mothers), but I doubt it's them. My guess goes for condom producers.