In anticipation for the release of 2012, and after seeing a really cool public advertisement for it, I thought I would go through some creative movie advertising and promotional stunts over the past few years. Recently, there has been a surge in innovative attempts to get people into theaters. After the jump you will find pictures and videos of some pretty cool techiniques used to achieve results.
A Pretty sweet hallway flooding for the end of the world in 2012.
The “Demand it” campaign to bring Paranormal Activity to a theater near you! This ended up working out extremely well seeing as how the film has grossed about $100 million domestically to date. To thank the people that demanded it, Paramount is allowing people to submit their names so that it appears in the credits on the DVD.
Next up is the Zombie walk to promote the free screenings of Zombieland. This was really fun to watch but the underlying reason they did this was for use of word of mouth, one of the most powerful tools that can be used to promote a film to other people.
To promote Snakes on a Plane, New Line cinema and VariTalk combined forces to create a website in which you put in some basic information like your name, job type, etc. and Samuel L. Jackson would call your house, or whoever you wanted, and would leave a message for you/them about the upcoming movie. I had a lot of fun with it and I know many others did as well. The video gives you a basic idea of what the message sounded like even though it was longer than 15 seconds.
Cloverfield’s viral marketing campaign was one of the most successful I have seen to date. The teaser, which came out a year early, had nothing more than a date and footage of the opening scene to launch the campaign. Then, news footage was released about some weird chaos erupting around the world. It was really fun to keep up with the cloverfield buzz especially since the monsters picture was not released until the film came out. Below is an example of a type of viral footage that was released via youtube.
District 9’s advertising was pretty cool as well because they used a unique spin on an old poster medium. It pushed segregation in your face with the advertisements saying “human’s only” and things of that sort. For District 9, there were posters and advertisements posted on the sides of buses, bus benches, bus stops, and billboards all about staying away from non-humans. This was pretty cool in conjunciton with the online website that were set-up where you could become an agent at MNU and learn about their mission at their corporate website. Another option was to read the Anti-MNU blog written by a fictitious alien named Chris. There were a few websites dedicated to these sort of things and were actually kind of fun, especially if you couldn’t wait for the release of the movie.
Funny People’s RAAAAAAAANDY!!! took the web by storm, at least near me, and made a a fictitious comedian an online hit. In preparation of the release of Funny People, Universal and Apatow created some viral material about one of the comedians in the film. RAAAAAAAANDY, a Dane Cook type character, had a very minimal role in the film but was the main focus when it came to promoting the movie via viral videos. Below you can check out some of his ‘fake’ stand-up.
Park Chan Wook’s most recent film Thirst was definitely trying to make its appearance known at Comic Con this past summer for its upcoming US release later that summer. To promote the movie, Focus Features sent out a Comic Con survival pack which included an IV filled with “blood” in anticipation for the new vampire movie. Granted the blood was actually some sort of red drink, it still encouraged you to drink it from the IV puch like a vampire. I thougt this was a very creative way to promote the director of Oldboy’s new film.
These are just a list of the most recent cool publicity stunts, promotional ideas, and viral marketing techinques used to create buzz around films. There are many others from the past which stand out as well such as the success of the Blair Witch Project’s viral marketing. There are also many PR stunts such as The Simpsons movie chalk man which was pretty cool as well (seen at the top of the page). Homer Meets The Giant Of Cerne Abbas. To mark the release of The Simpsons Movie in July 2007, Fox Theatrical created a 70m x 50m chalk Homer in his underpants on a hillside to mirror the famous, 250 yr old chalk giant and brandishing his very own magical symbol, a doughnut (taylorherring).
There are many others which I have failed to mention in this article but plan on doing so in a future article. Until then, I hope you enjoyed this and were able to see how creative and innovative advertising and promotion can be powerful tools that can drive ticket sales at the box office.
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