Film Junk Poll: What Movie Has the Best Viral Marketing Campaign?
Alright, now I know some people are getting sick of hearing the phrase “viral marketing”, but love it or hate it, it seems to be here to stay. Creating little mysteries and games that immerse people in the fictional world of a movie is a great way to raise awareness and get people talking about your film — or in the case of a large blockbuster, a great way to keep fans engaged while it’s currently in production. We’ve now seen a fair number of groundbreaking viral campaigns over the past few years, but my question is: which one was the most creative and effective? Cast your vote in the poll below, then feel free discuss why you voted the way you did, along with any other noteworthy movies with viral campaigns that we may have missed.
Comments (14)
I really liked the marketing for “Cloverfield”.
Posted by Matt Keith on July 17th, 2009A.I. and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (and also Gondry’s Be Kind Rewind) had pretty good Viral-web stuff.
Posted by Kurt on July 17th, 2009Oh yeah I totally forgot about A.I. It was definitely one of the pioneers in that regard. And yeah Be Kind Rewind’s whole “sweding” thing was pretty awesome.
Posted by Sean on July 17th, 2009I must be tragically un-hip because I can’t recall a singe incident I ever was witness to any viral marketing outside of the internet video/viral marketing of an old video game about killing Giant monsters…
The videos were supposedly “real” and showed explorers and other adventurous sorts “discovering” these massive creatures frozen in blocks of ice in the artic or some such thing.
They were very well done… Although I never did buy the game, or even remember what it was called now… So how effective was it really?
Posted by Shut-Up Ed on July 17th, 2009*arctic
Posted by Shut-Up Ed on July 17th, 2009Ed, I’m not sure if you’re joking but it sounds like you’re talking about these videos, which were directed by Jay C:
http://www.norwegianfilmcommittee.org/en/media.html
Posted by Sean on July 17th, 2009Cloverfield was the only one that I followed religiously. Brilliant marketing campaign that kind of copped-out in the end when it didn’t line-up with the actual release of the film (the date in-movie wasn’t actually 01/18/08) and Abrams and Reeves admitted it wasn’t really canon. Still fantastic, though.
Posted by Devin on July 17th, 2009A.I. was the best.
Posted by Webomatica on July 17th, 2009Cloverfield had some strange viral marketing, nobody really knew what the hell we would actually end up seeing in the movie. The Dark Knight had some pretty interesting marketing too, and I’m betting the Blair Witch had the best, but I was only 10 when it came out in 1999 and too young to remember much of it.
Posted by Steven C. on July 17th, 2009I’m not sure it qualifies as “viral,” but Borat easily had the most amusing marketing campaign I’ve ever seen.
Posted by MJS on July 18th, 2009I chose Blair Which because they started this whole thing and it was at a time when the internet didn’t saturate our existence like it does now. Meaning that there were people who actually thought it was real when they went to the cinema. That could never happen now.
Posted by Swarez on July 18th, 2009The best viral marketing I remember was for the Minicooper. If you remember, they released an “excerpt” from a newly upcoming book about weird going-ongs for free with some magazines. And it was actually a really interesting read about a reporter investigating sightings of a home-built giant robot, and interviewing I-witnessess, and there were creepy photos and even a tie-in website. When I first read it I thought it was for real, didn’t even realize it was viral marketing until later. It’s definitley the example I remember best.
Posted by bullet3 on July 18th, 2009Sean,
The game was “Shadow of The Colossus.”
According to all known Wikipedia – there was a viral marketing campaign launched in October 2005. There were several websites claiming that the remains of five giants resembling certain “colossi” had been discovered in various parts of the world.
As I remember it, there were videos of expeditions where Indiana Jones-esque people were discovering the remains of these massive monsters. They were presented with a sort of Discovery Channel realism that almost made you believe (if only for the briefest of moments) that is COULD be real.
I thought they were very cool at the time. Apparently the websites have since been taken down.
Posted by Shut-Up Ed on July 18th, 2009Cloverfield? Really? Seems like people vote on the movie they liked best. Watchmen, good or bad, had a much bigger and better viral marketing campaign then Cloverfield. Maybe bigger then any of the other ones.
Posted by Idontknowguys on July 21st, 2009Leave a Reply