Get A Clue: What We Can Learn From (Dare I Say It?) “Fred”

“Who’s Fred,” you might ask?

He’s a YouTube sensation with over 250K subscribers and more than 6.5 million channel views.

He is a 14-year-old boy from Nebraska named Lucas Cruikshank and Fred is a fictional character he created.

Lucas has more subscribers that nearly anybody on YouTube. His channel is the fourth most viewed channel of all time and he’s rapidly approaching third place - here’s the list - you can see the three channels that are ahead of him. He’s the first entry on Google when you search “Fred YouTube” and the third entry when you type in only “Fred.” And don’t think this is just a US phenomenon; Lucas is getting traffic from all over the world. Here’s an article about him from New Zealand.

The LA Times wrote a great article about Fred that explains how Lucas got his groove on – a great read if you want to get the background on Fred. And after you take a look at his videos, you will scratch your head wondering what the heck is the attraction? Goodness knows I did – and then I asked my tween why she liked Fred so much. And that’s how I got it.

First: it’s funny. I guess not grown-up funny, but the fast talking, situation-driven comedy is something my daughter could relate to and she laughed out loud at his babbling about his life and the way he “thought out loud”. We’ve known for a long time, to reach today’s youth, humor will go a long way.

Second: it’s user generated. My kid believes it’s authentic because he did it himself and posted it on YouTube. And she thinks she could do the same thing. I call this the “iCarly Effect” and it’s closely related to point three (below). Kids like creating content and the things we create should help them do it.

Three: it’s about a personal brand. The essence of the “iCarly Effect” is that when kids saw this show, they believed they too could create something others would want to watch and, here’s the big point, it would make them famous. Lucas is living proof – as is iCarly’s Miranda Cosgrove. If you haven’t clicked on the links associated with both names (Lucas’ and Miranda’s) you are still missing some of the point. These kids are using MySpace as yet another way to help build their personal brands. One way to make what we do relevant to youth is to let them use our services and products in a way that will help them build their personal brands.

Four: it’s relevant. I have no idea why my daughter thinks it’s relevant (I don’t wear pantyhose or hang out at bars), but she does. Not to beat a dead horse, but don’t we all want content that’s meaningful to us? Even theatre owners are figuring this out and they work to make the “pre-movie” experience more entertaining (while they sell advertising). If you want results, you need to resonate with your audience and apparently Lucas has this figured out.

Consider yourself hip. Now you know Fred.