Cameo is making room for more than celebrity greetings, expanding its personalised messaging service to let anyone sign up to make custom videos for money.
Announced in a blog post on Tuesday, the platform has officially launched its CameoX initiative, which began a pilot program last May as a "strategic decision to allow just about anyone with a passion for engaging with fans to join the Cameo community."
Cameo has made millions through its celebrity video message offerings, seeing actors, athletes, musicians, influencers, multiple disgraced U.S. Congressmen, and racist far-right British politicians personalise greetings for varying rates — it was a particularly lucrative move for celebs during the COVID-19 pandemic and the SAG-AFTRA strike. In 2021, Cameo was valued at $1 billion. But celebrities have since reportedly left the platform in droves, for reasons including but not limited to pro-Russia propagandists tricking celebrities into spreading misinformation. Plus, Cameo had a run-in with the Federal Trade Commission for violating celebrity endorsement disclosures this year, which was not cheap.
So, Cameo is pivoting to embrace more avenues of content creation and monetisation. Now, anyone can join Cameo through the company's revamped onboarding process, which no longer focuses on Cameo team outreach or follower thresholds.
"We realized we had missed out on thousands of talented individuals who could have made meaningful contributions to the marketplace,” said Cameo CEO Steven Galanis in a press statement.
"We missed SAG-AFTRA actors who had applied before landing breakout roles in hit Netflix shows. We missed emerging artists before releasing chart-topping singles. We missed creators before their viral moments on TikTok. And we missed pro athletes who applied while in college, prior to NIL rule changes that allowed them to monetize their talent. With CameoX, those days are over."
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The company says CameoX has already been successful, seeing 31,000 "self-enrolled creators" sign up since the pilot began in May 2023. The company is pitching the platform as "an alternative earning stream for talent" for creators, including those who might already have a following on other sites like Twitch, YouTube, and TikTok — and who might have previously applied to join Cameo but were not allowed in. Now, Cameo says the onboarding process has been made easier for people to pass the test.
"Historically, talent could join the marketplace in three ways: 1) through outreach from the Cameo team, 2) via referral from another talent or talent manager, or 3) by applying directly. In the past three years alone, Cameo received over 100,000 applications from talent who did not meet the marketplace’s thresholds," reads the post.
"The issue: Cameo was missing a new wave of emerging creators who could benefit from the platform but weren’t allowed on. CameoX removes those barriers and allows talent to become part of the Cameo family in a matter of minutes...This change in policy is more in line with models like Twitch and YouTube, where anyone can join for free and begin to monetize their personas instantly."
Creators wanting to join CameoX can do so through the app or the website and complete an identity verification process. Cameo celebrities set their own prices, so creators will be able to do the same; creators get 75 percent of the booking price and can use the earnings calculator to see what numbers they're looking at.
