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It would seem my previous post about Cliff Jennings should be taken with a pinch of salt. According to a fellow South African blogger Bruinman, it turns out Cliff is just a good act by actor Eduan Van Jaarsveldt . A fake but clever marketing ploy by M-Net & their ad agency Ogilvy, who created the fictitious character to bring some lively airtime to a sometimes dull show.

Well done to them. The first part of the Idols season can sometimes be boring and monotounous, but they have done something interesting here to keep the show alive.

The use of social media to promote something like this is awesome, and it is working. The facebook profile has over 1200 members, the youtube videos are getting some cool hits. Actually, in the 24 hours after I posted my previous story, I got 150 hits just from google searches for “cliff jennings”.

Well done to the ad agency, and to M-Net. It has taken 3 weeks for the public to figure this out.

For some info on the “undercover detective” work that has been going on, check out the following links:

http://bruinman.blogspot.com/2007/08/cliff-jennings-fake.html

http://www.joblog.co.za/2007/08/another-nail-in-the-coffin-of-idols

http://www.jasonbagley.com/2007/08/30/cliff-jennings-is-a-complete-fake

http://www.news24.com/News24/MyNews24/Your_story/0,,2-2127-2128_2174101,00.html

I’m still a Cliff Jennings Fan. Live the dream

If you been watching the latest South African series of Idols, you would have by now noticed a character that keeps popping up. A guy by the name of Cliff Jennings has featured on every single show, and what a clever boy he is. If you ask anyone who has watched they more than likely will not remeber anyone, but they may remember him. His singing is not the best in the world, but he is giving away cd’s with “free posters”. He has even made his first music video. He has managed to piss off the judges to a point where they TOLD him to leave in the latest round of auditions.

But he is clever. He is marketing himself, and getting recognised. He has quite a few groups already on facebook, and his “official group” is growing with over 300 members already. His “appreciation group” is also growing steadily.

He has a myspace profile, and has a mate recording all of his auditions, and posting them on youtube (http://www.youtube.com/user/cliffjennings) . Using social networking to the max, and it’s working very well.

Keep an eye on him, we know he isn’t going to make it into the final top 10, but we do know we are going to remember him for a long time afterwards.

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