MovieZen Blog

The Rise and Pseudo-Success of Viral Marketing

People tend to think viral marketing is a relatively new thing, but it's actually almost a decade old. In the lead-up to 1999's A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, word got out that if you did a Google search for "Jeanine Salla," you would find a website about a woman living in the future, doing research on A.I. children. That website linked to other sites with even more information, and collectively they all told a story related to the robotics company seen in the film. (Most of the websites are still up; try it for yourself.)

Back then it was simply an experiment - something cool for the marketing department to tinker around with to see if it would work. And, truth be told, there was no evidence that it did work - A.I. topped out with less than $80 million at the box office. But it seemed to open the floodgates for a bunch of new films.

The appeal behind such unconventional marketing is simple - it makes the fictional world of a film more "real." In 2004's Godsend, Robert De Niro plays a doctor who promises to give a married couple's dead child back to them. If you went online, you could find the website for the Godsend Institute, the company that the doctor founded.

That attempt didn't seem to make much of a difference, either - the movie grossed less than $15 million. One of the main problems with viral marketing is that the amount of people who get into it, seeking out all the websites actually finding it an enriching experience, is negligible. The other problem is that at first glance, by design, the average person would have no idea the website they stumbled across is actually part of a movie's advertising campaign.

Then again, viral marketing campaigns can prove useful. Knowing that there would be an eight-month hiatus between seasons two and three of television's Lost, ABC hired a team to create "The Lost Experience," which went beyond creating a few random websites - it was a full-fledged game. Go to TheHansoFoundation.org, find out more about one of the shadowy organizations from the show, receive a hint about another website you could go to, and so on, and so on. New websites popped up periodically, old ones radically changed, and the Lost fans involved in the Experience were treated to an enriched backstory for the TV show's dense mythology. For ABC, it meant retaining fans who might otherwise forget to tune in to the third season.

One of the original creators of Lost, J.J. Abrams, decided to use viral marketing again when he produced last January's Cloverfield. Disenfranchised with the way fans in this day and age increasingly knew everything about movies before they were released, Abrams wanted to bring back a sense of mystery to filmmaking. So he made sure the first trailer for the film didn't even include the title - just the release date, 1-18-08, and an accompanying website. A few other websites - so cryptic that there was speculation about whether or not they were even related to the film at all - sprang up. Excitement built. And thus a relatively simple monster movie was transformed into a sensation that scored a $40 million opening weekend.

For pure coolness factor, though, the best viral marketing campaign is one for a movie that hasn't even been released yet - The Dark Knight.

Basically, Warner Bros. pulled out all the stops. First there was IBelieveInHarveyDent.com, a website advertising the District Attorney candidate played by Aaron Eckhart. Then IBelieveInHarveyDentToo.com appeared - the same website, only "vandalized" by a criminal called the Joker.  (Go there, then hit Ctrl+A.)  A slew of websites followed - some run by citizens of Gotham City, or the Gotham police department - and some run by the Joker, encouraging his faithful "clowns" to go on missions for him.

What kind of missions? Well, that's where the internet and the real world collided in The Dark Knight's viral campaign, which is part of what made it the best-executed viral campaign yet. There weren't just viral websites for viral marketing's sake - follow them closely enough, and you were rewarded, with scavenger hunts held in major cities that any fan could embark on. At the end of the hunts were various prizes - most notably a chance to go in a theater and watch a new trailer for the film, or even, in one instance, the entire opening scene.

Of course, The Dark Knight is going to be huge anyway. The only viral marketing campaign that you could truly call a success story was Cloverfield's, because of the attention the secrecy brought to it - otherwise, these sorts of campaigns are impossible to quantify and haven't led to any other surprise hits. So why do they keep at it? Perhaps more than anything else, they're compelled to keep things creative - and in an idea-starved Hollywood, that's an encouraging thought.

Michael Dance
StrandedinManhattan.com

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Cloverfield 2?????

A sequel to the recently successful Cloverfield is still being discussed between producer JJ Abrams, writer Drew Godard and director Matt Reeves. Reeves in past interviews broached the idea of a sequel that occurs on the same night as the first film, only from another camera’s perspective, as in Cloverfield there was a moment when two such perspectives intersected for a moment in the bridge scene. Firstly though, for those of you who have been living under a rock, which is actually more comforting than it sounds, Cloverfield is the biggest grandiose monster movie to hit the screens since Gojira (if you do decide to see only one incarnation then check out the pioneering, authentic 1954 film rather than its Hollywood descendant; not that the latter is bad or anything) or King Kong. It goes down like this; a man named Rob is having a farewell party as he is set to leave for Japan. His best friend is recording the party, going around interviewing people about how they will feel about him leaving. All of a sudden an earthquake of sorts occurs and leaves the guests in a frenzy. The rest is pretty much well constructed mayhem; all in all being a very gripping and entertaining film.

Although Reeves has stated that he is toying around with the idea of shooting the film in a similar style to the first only from another person’s perspective, Abrams says that he has noticed that many films seem to be using the hand held, “blogging” style of filmmaking (most notably George Romero’s Diary of the Dead) and so he is a little concerned about using that approach again, as once an idea has been recycled to many times it will lose it’s impact. However, surely if a style of filmmaking works because of its own aesthetic innovations, it should be embraced rather than disregarded just because it is becoming too popular. However, it is also a director’s mission to try to explore new places, to seek out new actors and landscapes, to boldly go where no man has gone before….hmmmm….wait a second. Ah, yes and then there’s Abrams latest endeavour, the Star Trek film which is sure to lure out all the “Trekies” from their “Learn Klingon in 2 Weeks” CDs just as I’m sure Star Con 2008 will. Though having only seen one of the films in the series and a handful of Star Trek episodes myself, I will be interested to see how a creation such as this explodes on the big screen.

In any case Abrams has mentioned that he has a new idea in which he would still like to work with Godard and Reeves only on a new project, so even if Cloverfield 2 remains to be only a Chinese Whisper it seems we should still be expecting something more from these guys.

Nathan

www.filmbanana.com

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Cloverfield, Not Another Blair Witch Project?

Cloverfield was a huge hit at the box office in January and February. I planned on watching it on the big screen although I knew nothing about it but I eventually ended up seeing it on a smaller screen.

From the beginning I will tell you this is a good movie which I highly recommend. I am saying this because in the next few paragraphs I will tell you more about how this reminds me of the Blair Witch Project but manages to capture my attention.

If you love movies like I do, you will have seen both Blair Witch Projects. The original one was scary and shocking. The way the director played with the camera was the key element of the whole picture. You were able to see the story and follow the events from the point of view of the main characters. They were filming everything. You would see the camera moving unprofessionally, bouncing and falling down exactly as it would do if used by an amateur cameraman.

That turned out to be quite exciting for us. We were barely breathing waiting to see what horror of a monster was chasing those guys...

Getting back to Clover-film now. It starts with a bunch of friends at a goodbye party. He is moving to Japan so everyone is there. During all this time they are preparing a home-made goodbye video. But while the party is underway, the amateur cameraman along with everyone else is a witness for the horror that follows.

Something terrifying strikes Manhattan. Everyone is running scared. The military is on the way, the monster is visible and it's huge. From that point on, the director follows a part of the group at the party while they are running for their lives through the streets and train tunnels of New York.

The camera twists and turns, it falls down and gets picked up. Does that sound familiar? Did you ever think this would turn out to be just another Blair Witch with a twist? Regular people like you and I are pushing the buttons and the camera is recording everything. And we, the viewers are getting goose bumps whenever we get to see those creatures making their move on scared humans.

Maybe these directing and filming strategies turned this script into a hit. Instead of being not another monster/tragedy-hits-Earth movie, which so many of us hate by now, it turned into a much cooler Blair Witch Project.

There aren't well known actors here. Why is that? Maybe because the producer wanted to give us a feel of reality. This could happen to anyone anywhere. Any regular Joe has access to a camera. We are recording more and more bits and pieces of our lives. Why not record tragedies like this one too?

I would assume Cloverfield will get some awards for directing, editing and photography. The special effects are neatly inserted and quite breath taking at certain points. Go see it now if you haven’t!

Chris
A Million Readers...

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