'Our bookings have been up over 200% over the last three weeks' says Cameo CEO

Steven Galanis, Cameo CEO, joined Yahoo Finance's Akiko Fujita, Andy Serwer, and Myles Udland to discuss the surge is bookings and celebrity talent joining the platform as more and more people stay home due to the COVID-19 crisis.

Video Transcript

AKIKO FUJITA: We've seen a lot of celebrities, of course, over the last several weeks step up to the plate here to donate funds to help, whether it's hospitals or those who've lost their jobs in this time of a public health crisis. And our next guest is pitching in, in their own way. Cameo CEO Steven Galanis is joining me. And we're here to talk about something called Cameo Cares. So walk me through what exactly your organization is doing working with some of these influencers to raise funds at this time.

STEVEN GALANIS: Sure. So, you know, over the last few weeks, as every single athlete, actor, celebrity suddenly finds himself on the couch just like us-- all their concerts are canceled. Their meeting greets postponed. Their games canceled. They've been reaching out to us to ask, hey, how can I engage with my fans, help cheer people up during this time?

So from April 16 through April 18, we're creating something called Cameo Cares where 100% of all the bookings on the site during those three days are going to go to COVID relief charities. And our goal is to raise $1 million for a charity that those three days.

AKIKO FUJITA: So for those who aren't familiar with the actual service what cameo does, when you say the bookings, you're actually connecting some of the fans with these athletes and the actors, actresses, right?

STEVEN GALANIS: Correct. So you can go to our website cameo.com, browse from between 30,000 different athletes, actors, influencers, celebrities and get them to send you a personalized video shout out. And, yes, Flavor Flav is on there. ANDY SERWER: Yeah, let's talk about Flavor Flav a little bit. And, you know, how do you-- how do you connect with someone like that? I mean, how do you recruit people? Or do people sometimes come to you, and you reject them? It's like, hey, you're not a celebrity. I mean, how does-- [INAUDIBLE]

STEVEN GALANIS: That's our secret sauce. If I told you, I'd have to kill you guys. No, just as a joke, we have 50% of all the talent that we get on the platform. We recruit-- 25% come inbound. And then 25% actually get referred from other celebrities that are having a good time out there.

So, for example, this time last year, we saw that Snoop Dogg kept popping up in Ice Tea's videos. And Ice Tea ended up referring Snoop Dogg to the platform. And that's been one of our best channels to get to talent.

MYLES UDLAND: And Steven, I guess this-- I mean, we've now like, communicating this way is normalized, right? I mean, you know, like, the "Today Show" is now distributed on Zoom and whatnot. Is that a tailwind for your platform that it's not weird for people to get a cell phone video from someone? I mean, yeah, Instagram is all cell phone videos.

But there's like, the pretense of being on air, as it were, I think has been dropped in some way. And everyone realizes this form of communication is pretty much just as good as any other. And people are going to be more comfortable doing their meet and greets and stuff like that via, whether it's cameo or just other services like this.

STEVEN GALANIS: Totally. And I remember two years ago when we were just getting started. And I came and saw you guys in the very early days of this platform, you know, as a revolutionary thing. Today, we have over 30,000 different people on it. And for the last few years, we've always pitched talent as cameo is a Comic-Con at the palm of your hands.

In a world where there's social distancing, we're seeing a lot of talent that had told us no for the last three years because they're too busy suddenly come inbound. Last month, our talent-- new talent acquisition was up 78%. And our bookings had been up over 200% over the last three weeks.

ANDY SERWER: Hey, Steven, I mean, just looking at some of these people, it's just crazy. Who are some of your favorite wackadoodles, celebrities on here? Do you have some crazy stories? I mean, you got to have some stuff that's happened.

STEVEN GALANIS: Oh, yeah. I mean, we've done 75-- we did 750,000 of these since we started now. So there's been a bunch of crazy stories that have happened. Right now, the "Tiger King" cast-- they're the ones that are absolutely killing it. So basically it's other than Carole Baskins and Joe Exotic, you can book pretty much anyone from "Tiger King." And some of their cameos are crazy.

Actually just this week, one of the players on the Los Angeles Dodgers got a cameo from-- from one of the "Tiger King" cast, who actually revealed that a seventh episode is coming out, or an eighth episode is coming out of the "Tiger King." And suddenly we're on the cover of like, "TMZ" and every celebrity gossip page variety. That's where the news was broke. So, you know, this week, that was the crazy one.

MYLES UDLAND: And Andy, I'll just add-- I know someone-- I don't know if the name Jax Taylor does anything for you. But it does for people my age-- got him to do a cameo as a wedding gift for someone else. So that's all I've seen it used in the wild.

ANDY SERWER: Oh, wow, OK. I want to see Rod Blagojevich, that guy. I mean, it--

AKIKO FUJITA: I don't know, Andy. I don't know if--

MYLES UDLAND: Hey, and you have a birthday coming up.

AKIKO FUJITA: --couldn't-- I think we pinned it at "Tiger King," right?

ANDY SERWER: Yeah.

AKIKO FUJITA: Is that that kind of our-- is that where we set the bar here?

ANDY SERWER: I don't know. There's-- there's a lot. There is a lot, Akiko-- Puggy Smalls. I mean, you know, it's pretty wild in here. I could get lost for a very long time, Steven, up in that cabin--

AKIKO FUJITA: Steven, we're going to check in with you. Maybe you have additional requests coming out of this--

ANDY SERWER: "Drag Queen?"

AKIKO FUJITA: --with you. Steven Galanis joining us from Cameo-- appreciate your time.