UnREAL: Automatic Selfie Stick is Fake Product for Reality TV Spoof

Sick of your plain old selfie stick that only extends your phone out to take photos? Interested in a more advanced model that can provide a full selfie taking experience? Well, you’re in luck. The automated selfie stick is here!

The automated selfie stick has the ability to hold your smartphone extended several feet away from you just like regular selfie sticks. But that’s pretty much where the similarities end. The automated selfie stick extends out with just the push of a button, so you don’t have to extend it manually. And it also features built-in lighting and fans so that you can get that well-lit, wind-blown look in all of your selfies.

Is That Automated Selfie Stick For Real?

However, the product is not actually available for purchase. It’s part of a viral promotional campaign for the TV series UnREAL. Viral video marketing agency Thinkmodo is the company that came up with the idea for the automated selfie stick. Thinkmodo has also been behind other viral campaigns like the spooky live pranks used to promote the movie “Carrie” a few years ago.

The idea behind the campaign is just to call attention to the upcoming new season of UnREAL, a show that airs on Lifetime. The show is a fictional depiction of the behind-the-scenes world of reality shows like The Bachelor. So it dives into the theme of a sort of manufactured reality, which is a category that the automated selfie stick could also fall into.

But it’s not just a funny idea that someone came up with. The team actually created a real product for the promotional video. You can see how they actually designed and created the automated selfie stick in the video below.

Even though the product is real and does work as shown, it’s not headed for store shelves anytime soon. Plenty of consumers still don’t see a need for regular selfie sticks. So the market for a specialty item like this would likely be pretty small.

But regardless of the viability of the actual product, it’s an interesting concept that certainly grabs people’s attention. And since that was the real aim of the product in the first place, it appears to be working.

The automated selfie stick isn’t the first “fake” product of its kind to be used as a sort of promotional stunt. In fact, the Macbook selfie stick was created for just that purpose earlier this year.

Creating interesting or even ridiculous products, whether real or fake, can certainly help brands grab people’s attention. Whether that attention actually translates into results for businesses can vary from case to case. So it remains to be seen whether this automated selfie stick idea will lead to more viewers for UnREAL.

But it’s definitely an interesting way to call people’s attention to a show or any other type of product. And who knows, if it really catches on maybe the automated selfie stick will be headed to store shelves in the future.

Images: unREAL 2 Comments ▼

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