Cameo Highest Earner Is the The Office Dundie
Cameo Saw Explosive Growth
There are many trends that started with the pandemic and there were others that were accelerated by it. One of such trends that the pandemic gave a lot of boost to, is that of virtually hiring celebrities for short performances. There are a number of platforms that enable this, but the most popular is Cameo.
Cameo is a video-sharing platform that allows users to hire celebrities for shout-outs and other performances. Its app has had over 2 million downloads, growing 450% in the past year. This is most likely attributable to the COVID-19 pandemic-induced lockdowns and the boom in streaming services.
The highest-earning celebrity on the platform so far is Brian Baumgartner. Baumgartner was known as Kelvin Malone in the very successful movie series. He is on track to earn at least $1 million from the platform. He charges an average of $195 for each video.
This was revealed by Cameo CEO and co-founder, Steven Galanis during an episode of Sway, a podcast run by the New York Times.
A cameo appearance refers to a very short video or audio appearance of a popular personality in a work of arts, including a movie or music video, amongst others. Celebrities that can appear here include music and movie stars, athletes and even politicians.
Galanis and co-founder Martin Blencowe created an app to digitise this concept, and here, users are charged to have their favourite celebrities appear in short appearances.
Galanis noted that Baumgartner is very much proud of the work he does with Cameo and that he handles it quite seriously.
Although Galanis only revealed the numbers for Baumgartner, data from Broadband Choices reveal that several other celebrities are leveraging the app to delight their fans with shout-outs, while also earning reasonable amounts.
There is Kevin O’Leary of Shark Tank fame, rap star Snoop Dogg, WWE veteran, Big E and Sean Paul, Reggae maestro. Other top earners on the app include Debbie Gibson, singer and actress, who is deemed to be one of the celebrities who offer the best value.
Apart from our shout-outs, she does short singing performances for the subjects of the shout-outs. Then there is The Real Housewives star, Sonja Morgan,
The most expensive celebrity to book on Cameo is television personality and former Olympics star, Caitlyn Jenner, who although has so far earned $17,500, charges about $6,000 for every minute she is featured. In all, over 150 celebrities have earned over $100,000 from the app.
However, there is an interesting twist to all of the statistics. Galanis revealed that there were fake profiles set up claiming to belong to a particular celebrity, and these profiles bagged huge sums of money from orders.
The most faked profile was that of former US President, Mr Donald Trump, who is not on the app. Three fake profiles claiming to be Trump raked in over $300,000. There are possibilities that if the former president were to be on the platform, he would be the highest earner, unseating Baumgartner.