On the second day of viral, my movie gave to me…..
A Twitter account with the truth.
The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Well, maybe a little more. At least this seems to be the way to go with newer Twitter accounts. You can go back to some of the older Twitter accounts (9, District 9, and 2012) and see them posting about things from the actual movie they are promoting. You can read a bout Charlie Frost’s Winnebago or Christopher’s disgust towards MNU.
But the newer one’s are taking it a step further. If you follow films such as Surrogates, The Crazies, and even Paranormal Activity, they are using the tactics of letting you know the truth. Not parts of the film, but actual elements of the film that are possible. Robotics. Biochemicals. Even how people are reacting towards a film. These are things that are happening on the news so they put it in your head, to just add to what you believe to begin with. Hell, they may even pick up those that follow such fears and create a new fan.
A tweet like the one above may get some activists to follow you, not knowing that it’s a site for a movie. But then again, that’s one of the things with a viral campaign. You need to make it as real as you can.
Other Days In The “12 Days of Viral” Series:
A trailer without a title
Get Your Name Featured on the Paranormal Activity DVD
As we reported before, the viral buzz of Paranormal Activity deserves credit for most of the film’s success. Paramount Pictures obviously realizes this, so they have found a simple yet effective way to thank the fans. By entering your name and some information, you can have your name in the credits of the Paranormal Activity DVD. Go to the film’s official website and click on the “Submit Your Name” button, or go to the submission page directly.
I wasn’t a big fan of the film, but this is a really cool gesture on Paramount’s part. They understand how important the word of mouth was in just getting the film released wide, let alone making a crazy profit. Usually fans are rewarded with prizes and more info on the film, but to have your actual name be on the film itself is something I haven’t seen before. By adding your name, you’ll also get notified when the DVD is scheduled to release.
Paranormal Activity is currently in theaters.
Paranormal Activity: Viral Marketing At Its Best
The success of Paranormal Activity will be studied extensively by Hollywood, that’s for sure. Made for a mere $15,000, Paranormal Activity has grossed nearly $64 million since its nation-wide release. How? A strange thing called . . . The Internets!
While MovieViral normally focuses on the “in-game” side of viral marketing, we also acknowledge the raw definition of viral marketing, which is the advertising of a film through word-of-mouth (or emails, twitter, etc.). It’s well known that Paranormal Activity did this really well. But we’re going to take a look at what they did right, and what they did wrong.
Their main focus was on social networks, like twitter. They encouraged the people who have seen it (during it’s limited release) to “Tweet Their Screams,” basically to write reviews. Almost all of the reviews were good (and only 140 characters long, which doesn’t leave room for much criticism) which lead to the larger limited release, mainly focused on college towns.
After Paramount saw the success in those few towns, they knew they had to get this film out on a larger scale. They allowed users to “demand” the film in their town, giving us (the users) the power to decide where this film will play next. In the mean time, Paramount said if they react 1 million “demands” they would release it nationally. And not too surprisingly, it did.
“Paranormal Activity” has been on the trending topics of twitter for a few weeks now, which both testifies to the marketer’s success well as the film’s success. Oh, did I mention it beat out “Saw XVIXIVII” for the #1 spot?
So, what did they do wrong? To be honest, I can’t think of anything they did wrong. There may be something they didn’t do (like an in-game viral site), but look at the success of the campaign and then tell me that an in-game viral site could made it any more successful.
What will this lead to? Well a lot of studios will be turning to viral marketing, that’s for sure. Between this and District 9, viral marketing has proven to benefit low budget films (albeit Paranormal Activity benefited a LOT more). It’s cheap and effective – at least until it becomes overused, at which point it will seem like just another advertisement in a magazine. Marketers are just beginning to understand how to adequately use the internets for advertising.
The summary: Viral marketing has proven time and time again to be an effective way to advertise, at least when it’s done right.
What did you think of Paranormal Activity and it’s marketing campaign? How did you find out about the film – was it through twitter? Did you think they did something wrong? Discuss it below and on our forum.
