‘Alex From Target’ Is Actually A Marketing Ploy By Breakr
It turns out that the popular Alex from Target meme was actually a marketing stunt, one that went viral all over teen social media.
Alex from Target started when a teen girl posted a video of Alex Lee, also known as Alex from Target, which then blew up. Spreading through Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, etc., Alex from Target reached epic proportions, even causing Ellen to tweet about it.
In fact, the new fame sparked some news articles to say Alex was fired. According to an earlier report from the Inquisitr, some news articles reported that Alex was fired from Target, but this has not been confirmed. It is unlikely that Alex was fired.
It was revealed that Alex from Target was actually a marketing stunt. “We wanted to see how powerful the fangirl demographic was by taking a unknown good-looking kid and Target employee from Texas to overnight viral internet sensation,” CEO of Breakr, Dil Domine Jacobe Leonares, said in the LinkedIn post. “We saw two sides of the conversation happening with people joining in to support the hashtag just to trend it and the other side of people getting upset that a guy with good looks could become ‘internet famous’ with no work,” he said in his post. “In reality, when you look at the whole situation from a macro view you can see that if we can build an individual’s fan-base on Breakr, we can translate that powerful following into a bigger career. Truly, we never thought it’d go this far, but it proved that with a strong fan base and rally the fan girls, you can.”
It was confirmed that Target was not involved on the Alex from Target stunt, although it could have benefitted from the popularity. Leonares says that Breakr will soon employ similar tactics except with an intent to make a profit. “We also manage our kids so any brand deal we do with them, we take a [percentage],” he told CNET. “Like a startup incubator but focused on social influencers. We’re building a content distribution network from mobile, web to OTT devices (Apple TV, Roku, Amazon) + content creators.” In fact, he is currently trying to reach a deal with Target right now.
Alex from Target may be a real person, but the whole idea was just a marketing stunt. Still, it shows the true power of social media.
[Image via Twitter]
