I'm sure there are more than a few groups of teenage boys who’ve decided to venture onto random video chat service Chatroulette in the hope that they'll get paired up with an attractive young lady. And last week a few found more than they bargained for.
After logging onto the network, they were greeted by a very pretty girl, she smiles, she bites her lip, their faces light up as she begins to unbutton her shirt...
Then suddenly, her eyes roll back into her head and her neck appears to break before she's flung across the room.
Now for the prepubescent boys looking to just see a bit of skin, that's got to be pretty scary.
This is the latest clever - and kind of amusing - viral campaign from producers Lionsgate, devised to spread online word of mouth about The Last Exorcism, a horror film about a young girl who, you guessed it, gets possessed by the devil.
Lionsgate obviously took a bit of a risk using Chatroulette, as it's a network synonymous with perverted voyeurs and nakedness – which, unsurprisingly, tends to get a lot of bad press.
But the gamble seems to have paid off. Last week news of the elaborate hoax videos spread like crazy online, as well as various best reaction videos which compiled a number of the best Chatroulette clips.
Many brands and organisations produce content that they hope will ‘go viral’ meaning that people will see it, like it and share it and this cycle will continue, spreading the content amongst more and more people.
Anything about highly anticipated new movies is bound to have an impact online. With so many blogs, communities and specialist magazines scrutinising every aspect of the movie industry, it’s no surprise that when a large production company adopt a dramatic online viral campaign, it’s going to spread and get people talking.
I've collected together a few examples of online campaigns for movies that really impressed me. All have engaging, original content and a unique mechanism for spreading it amongst people on the internet. The key seems to be building curiosity, often through an elaborate hoax, that not only appeals to hardcore movie fans and early adopters online, but your average Joe as well.
The Blair Witch Project
The first notable use of viral marketing for a movie was executed more than ten years ago prior to the release of The Blair Witch Project. Like Cloverfield years later, the hype behind The Blair Witch Project was fuelled by a number of fake websites which contained images, documents, police reports and extra information about the storyline, all suggesting that the content and story were real and the events that we saw in the film were cut from actual footage. This kind of online content invites the audience to act as detectives, forcing them to question what they know is real by getting involved in online conversation about the movie – working as a community to pull the pieces together.
The Dark Knight
The clever people behind the viral marketing campaign for the Batman epic, The Dark Knight, employed a whole host of tactics, many of which aimed to make people feel like they were actually residents of Gotham city. Online versions of the fictional newspaper The Gotham Times were put up online as well as a range of fake websites for the Gotham cab company, churches, TV stations and the Gotham subway. The campaign didn’t stop there, people were recruited through an online and offline treasure hunt which gave a few lucky ‘clowns’ free screenings and gifts. Many more tactics were employed that served to separate fans into three groups, Joker supporters, Harvey Dent supporters and Bruce Wayne / Batman supporters. Not only did this build excitement about the film, but people felt passionately about seeing who would triumph. They felt involved.
2012
Of course hoaxes are there to fool people, but sometimes people can get carried away - and who'd blame them when some online campaigns are so convincing?
This is exactly what happened when the people behind disaster movie 2012 set up a fake website called The Institute For Human Continuity which warned of the end of the world, claiming that the odds of global destruction in 2012 were extremely high. The site then urged people to sign up to a specially devised lottery for a chance of survival. In the end NASA had to set up a specific site for those genuinely worried that the world was in fact ending. Seriously.
It’s hard to distinguish where conversations begin online when it comes to these kinds of viral campaigns. Are movie fans starting the hype which then leads movie producers to create extra content, or is everything fuelled by clever marketing?
There’s no doubt that films like Cloverfield and The Dark Knight had sensational box office takings. And, even if these successes can’t be directly attributed to marketing campaigns, the innovative tactics certainly generated an unprecedented amount of conversation and ultimately anticipation amongst many online communities.
Exorcism main image via www.mashable.com
Blair Witch image via www.blairwitch.com/legacy.html
The Dark Knight image via www.thegothamtimes.com
2010 image via www.instituteforhumancontinuity.org