How to Become Famous Overnight Without Even Trying
These days, anyone can become the face of a new product without even knowing it. This is nothing new. It’s been over a year since Google announced a Terms of Service update that enables them to use your name, photo and endorsements in its advertising network: “friends, family and others may see your Profile name and photo, and content like the reviews you share or the ads you +1’d. This only happens when you take an action (things like +1’ing, commenting or following).”
Thankfully, this ones relatively easy to get around. Just don’t +1, comment on, or follow anything in Google+! Or even easier: don’t use Google+! No biggie since no one else does either.
Facebook’s policies are similar: “You give us permission to use your name, profile picture, content, and information in connection with commercial, sponsored, or related content (such as a brand you like) served or enhanced by us. This means, for example, that you permit a business or other entity to pay us to display your name and/or profile picture with your content or information, without any compensation to you. If you have selected a specific audience for your content or information, we will respect your choice when we use it…You understand that we may not always identify paid services and communications as such.
But get a load of this. Have you ever had the feeling you were being watched? Probably. But have you ever had the feeling your face had been plastered all over the world and was being seen by millions of people making you instantly famous literally overnight? Sound crazy? Well, this is exactly what happened to an unsuspecting old buddy, Boston indie-rock hero, Matt Savage. But not for the reasons you might think. That is, not because he’s been playing Boston clubs for the last twenty or so years but rather, because he apparently has the kind of delicious hipster punum Microsoft thinks can move tablets.
Here’s how it all went down.
Two years ago or so last April Matt and his wife Kelly Davidson Savage were vacationing in Japan. Now keep in mind, Kelly is a professional photographer with her own company (kellydavidsonstudio.com). However, to make “some extra date money,” she occasionally submits personal shots to the London-based stock footage site Able Images (you can see the original image if you search for “man, Japan”). She submitted about thirty shots from Japan a month after the trip. From this bunch, Able took about ten photos. The image in question was shot at a fish market on their first day there.
Then, just a couple weeks ago, Matt’s friend Jed emails him. He’s freaking out. He can’t understand why he’s suddenly seeing Matt everywhere.
Is he going crazy? Has Matt become some big celebrity? Matt has no idea what he’s talking about until Jed sends him a picture…of his picture. And there he is, in a Microsoft Surface electronic billboard ad at the London Bridge Station.
Then the next day he sends another picture of Matt’s picture on some tables at the very same café he happens to visit every single day!!
A Google search then revealed Matt’s image was also being featured on the home pages of both the Australian and German Microsoft sites! A week or so later another friend finds Matt’s face. First on a subway poster:
And then finally on an enormous billboard just outside the London Bridge Train Station!
Who knows where else his face is showing-up!!!
The irony is, Matt’s no stranger to ad campaigns. He works as a senior copywriter at The Boston Group, a local agency. He knows first-hand what it takes to build a campaign. “This image probably involved months of back and forth discussion,” he points out, “There were fights in Microsoft boardrooms over this photo: ‘Too white! Too Jewish! What is this face really saying?’ All the while we had no idea anyone was even looking at it.”
Have the Savages’ lives changed as a result? Not in the least. While Matt thinks this is “the coolest thing in the world,” part of the whole stock-footage deal is the model doesn’t get a dime. Honestly! They can put his face wherever they want. His wife, however, stands to walk away with a bit of cash. She splits the fee with Able Images who splits it with their subagency, Gallery Stock (the company that actually does the licensing). All in all, the stock house estimates Kelly’s take to be somewhere in the neighborhood of six grand. Not bad for a few seconds of work, but not good when you consider Matt is now the face of a massive multi-national Microsoft campaign. You’d think those guys could afford a better neighborhood (I’m referring to the money, that is, not the quality of either the photograph or Matt’s face, both of which are stellar.)!
How much Kelly actually winds up earning remains to be seen, as everything depends on the size of the images they use, and the scope: length of use, the types of media it’s used for, and how many countries the photo will appear in. “The funny thing,” Kelly says, “is if Jed hadn’t seen it, we wouldn’t even have known until I got the check. And then I would’ve had to have gone back into my Able account to figure out where all this money was suddenly coming from!”
So far the image has not made it back to a Microsoft ad here in the states. The Savages are guessing Matt’s face was deemed unsuitable for the US market.
If you enjoyed this eye-opening exposé, please consider checking out my other insider-exclusives:
I’m the Guy Trump Paid to Take the Montreal Cognitive Assessment Test. This is My Story.
A Modest Proposal
The Corrected Waiver for the Tulsa, OK: Make America Great Again! Rally
