Carrie
It may not have been the most extensive viral marketing campaigns for a movie, but Carrie did have a viral presence this year, and you didn’t even have to decode any messages or do any sort of traveling. No all you had to do was watch a video on YouTube. Though the film wasn’t the box office smash Sony was hoping it would be, the viral prank proved to be a huge success. The telekinetic coffee shop prank is the one of the top ten videos on YouTube this year. Ranking at number eight, the video took the world by storm by raking in 51 million views.
Oldboy
Another fun viral campaign for a movie that tanked at the box office was Oldboy. Despite being one of the worst movies of the year, Oldboy’s viral marketing was fun. Taking a page from the character’s 20 mysterious detainment, the people over at FilmDistrict created the Oldboy Hotel page. On it, viewers got a chance to see what Joe Ducett (Josh Brolin) was missing through 20 different posters, each of them covering a different event of the respective year. They also got fans to be a part of the experience by asking them #eattheclues. In this contest, participants would take photos of their Dim Sum entrees in hopes of winning actual hammer prop from the movie. Again, a fun viral, just a disappointing movie.
Pacific Rim
While Pacific Rim didn’t meet WB Studios’ expectations, it was great to cover the viral campaign. Part of that reason is because the film’s originality. It wasn’t adaptation or a sequel, but it was based in part of nerds and geeks’ fascination with mechas and kaijus. These mechanical behemoths were not only fun to look at, but they were also fun to create as well, as the marketing team gave us an opportunity to build our own. Not only that, but they also gave us a chance to take part in training to become a Jaeger pilot. Viral videos of kaiju attacks and forecast attacks gave the film more of a real world presence, and put the fan in the film, so to speak. The viral marketing didn’t just stretch to websites or videos of Ron Perlman selling Kaiju body parts – which some popular movie blogs received from the studio -, also posters as well. To top it all off, fans got to show how excited they were for the film by customize their social media pages with a Pacific Rim wallpaper generators
The Great Gatsby
The viral marketing campaign was a nod to the classic 1920s party style that is long forgotten, but lives on through movies like these. Fans got to create their own Gatsby-inspired logo using a monogram maker, and even had a chance to party like it was 1920 through various contests.
Iron Man 3
Iron Man 3 didn’t need any help on the viral marketing front, a film like Iron Man 3 doesn’t really need any help at all in fact. But with the film heading into Phase 2 of the Marvel Cinematic universe, a viral marketing campaign would give us a sneak peek at to what Phase 2 would look like. Disney had a lot of advantages in marketing a film like this considering that they have an entire theme park at their disposal. Suits from each of the respective films made their debut at the Innovations building in the Tomorrowland portion of the theme park. But that wasn’t the only thing driving the public’s interest in the film. Using the power of twitter, fans tweeted the #unlockironman to reveal a never before seen clip from the film.
So what were some of your favorite virals of the year?