Further research- Viral marketing

To further my research, in order to get a grip of the type of campaign I am trying to achieve and based on the case study of Cloverfield, I thought I should delve deeper into what viral marketing actually is and what mediums it cover. By the end of my research i should have a rough idea of what type of viral campaign I will approach to create my promotion package, whether it bean online or print campaign.

Viral Marketing- Viral marketing is the term referred to the marketing techniques

that use social networks to get a brand going. They use the virus effect to 'infect' people with the next big thing. Viral marketing has been a success for films such as Cloverfield, The Dark Knight and Inception. Viral marketing is also created through word of mouth, which is where Viral marketing excels as it couses a chain reaction, a friend tells a friend who tells another friend.

Web 2.0

Web 2.0 highlights the new generation of online users to interact with anything and everyone, wherever they are in the world. Buzzwords such as mashups and flaash have evolved the web as it is allowing the capacity of the user to be endless. Social networking (such as Facebook and Twitter) and file sharing sites (Youtube And Flickr) have paved the way for users to control whatever goes on the internet. Web 2.0 has opened the door to so many new websites and software, making the internet an essential part of daily life. Many film promotions use this medium for distribution of its products such as trailers.

Forums create the ideal environment for people to discuss and debate about the 'hot topic', allowing people, that do not neccessarily have to know each other to converse about the latest film or new leaked information about and upcoming production.

Facebook :-Facebook is probably the most popular Social networking site out at the moment, allowing people to converse over the internet, sharing photos, statuses and comments. Facebook was released in 2004 and already has 500 million active users. Many films companies and producers have a generic facebook account with updates on the latest news. the ability to create and like groups, creates a micro-cosm of a soceity and the publicity builds on these foundations.

Twitter:- Twitter has also been in the social netwrok market, being more popular with celebritis that facebook. Twitter allows the users to type a message no lojner than 150 characters, 'tweets' , providing short sucsynced messages. Most websites advertise to

share their information through twitter, such as YouTube which have an option to share the video just watched on Twitter. Actors and film magazines, in particular, hat are on twitter help

to promote films and advertise them. For example actors can leak information about how their day shooting for the new film that they are in has gone. Since the messages cannot be longer than 150 characters it also doesnt give much away. Film magazines, such as total films, post links to articles about the latest news gossip. To a degree Twitter could be classified as the online 'Word of mouth'.

YouTube:- YouTube is the largest video sharing community on the internet, with a staggering 24 hours worth of video uploaded every minute, with the website itself getting over 2

billion views a day. Youtube is the ideal community for people to share and comment on videas and it has become a very important website for film companies and film makers to promote their films. Nearly every film company has a YouTube channel, which includes trailers and promo videos. Aspiring young film makers also have the chance to put their films and get them noticed on Youtube, creating a buzz about the next big film maker. YouTube would be part of the core of promoting and film, especially virally.

Myspace:- Myspace was once the king of the social networking, where users create a webpage and can customise their page to whatever they desire. Myspace was used primarily to promote bands and share their music. Arctic monkeys became famous through myspace and now they are one of the most well known indie bands. In addition to this myspace was also u

sed for film promotion. For example, The characters from Cloverfield had their own fictional myspace page to present them as real people. Also, the films soundtrack could be put on myspace as a way of expanding and exploiting all its opportunities to promote. The idea of characters of my f ilm having a social networking page would be a good idea and would be considered as it would be fit for purpose of a viral marketing campaign.

Flickr:- Flickr is a picture and video hosting allowing users to post images on the internet. Flickr has now over 5 billion images on its site. Flickr would be an effective way of promoting a film as it could leak photos of a viral film that is being anticipated and could promote its posters as a digital format or ambiguous images to leave hints and building up a buzz.

RSS:- RSS feeds allow people to follow whatever news the want and it will be presented to them on their homepage. RSS feeds are an easy way to get information across to the globe. RSS helps spread the word of official news instantly and effectively. New films or content for a film can be accessed one click away from your homepage.

All these Web 2.0 aspects provide me with endless possibilities into how I can get my promotional package across as the wide range of integration between social networking and the ability to put my work on the internet, where people around the world can see it and have their opinion and even receive feedback over the internet, as well as advertising my work virally.

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Research- Promotional packages

Cloverfield

A good example of a promotional package would be the marketing campaign of films such as Cloverfield, where the effectiveness of its campaign gave it the success it got.

The viral marketing campaign that Cloverfield implemented started off with a teaser trailer before a showing of transformers in the summer 2007. This teaser trailer only included video footage from the film and did not include key things such as the actors, director and didn’t even include the title card of the film. The trailer included the familiar sites of Manhattan with the unfamiliar dark look it and the iconic head of the statue of liberty crashing through the streets of Manhattan. The only information the teaser trailer leaked was the release date, January 18th 2008. with this information The film inevitably led to a lot of hype to the film, making people {teenagers especially) go online and extend the hype by asking questions and setting up forums to discuss what this nameless film was, hoping that someone would know. Furthermore, the unfamiliar portrayal of Manhattan, a world known place added interest to the world and the followers of the film became a cult, starting small and turning into something very big.

The makers of the film Paramount kept it very secretive and only leaked prompts and teasers when they felt like it. On January 7th 2007, the director of the film JJ Abrams confirmed that there was only official site for the film and was labelled ‘1-18-08.com’. With the website’s address the release date of the film it just led to even more digging by users to try and get what this film was about. On this website you could find a series of photos that were dated, leading intrigue and the Cloverfield world was getting bigger by the day. In addition to this, if the web page was left open long enough you could hear a roar from the monster.

When November 2007 came, a second trailer was shown before the screening of Beowulf. This trailer confirmed the title of the film ‘Cloverfield’. With this title finally uncovered, the fans that followed plus more began to dig again, since it was such a long time between the releases of material. With this, Cloverfield.com replaced the previous website and more content was revealed such as the trailer. The number 33287 was displayed on the website which allowed people to text the number and receives a monster roar ring tome and a wallpaper of decimated Manhattan. The number was also a promotional technique for the country as everybody got material from Iron Man, Kung Fu Panda and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. In addition to this, the Fictional characters of the film had their own Myspace page to promote the film further, using all aspects the new generation online users.

Along with this, Cloverfield also incorporated Slusho! ( a Japanese drink company) as a part of its campaign, which also extended its fan base as it gave away free t-shirts at the comic con presentation of Cloverfield and users that registered with the Slusho! Website received emails close to the release with fictional sonar images of a deep sea creature heading for Manhattan.

Cloverfield had a budget of $25,000,000 and if it wasn’t for its very successful marketing campaign it wouldn’t have made its gross revenue of over $170,000,000, more than 6 times its budget, deeming it very successful.

Researching, Cloverfield has given me ideas for my coursework for working around a viral marketing campaign and including other things that will lead the target audience to become excited by my idea. In order to do this i have to come up with a viral campaign plan and a timeline of deadlines for the things I want to create, it should start off as ambiguous and symbolic and gradually become more obvious.

Development stage schedule...

Development Stage Schedule

This is the schedule I will be following throughout my starting stages of my coursework. This will give me rough guidelines into what needs to be and will discipline to set deadlines. Also by doing a schedule for each of the stages in my process it will add the professionalism to my work, following the industry norm by carrying out guidelines.

Finalised chosen task

After careful thought and weighing up the strengths and weaknesses I decided to go with the teaser trailer brief as I believe it will be a project that I will enjoy and dedicate myself a lot to. After choosing my coursework brief, my next steps are to research my area of the industry, in this case film, and develop a detailed research report that will help me to produce my coursework, using the industry codes and conventions.

I will thoroughly research the film industry and promotional packages as my knowledge isn't as developed as that for the ancillary tasks which are prints (something I have learnt to do at AS level). For my promotional package I will have to include:

-Teaser trailer (lasting around 1:30-2 minutes)

-Other material such as exclusive posters

For my prints, one of the ancillary tasks I have to create a Movie poster for the film I create, something I will have to research current film posters and look at the typical features of them, making sure that I include them in my piece of work. My other ancillary task I have chosen to do is a magazine cover for a film magazine to include my film. I chose this task to compliment my main task as I believe it plays to my strengths as I did a magazine production for my coursework last year, the only difference is that i had to do it for a music magazine last year.

Over the next week or so I am hoping to complete my research I have made a decision to start with the main task as I think it will help me produce the ancillary tasks as I will have material such as photos to use for the poster and magazine.

Introduction to A2 Coursework

Today I was given the 13 set briefs for the A2 coursework. After looking at all 13 briefs i realised that with the capacity of my ability and the resources at hand I couldn’t do every single brief to a high standard. With this in mind I narrowed it down to a few that I think I would enjoy and could do well to the required standard. In addition to this, I narrowed it down to the ones that I would be committed to and wouldn’t have second thoughts half way through it, so I balanced to pros and cons of each one.


Set brief 2


A promotion package for a new film, to include a teaser trailer, together with two of the following three options:


· Website: homepage for the film
· Film magazine front cover: featuring the film
· A poster for the film


With this brief I thought it would be a fun and interesting project as I have an interest in films and would think that it would be playing to my strengths to a degree as I have done tasks like the ancillary tasks before. Furthermore, part of the AS course was to look at film processes and I looked at many case studies, especially viral films which included a lot of ‘teaser’ material. The two print tasks would be my best option for the ancillary tasks (magazine front cover and poster) as I did magazine covers for my AS coursework and I’ve had experience making posters for films.


Set brief 4


A promotion package for a new computer/video game, to include two TV advertisements, together with two of the following three options:


· Cover: cover of the game’s package
· Website: two hyperlinked pages from the game’s website
· Advert: magazine advert of the game


Brief 4 was the other task I decided would be on my shortlist as it was one of my pastimes in life and I thought what better task to do than one I would thoroughly enjoy. Also, the ancillary tasks would bring in the many skills I learnt at AS level. If I were to do this task I would probably do the Print tasks as the two ancillary tasks (advert and cover) as it would play to my strengths. However, although I would be passionate about this task I would need to research everything from scratch as my knowledge about the ‘behind the scenes’ of promotional packages of video games.


After weighing up which one would be my best bet, I carried on m thoughts for a couple of days thinking of ideas I could for each task and which one I think I could do without diving into a territory which i decide half way through wouldn’t be good enough.