This posting is not a piece of viral marketing
During the Superbowl, Pepsi ran an ad called "Pop the Music", which technically was supposed to be a spot for its iTunes tie-in. But the commercial inadvertantly made a star out of a Mandy Amano, a woman who appears in the ad for about three or four seconds. Geeks swooned over her and began posting frantic mash notes on discussion boards planetwide.
But perhaps the most fervent admirer is Justin, some dude in Michigan who set up an entire blog devoted to tracking every last media-mention and photo of Amano. Justin is so crazily devoted that some bloggers have began to wonder whether he's actually a secret viral-marketing campaign run by Pepsi -- or maybe just an extraordinarily creepy stalker. The thing is, Justin liberally quotes from all of these critics, which could either mean that he's nothing of the sort ... or perhaps all the more of the sort. When someone who has been accused of being a piece of viral marketing winds up actively discussing the perception that he might be a piece of viral marketing, we have clearly arrived at the end of history: Please remove your brain and pack it in the closet, folks; won't be needing that any more!
Interestingly, Justin also quotes from other Amano-stalkers who seem even more devoted yet. Consider this note, which he cobbled from a blogger who analyzed Amano's listing on the Internet Movie Database:
Her filmography is rather short, and I think she only shows up for about 4 seconds in Coyote Ugly (if she's one of the short-haired girls dancing on the bar). If you have the DVD (and I identified her properly), her first scene is at time point 1:05:39 for two seconds (under the ceiling fan) and her second and last scene is at 1:05:49 (at the left of the screen). There's going to be a special unrated edition released in June, but only 7 minutes of restored footage, who knows what is in those scenes.
(Thanks to Morgan for this one!)
Posted by Clive Thompson at April 29, 2005 01:13 AM
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This may seem silly, but it brings up a very serious question which a lot of money is riding on - which actors are likely to get viewers to pay to watch movies?
There are insurance companies devoted to answering this question, and mostly they do it based on who starred in previous hit movies, which is of course a complete fallacy - there will be hit movies, and *somebody* must have starred in them. What you really want to know is how much that star contributed to the movie's sales. Right now they're just measuring who has a good agent.
We don't know anything about Mandy Amano's acting ability, but she clearly has a talent for producing frothing at the mouth fans, and that fact alone makes her far more likely to bring viewers to a movie than having a minor part in a few big films or doing well at an audition.
Posted by: Bram at April 30, 2005 8:19 PM
Heh -- that's a good assessment of Amano's impact, for sure. I've always been fascinated by analyses of precisely why some people come off so well on camera: The way they use their faces? The size of their heads compared to their bodies? There are a bunch of interesting things that always come up when cognitive scientists and psychologists start looking at this. It's obviously not enough for success to just be "hot" -- plenty of would-be actors are hot enough and nothing happens for them. And it's not merely luck either, though luck clearly is a significant minority, and maybe even a majority, of an actor's success.
Posted by: Clive at April 30, 2005 9:13 PM
In a sense this is kind of turning pop culture on its head too. Normally, we're told what (or who) is hot. As you point out Clive, it's not enough for success just to be hot. But maybe it isn't anything in the persons looks, but rather in what those people have done. There a a tonne of actors and musicians that many people believe are hot, that I would say are average looking at best. My suspicion is that people believe they're so hot because they've been exposed to the person so often. Without frequent exposure, most people are just lost from the social consciousness, like all the Mandy Amanos before her.
But in this instance, she didn't disappear. She was thrown into the spotlight by a big fan base. PEOPLE, not some movie execs, decided who was hot, and even got her a shoot with Maxim.
Unless, it really is viral-marketing, in which case we've all been duped.
Posted by: Steve E. at May 1, 2005 12:17 AM
Yes, that's precisely what's so weird about the mechanism of fame here -- there was precisely zero corporate intent to turn Amano into a star.
As another interesting vector here, it's worth noting that, as a half-Asian French-Canadian chick, Amano has precisely the sort of anime-style looks over which many geeks go berserk.
Posted by: Clive at May 1, 2005 7:19 PM
One very underrated aspect of how attractive someone is, especially on camera, is how they move. Probably underestimated because it's hard to do simple objective measurements of it. Amano herself said the hoopla is probably all due to that cute little bootie shake she does at one point, which it's worth noting is very similar to the classic stripper dance.
Posted by: Bram at May 2, 2005 4:25 PM
Posted by: Clive at May 3, 2005 11:24 PM
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This may seem silly, but it brings up a very serious question which a lot of money is riding on - which actors are likely to get viewers to pay to watch movies?
There are insurance companies devoted to answering this question, and mostly they do it based on who starred in previous hit movies, which is of course a complete fallacy - there will be hit movies, and *somebody* must have starred in them. What you really want to know is how much that star contributed to the movie's sales. Right now they're just measuring who has a good agent.
We don't know anything about Mandy Amano's acting ability, but she clearly has a talent for producing frothing at the mouth fans, and that fact alone makes her far more likely to bring viewers to a movie than having a minor part in a few big films or doing well at an audition.
Posted by: Bram![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.collisiondetection.net/nav-commenters.gif)
at April 30, 2005 8:19 PM
Heh -- that's a good assessment of Amano's impact, for sure. I've always been fascinated by analyses of precisely why some people come off so well on camera: The way they use their faces? The size of their heads compared to their bodies? There are a bunch of interesting things that always come up when cognitive scientists and psychologists start looking at this. It's obviously not enough for success to just be "hot" -- plenty of would-be actors are hot enough and nothing happens for them. And it's not merely luck either, though luck clearly is a significant minority, and maybe even a majority, of an actor's success.
Posted by: Clive![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.collisiondetection.net/nav-commenters.gif)
at April 30, 2005 9:13 PM
In a sense this is kind of turning pop culture on its head too. Normally, we're told what (or who) is hot. As you point out Clive, it's not enough for success just to be hot. But maybe it isn't anything in the persons looks, but rather in what those people have done. There a a tonne of actors and musicians that many people believe are hot, that I would say are average looking at best. My suspicion is that people believe they're so hot because they've been exposed to the person so often. Without frequent exposure, most people are just lost from the social consciousness, like all the Mandy Amanos before her.
But in this instance, she didn't disappear. She was thrown into the spotlight by a big fan base. PEOPLE, not some movie execs, decided who was hot, and even got her a shoot with Maxim.
Unless, it really is viral-marketing, in which case we've all been duped.
Posted by: Steve E.![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.collisiondetection.net/nav-commenters.gif)
at May 1, 2005 12:17 AM
Yes, that's precisely what's so weird about the mechanism of fame here -- there was precisely zero corporate intent to turn Amano into a star.
As another interesting vector here, it's worth noting that, as a half-Asian French-Canadian chick, Amano has precisely the sort of anime-style looks over which many geeks go berserk.
Posted by: Clive![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.collisiondetection.net/nav-commenters.gif)
at May 1, 2005 7:19 PM
One very underrated aspect of how attractive someone is, especially on camera, is how they move. Probably underestimated because it's hard to do simple objective measurements of it. Amano herself said the hoopla is probably all due to that cute little bootie shake she does at one point, which it's worth noting is very similar to the classic stripper dance.
Posted by: Bram![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.collisiondetection.net/nav-commenters.gif)
at May 2, 2005 4:25 PM
Aha! Yes, precisely.
Posted by: Clive![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.collisiondetection.net/nav-commenters.gif)
at May 3, 2005 11:24 PM