HOPA Girl Hoax is Perfect Social Media Marketing

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So the HOPA Dry Erase girl is a hoax. I’m sure I’m not the only one to be ever-so-slightly gutted by this. I’m sure we’ve all had a boss at some time who we’ve wanted to publicly ridicule as we tell them exactly where to shove their stinking job, revealing how desperately manipulative they are, how they sent you an email by mistake slagging you off that was meant for someone else, and how they really need to take a long, hard look at the way they treat people . Or is that just me?

But even though there’s a part of me that desperately still wants this to be true (a big part...a Jupiter sized part, in fact) and is really disappointed that it’s a prank, I’m in complete awe today of the people that came up with the concept as a publicity stunt for thechive.com. To date the page revealing the story has received 281,000 likes on Facebook. It’s been tweeted 33,000 times. It’s got 7000 Diggs. And an unknown but undoubtedly massive number of emails. This is viral and social marketing at its very, very best.

And it won’t stop there, either. There’s now a Facebook campaign to try and get the girl in question, a model and aspiring actress called Elyse Porterfield, to pose in Playboy (she is, after all, a Hot Piece of Ass). TechCrunch revealed the extent of the hoax this morning, devised by viral experts Leo and John Resig.

What’s so fantastic about this social brilliance is that it appeals to something deep inside everyone. We’ve all had ‘those’ moments. And to tap into that in such a viral way is nothing short of genius. So good on ya, thechive.com, good on ya Elyse Porterfield and good on ya Resig brothers for proving the power of the social web.

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