July 14, 2004

Ron Burgundy -- Your New Buddy on Friendster?

According to Clickz, Friendster's new business model includes the introduction of fake profiles, which companies can use to promote their products and services. Dreamworks is the first movie marketer to jump into the fray, with profiles of the 'Anchorman' characters already up, and Sony has another eight slated to be added in tandem with the release of 'Black Book'.

It seems a bit gimmicky to me, but hey -- this is the barn-storming, take-no-prisoners world of movie marketing, right? Some analysts think it's a pretty weak marketing effort:

"This is the kind of thing that gets media attention the first couple of times it happens," said Nate Elliott, associate analyst at Jupiter Research. "[Friendster] still needs to fundamentally figure out what its business is."

Analysts question whether the profiles will really boost the movie's profile. "[DreamWorks] needs people to be saying they saw [the movie] and that it was funny. The Friendster angle here is more marketing than credibility," said Dave Balter, founder and president of word-of-mouth marketing and research firm BzzAgent.

Too bad they hadn't thought of this tactic to promote 'Passion of the Christ' or 'Monster'. That would've been fun.

Friendster Profiles Turned Into Film Promotions

Friendster