You haven’t checked your LinkedIn all day because you’ve been up to your eyeballs in work. You haven’t even had a chance to catch up with your roommate or finish that last season of Dexter. You log in and see a few notifications.
That weird guy from high school commented on that photo of you in a suit saying he wishes he looked good in vests. Your mom invited you to a dinner party celebrating Arbor Day, which she must know you cannot attend since she lives on the other side of the country. And lastly, someone viewed your profile.
“Stalker” has viewed your profile…
You can’t really make out the face in the thumbnail of their profile picture, but their name is simply “Stalker.” No last name, creep? What are you, Cher? Encompassed by curiosity, and more than a shadow of full-blown paranoia, you decide to take a peek at the dude’s profile.
Following that fateful click, upon which you could have been met with a nightmare of a human being, you read a bit of information about a thriller television series premiering soon. Phew. Now you don’t have to change your name, dye your hair, grow a mustache, and move to New Zealand. You’d never be able to get the accent down anyway. Odds are in favor of you putting off Dexter (and your roommate) to check out this Stalker show.
LinkedIn shut it down after only one day
BBDO and Vier knew exactly what they were doing when they started this campaign, giving us a prime example of what happens when guerrilla marketing is employed in a creative way. Sure, LinkedIn shut down a few fake Stalker profiles, but not quickly enough to keep them from sending out 12,000 notifications. Of the people who were “stalked,” almost two thirds decided to check out the profile, and subsequently learned about the show.
The most kick-in-the-pants awesome part of this whole deal is how insanely well the campaign worked. The Stalker received over 27,600 Twitter impressions, without itself having an account. If you’re trying to get people talking, do something different. Kudos to BBDO and Vier for creeping folks out.
#StalkerAd
