Stars can shine again with spots on Cameo app
On Cameo, onetime “American Idol” hopeful William Hung still bangs. So does reality TV star “Big Ed” and the “Seinfeld” Soup Nazi.
The app that connects the famous and their fans with personalized messages has shared with USA TODAY a ranking of the most popular smallscreen celebrities, and the list may surprise you. Reality personas including Luann De Lesseps (“The Real Housewives of New York City”), Sandra Diaztwine (“Survivor”) and Captain Lee (“Below Deck”) are popular, and so is “Bull” star Michael Weatherly, Lindsay Lohan and comedian Andy Dick.
Cameo, created by Martin Blencowe, CEO Steven Galanis and Devon Townsend launched in 2017 and is valued at $1 billion. It offers customers recorded video messages, video chats and direct messages with their favorite actors, musicians, comics, reality stars, sports figures, political personalities, content creators, and even famous animals. Cameo makes money by taking a 25% commission from each celebrity’s sale, which ranges from the pricey – “Shark Tank” businessman Kevin O’leary charges $1,500 – to the affordable: Former “Bachelor” villain Courtney Robertson can be booked for $20.
The idea for the business came when Blencowe, a former agent for NFL players, showed Galanis a video his client, linebacker Cassius Marsh, made congratulating a new father on the arrival of his son.
“This dad loved it,” Galanis remembers. “He said it was the best gift he’d ever gotten in his life, and that was the ah-ha moment that this is the new autograph.”
The company initially focused on athletes, relying on their personal connections to recruit talent, but one of Bravo’s “Real Housewives” opened Galanis’ eyes to the opportunity that awaited in genre of reality TV.
“Midway through the first summer, we started on-boarding the first television talent, and Sonja Morgan (from “The Real Housewives of New York City”) was probably one of the most important,” Galanis says. “People started writing to us and saying, ‘Hey, we want (“RHONY” cast members ) Luann (de Lesseps). We want Bethenny (Frankel). We want Ramona (Singer). We just found immediately once Sonja got on that reality TV was going to be a big vertical, and at the same time we started doing really well with people from ‘The Bachelor’ and ‘Bachelorette.’ And they didn’t have to be the Bachelor; they didn’t have to be the Bachelorette. ”
Popularity on the platform has more to do with memorability than acclaim.
“There isn’t a massive correlation between fame and how well you do on Cameo,” Galanis says, pointing out that actor Brian Baumgartner (who played Kevin Malone, the awkward co-worker on NBC’S “The Office) and comedian Gilbert Gottfried are among 2020’s top revenue
generators, besting other talent “who you would probably say are objectively more famous than them.”
To register on the app, talent must have 25,000 Instagram followers or be part of a noteworthy show or team.
After the March 2020 premiere of Netflix’s “Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem, and Madness,” Carole Baskin’s arrival on Cameo shattered “the record of the most bookings and most money anybody’s made in a month,” Galanis says, “because at that moment she was more popular than Snoop Dogg.”
Last summer, Baskin told The Washington Post that her $299 Cameo price tag kept “the flow at about 30 a day (roughly $9,000 in sales). And I can handle 30 a day.” (Her current price is
$249 per video.)
Ed Brown, known as “Big Ed” on TLC’S “90 Day Fiancé” franchise, tops the list of TV personas with the most videos in 2020. Galanis says Brown has shot thousands and attributes Brown’s success to the modest cost ($69) and – the quality he’s turning out: “If you can give a good-quality product for under $100 – these videos are replacing birthday dinners.”
In 2020, Cameo delivered approximately 1.3 million videos – more than in its first three years combined – and raked in about $100 million in total sales, marking explosive growth, according to the app’s year-end report. About 150 personalities were earning at least $100,000 a year by the end of 2020, Cameo says.
“Office” alum Kate Flannery lands at No. 18 on the list of TV stars who filmed the most videos last year. She says she recorded a slew of wedding and graduation messages. In her videos, “there’s always a nod” to her “Office” character Meredith Palmer, a lush once hit by a car driven by Steve Carell’s Michael Scott.
“Sometimes people will want, like, certain lines from the show, or something like that,” says Flannery, who joined Cameo in November 2018. “I’ve done a lot of bachelorette messages, because Meredith’s the party girl, but I’ve also done ‘My kid’s turning 16,’ and I always reference the fact that, ‘If you’re learning how to drive, let me know what street you’re on because I got hit by a car once.’”
While Cameo has been an outlet for divorce reveals (both real and faux), Flannery says she won’t record breakup videos. She will, however, try to help mend relationships, even if it makes her feel uneasy.
Galanis says Cameo helps to create income across the industry.
“The oldest meme in Hollywood is the out-of- work actor or actress that’s waiting tables or bartending between gigs,” he says. “We’re really helping talent get paid to become more famous and more beloved.”