Chi-City Marketing, mayne

I got two calls from the Youtube celeb, Mr. Chi-City, last week.  I emailed him my phone number after he posted on Twitter that he wanted to talk to some of his fans.  Apparently, almost 700 people emailed him with their numbers… and he called all of us.  Twice.

The first time he called me, we talked for 10 minutes.  He was candid, really nice, and didn’t seem like he was in a rush to get off and make the next call.  I asked him a few fairly predictable questions…

How has doing your Youtube videos affected your life? “A lot of women, man, a lot of women.  Haha!”

What do you have planned for the future? “I don’t know, man.  A few entertainment companies have talked with me about setting something up, but I’m not really interested.  I just like doing my videos.  I’ll probably go out to LA at some point and talk with them, just because how often does a guy like me, with no talent, get offers from people like that?”

We talked about some other stuff, made a few jokes, then I wished him the best of luck and said I’d continue watching his videos.  Then he called me a few days later, unexpectedly, and left me this message:

Awesome.  I love this guy.

There’s something to be said about this gimmick of his, and we can take away a few lessons from Chi-City:

• Connecting with fans. How can you not love a guy who makes 1,100 calls over the course of six days, not selling anything, but just wanting to connect?  That is a big physical effort, saying the same thing to jackass fans like me, over and over.  How often do you think he found the person on the other end of the phone interesting?  Rarely.  But that doesn’t matter — he cared about connecting and spreading the love.  For me, that’s the very core of good marketing.  Well done.
• Authenticity. People love him because he’s funny, ridiculous, high energy, over-the-top, and excessively gregarious.  But we also love him because we know it’s not an act.  He definitely plays up his personality on camera, but it’s pretty obvious he acts that way all the time — flaws and all.  And it’s hard not to like him for it.

Anyways, I wanted to write this post to show my appreciation for someone who’s not trying to immediately cash in on a viral video he made and the small amount of internet fame that came with it.  Chi-City, you seem like a cool guy and I hope to be hit with one of your freeze pops someday.