Was #AlexFromTarget a marketing ploy or just another fangirl meme?

Mary Oates, Tech Times 05 November 2014, 02:11 pm

A few days ago, Alex LaBeouf was just a normal Target employee. Now he's an Internet meme with half a million Twitter followers. But was his quick rise to viral fame part of a marketing stunt? Dil-Domine Jacobe Leonares, founder of the company Breakr, claimed in a Linkedin post that Breakr played a major role in the Alex from Target phenomenon.

"Yesterday, we had fun on Twitter with the hashtag #AlexFromTarget which ended up to be one of the most amazing social media experiments ever," Leonares wrote. "We wanted to see how powerful the fangirl demographic was by taking a unknown good-looking kid and Target employee from Texas to overnight viral Internet sensation."

From Leonares' post, it sounded like Breakr was responsible for the original photo of LaBeouf going viral, and that maybe the company was even working for Target. However, LaBeouf and the original Twitter user who posted the photo denied any involvement with Breakr.

Apparently there is a company trying to take credit for how the pic taken of me went viral.

— DGM_Alex (@acl163) November 5, 2014

My family and I have never heard of this company. — DGM_Alex (@acl163) November 5, 2014

i dont work for breakr wtf i dont even know what it is — ⠀ (@auscalum) November 4, 2014

Target also released a statement that said, "Let us be completely clear, we had absolutely nothing to do with the creation, listing or distribution of the photo. And we have no affiliation whatsoever with the company that is taking credit for its results." Leonares later clarified what he said in his post, telling Buzzfeed that after the original photo was posted, Breakr and its "network of fangirls" helped push the hashtag to get it trending. While the company did tweet about Alex from Target, they seem to be taking too much credit for the meme. Breakr, a self-described "multi-platform entertainment network" focused on mobilizing fanbases, is a start-up with only 1300 followers. While LaBeouf's overnight stardom was the work of fans of boy bands such as One Direction, how many of them have even heard of Breakr? It sounds like Alex from Target was a bandwagon that Breakr simply jumped on. While Target wasn't involved in the meme, it still did provide publicity for the store. Having a viral marketing campaign has become a goal for many companies. The biggest challenge is to not make it look forced. But it appears that Alex from Target happened naturally, which is good for Target and LaBeouf, who just taped an appearance on The Ellen Degeneres Show.