Student creates fake online babe for viral campaign
TWO months ago, a doe-eyed beauty calling herself Holly Ho posted a video on YouTube and on her Facebook page.
In the video, she asked for 10 cents from each netizen.
She said she was hoping that at least 10 million netizens would respond, so she could become a millionaire without getting a job.
Netizens responded all right, but with brickbats instead of pocket change.
They called her lazy and blasted her for being a slut.
Others tried to flirt with her.
Her campaign for coins generated so much debate that it appeared on citizen journalism website Stomp in March and April, generating a total of more than 123,000 views.
But the biggest shock was yet to come.
It turns out that Holly Ho is a he.
And the video was just part of a school project by Mr Marcus Lim, 26, who is pursuing a degree in design communication at Lasalle College of the Arts, specialising in advertising communication.
He was the one who adopted the Holly Ho persona as part of his final-year project to conduct a viral marketing campaign to create brand awareness for a bank.
Mr Lim’s project supervisor Ms Kathryn Shannon Sim, 32, confirmed this.
Mr Lim’s plan was to create a suitable personality online, then start a discussion on wealth management.
He said: “The emergence of social media has changed the way people communicate.
“So it is important for advertisers to build a participatory culture to communicate with their audience.”
Needing a pretty girl to create the required “controversy”, he roped in a friend, Elyn, to be the face of Holly, whom he named after the materialistic character Holly Golightly played by Audrey Hepburn in the movie Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
He shot a video of her asking for donations, uploaded it to YouTube and waited for it to go viral.
Although the video was taken down by site administrators a few days later, it already sparked a flood of comments on Stomp after netizens posted two reports on Holly there.
Mr Lim said Elyn, 20, declined to speak to us because “she didn’t want to draw additional attention on herself”.
