If you’ve been keeping your eye on Super 8‘s marketing campaign, you’ve probably noticed some familiar ploys to encourage fan-appeal. The latest trend? Audience involvement. 
There’s been a huge boom in viral marketing (yes, we all hate calling it that, but we’re sticking to what’s easy here) over the last few years, and it’s unlikely to die down anytime soon. But its popularity doesn’t make it any less risky: while it can create extra buzz about a movie or television show and give it that boost it needs to become a huge hit, it can also fail miserably and publicly, getting lost between the lines on social media platforms of all kinds.
When it does work, though, it really works. Here are a few of the most successful (and creative) viral marketing campaigns of all time:
The Blair Witch Project was a landmark film in regard to viral marketing. The documentary-style horror movie was presented as truth through photographs and fake newspaper articles. There were even phony police reports regarding the disappearance of the three kids in the film. The Sci-Fi channel aired the Curse of the Blair Witch prior to the film’s release and made many people believe that the events of the film really took place. This set the stage for viral marketing in the future as the film made over $200 million on a measly $500,000 budget.
Remember those billboards warning everyone to stay away from the restricted areas, or those bus bench ads that discriminated against “non-humans,” all of which seemed to make absolutely no sense at the time but sparked our curiosity, anyway? That, as we now know, was the major campaign strategy for the underdog summer blockbuster, District 9, which blew us all away in ’09. If you called the number in the ad, by the way, you’d reach these people.
Lost was practically nothing but a viral marketing campaign. The alternate reality game The Lost Experience guided fans of the series to unlock some of the show’s deeper mysteries. This included staged happenings and secret websites. The producers of the show even released the novel Bad Twin, which was “written” by a victim of the Oceanic flight 815 crash, Gary Troup. Clues about the Hanso Foundation, the Valenzetti Equation, and Joop the ape were hidden in the book as well as on different fan forums and in YouTube videos. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s still going on.
J.J. Abrams must have been paying attention when his show, Lost, sparked a viral marketing boom as he utilized the technique with his film, Cloverfield. The first information about the film was a teaser-trailer that only revealed the movie’s release date. Next came different websites including cryptic puzzles and a drink called “Slusho.” The websites featured a numerical code that one could send a text message to and receive, in return, a sound byte of the monster roaring.
True Blood can chalk some of its success up to a great viral marketing campaign, as well. In another alternate reality game, secret websites were sent to bloggers and a MySpace account (remember when that was relevant?) was set up under the username “Blood.” On top of the Web presence for the show, the producers released a drink resembling blood called, yes, “TruBlood.” They even had stores and vending machines claim to be sold out of the product to create demand. Well played.
The Dark Knight was a perfect storm of timing, great filmmaking, and viral hype. The viral campaign started with the “I Believe in Harvey Dent” political rallies all over the country. This spawned a website that revealed the first image of Heath Ledger as the Joker –one pixel at a time. There was also whysoserious.com, which included a puzzle that could unlock a teaser trailer for the film. On top of this, a myriad of websites devoted to different Gotham City landmarks and political figures were created. All the hype created by the viral campaign snowballed into making The Dark Knight one of the highest grossing movies of all time –as well as a critically acclaimed, Academy Award winning film.
