Viral Video for “In Time” Feels Familiar…For A Reason

A video hit the Internet this week that showed a guy taking a chainsaw to a parking meter. While this was definitely a cool sight, many people thought it was fake. Either way, the video got over half a million views on YouTube. So, what makes this MovieViral material? The “extended cut” was released yesterday, revealing the video to be a marketing stunt for In Time. Why does this sound familiar to our faithful readers? Find out after the break.

You may remember an article we wrote back in March about a similar viral stunt for the film Limitless. The same marketing ploy is used both times. First, an interesting video is posted on a new YouTube channel a week or so before the movie it is promoting and goes viral. Just from watching the video, you would not realize it was a promotional stunt. In the case of Limitless, it was someone hacking the jumbotron at Time Square. The video got over a million views and was featured on many prominent websites. Then, a day or so before the movie is released in theaters, a second video is released that expands on the first and reveals what it is promoting.

We talked about the backlash the Limitless videos got in our article, so it is a bit surprising to see the marketing company, Thinkmodo, try it again. However, this time the response (at least in terms of comments and thumbs) has been surprisingly good in the early going, but we’ll have to wait and see if that holds out in the long term. What do you guys think? Is this bait-and-switch viral video stunt effective marketing? Watch the two In Time viral videos below.

In Time opens today in theaters. Follow the sci-fi film on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.


Thanks to Michael Fisher for the heads up!