Viral Campaign Research

Viral campaigning is a term that shapes meaning in using mystery to market movies. A great example of this is the film ‘Cloverfield’ has had a lot of attention when first appearing virally. This viral ad shows strong signs of expressing elements of being a viral campaign, as there is no title of film that is being promoted but only a release date, ‘in theaters 01.18.08’(American). This technique of providing the audience with a lack of information helps to develop the level of mystery, thus causing an enigmatic response throughout film viewers’ minds. The level of secrecy is one again carried out as a potent theme as the movie is not called ‘Cloverfield’ but presented as ‘codenamed: Cloverfield’, which explores viral marketing to its initial capacity.

Another piece of evidence of viral marketing is presented in the film ‘The Blair Witch Project’. This occurred in 1999, which was a film made by the production budget of $60, 000 and grossed $240,000,000 and overall was a movie defined viral marketing. A couple of years later Steven Spielberg explored more into going viral where he used web games to promote AI (Artificial Intelligence). This then followed 1million people visiting the film’s personal website. The website contains a series of clues and puzzles to solve that could ultimately lead to the teaser trailer or even something big and newly released to the fans that the fans themselves can cover. ‘The Dark Knight’ is another example of attaining a viral website. On closer inspection, the website shows the unveiling of who the joker is in stages where ‘Heath Ledger’ face does appear. However, this was only used once the full trailer was shown but nonetheless, the idea of this viral website does promote the film in a relatively high manner.

On the whole I think going viral is a great strategy and proves viral marketing works best for the sci-fi and horror genres, as fans for these genres are definitely more rabid.

Alternative advertising methods were needed if Cloverfield was going to attract the attention of the group of people who could be used to make this film a success in the cinema. A specialized online and computer-savy audience was specifically targeted as their interaction with the marketing was vital in the film generating interest from another valuable audience group, the mainstream movie-goer. The story of Cloverfield’s marketing shows how the online audience was used to create a buzz about the film to support a more traditional marketing campaign.

Link to Cloverfield viral video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvNkGm8mxiM