EXCLUSIVE: OzGirl: Bebo’s new Lonelygirl
Meet Sadie. She may be Australia’s next social media sensation. Or that’s what her creator, 18-year-old Nick Carlton hopes anyway.
She’s the star of OzGirl, a series of 24 four-minute episiodes due to break on Bebo in just over a fortnight’s time. The story, which tells the tale of a country girl who moves to Melbourne, has been designed to fit around branded content, although creator Nick Carlton is still looking for brand partners.
Carlton, who wrote the script, shot and directed the work told Mumbrella: “It’s self-funded because until I had something to show advertisers, there was no point. We shot it in October and November.”
Since the trailer went up on Bebo last week, it has already signed up 16,000 fans and is the site’s fourth most watched video globally. From the launch on February 9, Bebo will be putting out two episodes per week.
Said Carlton: “I’m quite happy to talk to brands about how we can work things into the story, so long as it is subtle enough to satisfy the audience. For instance, she could get a job at Boost Juice.” Episodes will also be introduced by a character name checking the sponsors.
Carlton, pictured below, left, is studying film at the Victorian College of Arts in Melbourne. The cast is headed by actress Sophie Tilson. As well as the episodes, her story will be told through postings on Facebook, MySpace and Bebo.
He said: “The audience is going to be 14-18-year-old females, with some boys. It’s going to be similar to the Lonelygirl audience.”
Lonelygirl was an YouTube sensation which featured the video diary of a teenage girl who proved to be fictional.
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Bebo and Myspace have consistently surprised me with their innovation advertising models. Meanwhile Facebook have been so static and boring with the way that brands can be introduced.
Burger King was shown the door with their innovative ‘sacrifice’ advertising in Facebook. Facebook Apps have disappeared off the face off the earth and Facebook Pages are one of the most clunky things to run for a brand.
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@julian I agree, Facebook is very restricted, but its the one I use more, in fact I never use Bebo or MySpace… Because it’s not cluttered.
This isn’t Bebo/MySpace being innovative (IMHO) from past knowledge of campaigns like VRAW for V Energy, the campaigns were created by external parties…
Like the article says, it was fully funded by the dude Carlton…
Good to see him taking leadership and doing something rather than talking about it, nice work Carlton!
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sounds awesome …
Ben