Cracked’s List Shows How A Viral Can Backfire Kris, June 18, 2010 When it comes to alternate reality games, the more believable and interactive, the better. It’s wonderful experience we love, except for when it backfires.I’m not talking about when its structured sloppy, I mean when it is far too real for its own good. Cracked made a list that covers such a topic. The article, “The 6 Most Insanely Misguided Attempts at Viral Marketing“, includes the Splinter Cell bar scene. To sum it up, what was supposed to be a played out as a bar room hold up and rescue got only half way through the 1st act because it was disastrously to convincing. Cops came in, took down the fake criminal, with a fake gun, in a fake hold up. The guy must have been a great actor. Movies have fallen victim to the same problem. Cracked’s list includes the Boston Bomb Scare from the cheap Aqua Teen Hunger Force campaign. Going back to our roots though, The Blair Witch Project viral, the father of all movie ARG advertising campaigns, did pretty gutsy moves. All it took was a website to make the movie convincing enough to be considered as an actual documentary. As a more recent example, Sony Pictures’ 2012 had a very wide and complex campaign. From the Jackson Curtis Facebook Page to Soren Ulfert’s blog and complex messages, it was hard for newcomers to tell if it was true or not. In fact, the marketing company had to explicitly brand their campaign to keep people from thinking the 2012 doomsday myth had been proven real (which some still did). It all comes down to planning, but sometimes even that’s not enough. But keep in mind: do you really want an obvious ARG? Is it better to confirm an ARG? Of course not, it dulls the experience, as we mentioned last year. For all intensive purposes, I say keep it realistic as possible. Not only is it more fun, but you gotta be brave enough to do it. Viral Marketing Viral News 2012Aqua Teen Hunger ForceCartoon NetworkSplinter CellThe Blair Witch Project
“Star Trek Into Darkness” Villain Takes a Page from General Zod in Viral Video April 20, 2013April 20, 2013It’s easy to forget that Summer blockbuster movies open internationally, especially when the marketing that is not often tailored to them. Paramount’s Star Trek Into Darkness, however, has a viral video on a few international versions of Yahoo! and official Facebook pages where the antagonist John Harrison (played by Benedict… Read More
LOST Viral Videos Show Fans Still Have Questions May 25, 2010We’ve posted a lot of LOST viral videos here at MovieViral, especially in the last week or so. Many videos posed questions that they wanted the final season and episode to answer. I expect now that most of the videos people make will be about the questions the show didn’t… Read More
Video: The President Hasn’t Seen Rocky November 8, 2010There are two things people are passionate about: Films and politics (OK, maybe there are few other things too). CollegeHumor mixes the two together in their latest original video, as the President (played by Patrick Warburton) admits during a press conference that he has never seen Rocky. The press in… Read More