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How a glamorous fake Instagram account tricked 50,000 people and hid a horrifying message

Picture:
Picture:
Louise.Delage/Instagram

Louise Delage is a Parisian model with an Instagram account and over 50,000 followers.

The model is real, the account is real, but the content has been staged to deliver an important message.

Delage's posts are typical, they show her relaxing with a drink on sandy beaches,

Out drinking at a bar...

Eating and drinking with similarly glamorous friends and family...

Relaxing with a drink in the bath...

Drinking on an idyllic green lawn...

Drinking on a boat...

Drinking by the pool...

Drinking with a view...

Starting to see the pattern?

The account was created in August and every single image features a drink of alcohol.

Many resemble those above, with Delage in a glamorous location, others have a bottle or glass peaking out in the background.

The French ad agency BETC recently broke cover, revealing their true intentions by posting a video for their campaign 'Like My Addiction'.

The campaign is on behalf of the charity Addict Aide.

The agency were engaged in raising awareness of alcoholism among young people, and they created the fictional account, using the real model Delage, to demonstrate how easy it can be to miss the signs of alcoholism, particularly in young people.

Their main message was that "It's easy to miss the addiction of someone close".

BETC president and creative director Stéphane Xiberras Paris told AdWeek

Sometimes it seems like in this era, the more people stage their ideal life on social media, the more that serves to hide a not-so-ideal reality.

Following the reveal Addict Aide reported five times their usual traffic on their site.

According to AdWeek the agency identified the filters and shots commonly used by fashion bloggers, and also targeted accounts with lots of followers, in the hope of spreading Delage's images onto as many timelines and newsfeeds as possible. They also used 30-40 hashtags on each post, relating them to food, drinking, and socialising.

The video revealing Delage's 'identity', she is afterall a real person and is a model, can seen here and on YouTube.

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