Earlier films, especially those that dabbled in the world of science fiction, fierce action and mysteries really pushed the whole “moving picture” attraction to the full.

Invasion of the Saucer-Men (1957)

“See teenagers vs. the saucer-men” and “See [the] disembodied hand that crawls…!”
The focus was on the amazing spectacles you could witness right in front of your eyes. Poster’s like these don’t leave much to the imagination, it even lets you know how it ends; “night the world nearly ended”. (Keep in mind, this is a poster for a fairly shoddy B-movie). When you compare this to a poster for a more recent movie:

The Dark Knight (2008)

A poster like this leaves the audience with a glimpse of what the film has to offer. It relies on the audiences own curiosity and desire to find out what happens to draw them to the cinemas.

Viral marketing campaigns for films carry this even further, leaving the audience with the desire to find out more.

One film, The Blair Witch Project, (sometimes credited as being the first major successful viral film marketing campaign), ran a campaign involving fake police reports and photographs that was so successful people were convinced it was the real thing. By blurring the line between the movie and the real world creates an interactive level where the audience becomes involved drawing them further in, making them more likely to eventually see the movie which ultimately is, lets be honest here, what the purpose of the advertisement is. (There was a fairly extensive interactive viral marketing campaign for The Dark Knight that ran for a number of months prior to the release of the film).

This shift in marketing tactics for films reflects an interesting development in our own awareness of consumerism and commercialism.

We are constantly exposed to advertisements nearly everywhere we go. Some studies say close to one thousand every single day. How on earth then, is any one of these expected to have any impact on us when overwhelmed by such an enormous quantity?

Most advertisers are trying to get what scientists call “name brand recognition” lodged in your subconsciousness. Often all that is required for you to decide between brand A and B is simply which one you recognize, whether it be from television, a magazine, or that faded, half-torn bumper-sticker you saw on your way to work. After all, any publicity is good publicity, right?

The more covert viral marketing campaigns might often rely on this principle. For example, a video was released in 2006, apparently showing Air Force One being tagged with the words “STILL FREE”, the slogo of a clothing company, Ecko’s latest advertising campaign. It received a phenomenal amount of media coverage, and was viewed by 114 million people.

That’s 114 million people who now have the words “STILL FREE” in their head. While the video showed no direct connection with the Ecko, when someone sees the words in one of their advertising campaign it will likely trigger some sense of familiarity, which could effectively direct them to that brand.

How very sneaky.

The internet surfer, as he ventures out into the violent tempest of the cyber-world, must often navigate through a vast ocean of spam and trolling in order to locate desired content. Casting a narrow net through the means of search engines such as Google will usually simplify the procedure, baiting the more popular results which are understandably, frequently addressing the navigators interest.

Pictured: My personal experience on the internet.

So, the more popular a website it is the more often it will appear in search engines and the more people will visit this site and the more popular it becomes and the more often it will appear in search engines and the more people will visit it etc. etc. etc. You get the picture.

How then, does something like a viral video or marketing campaign, break through this exponentially growing vicious circle?

Well, Bakari Masudi seems to have an answer. (I might add that I didn’t hear about his 21 steps from word-of-mouth, but rather extensive browsing.)

“Word of mouth marketing is by far the most effective way to get word out about your site.”

Spreading things by word of mouth certainly did the job before instant messaging and e-mails, why not give it another shot?  Once something breaks beyond the barrier of the computer screen and into the real world of it is difficult to argue it as being unsuccessful. Or if it doesn’t quite make it that far, success is still in reach  of social networking.

Word-of-mouth marketing, whether it’s in the real world or through the internet, means there are people purposely navigating to a specific destination on the internet regardless of its listing on a search engine or coverage on another website. Successful word-of-mouth marketed websites will ultimately result in a prevalence in search engines and on other websites, but, to extend the metaphor of the virus, the rate of infection initially occurred on a much smaller, person to person scale.

Word of mouth cubed. Audience reached to the power of 3.

One of the biggest qualities that sets viral marketing apart from other forms of advertising is it cannot simply rely on pumping ridiculous amounts of money and expect results.

What you really need for a viral concept is something that will catch peoples attention, something that will make them curious, something that is unexpected and memorable: an exotic jellyfish that surfaces from the mysterious depths of the vast sea that is the internet… Once you’ve tamed that, you are well on the way to reaching the enormous audience of navigators.

ViralBlog

Winner of the 2009 Best Marketing and Advertising Blog in the Chapeau Blog Awards, Viral Blog is a ‘filter blog’ that tracks down viral and media cases from around the world and congregates them on their site. Viral Blog has collected a broad range of videos that go beyond those made solely for the purpose of promotion and marketing, including home videos that have reached large audiences.

I can’t help but think that it could possibly be some sort of viral advertisement, but the fact it’s dated so long ago makes me doubt it… Surely there are more similar sorts of stories floating around the internet, but how can you tell what’s genuine and what’s not? One of the things that struck about this particular one was the low cost production of this page, hosted by a site that people use for personal blogging and page hosting, which made me less  suspicious of a marketing campaign. Suspicious, nonetheless.

Who can you trust? (emotioneric.com)

This may have been a great source of inspiration for potential viral marketing campaigns, ticking all the boxes: it doesn’t identify itself as an ad of any sort, nor does it show any involvement of any sort of promotion and it certainly managed to spread itself; a number of forums springing up to discuss the story.

Accusing a story that ends in *SPOILER ALERT* a potentially serious way as being an unethical, immoral advertisement with nothing but commercial gain at heart does risk offending those who are/were close to the spelunking Theodore. On the other hand, I will argue, it is completely immoral and unethical of them to leave all readers on such a open-ended, ambiguous note…

I won’t give you the name of the films they are for, but most of them are pretty obvious or have since revealed the film it was promoting. (Some of these are quite old.)

otnemem.com

whysoserious.com

thenewfrontiersman.net

d-9.com

instituteforhumancontinuity.org

Some are a bit less subtle, but still really intersting to look at.

UPDATE: These and more can be seen on Total Film’s website.

BEWARE!
Sneaky, underhanded marketers are employing covert tactics that advertise to you, completely unawares! And you could be helping them!

The concept of viral advertising is that once it is exposed to an audience or viewer, it will spread and replicate itself without exterior interference; like a virus.

I’ve started this blog for a uni assignment looking at media practices in the contemporary mediascape. The area I’ve chosen to look at is advertising and promotion, focusing on viral marketing.  I guess my main interest in this area is the innovative ways in which advertisers spread interest and awareness about films, drawing in audiences before they even know what they’re looking at. (For all you know, this could be a viral advertisment for a film  although, I must say it’d be a pretty boring film so far…)

Stay tuned for further info, links, and general internet fodder to help you survive the viral epidemic that faces us!