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Avril Lavigne YouTube “Fan Cheat” Hoax Helps it Take Top Spot
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by JD Rucker | August 20, 2008 at 02:07 am
1208 views | 10 Recommendations | 4 comments
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The race to 100,000,000 views is on, and it seems like the cheaters are the ones who may win.
Using a combination of creative viral marketing through "fake cheating" and actually cheating, one group of Avril Lavigne fans have pushed her "Girlfriend" video beyond the long-time leader on the board, "Evolution of Dance". With a campaign that used a method of cheating the system, AvrilBandAids have been able to draw the attention of several major blogs and media sources to generate enough buzz to push her music video beyond the competition.
What do John Edwards, the Chinese Olympic Gymnastics Team, and certain fans of Avril Lavigne have in common?
They all may be involved in cheating.
The difference is, the Avril Lavigne fans haven’t technically cheated. They used “cheating” to promote a viral marketing campaign. So far, it’s worked. They’re now #1.
YouTube has removed other videos in the past for cheating, including one that had already broken 100 million views, but they Avril Fans are balancing on the lines of YouTube's Terms of Service to keep the video rising. Against TOS? Arguable. Unethical? Likely.
A successful viral marketing campaign? Absolutely.
Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (4)
at 09:44 on August 20th, 2008
JD Rucker, I like this story. It's good stuff.
I can't believe this doesn't have a flag yet!
Such an interesting story!
at 17:36 on August 20th, 2008
Thanks Amy. I was a little disappointed myself. Started thinking I was crazy, that it wasn't really newsworthy. Thanks for coming to the rescue of my sanity!
at 17:49 on August 20th, 2008
It did get a decent amount of views however, so you're definitely doing something right!
:)
at 07:32 on August 21st, 2008
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeAyjyS44As&fmt=18
That video ^ ^ shows the evidence that the cheat page created by the fansite never had an effect on the view count for the video. I was actually surprised that so many gossip sites printed the story without checking it.