A viral marketing campaign

Cloverfield

What is a viral marketing campaign?

To create hype and interest, advertisers and media moguls use viral marketing. If done correctly, viral marketing with the help of word of mouth, can generate huge publicity. Anther form of viral marketing is social websites such as; facebook and hotmail. The internet is a great form of viral marketing because it can reach mass audiences almost instantly.

Cloverfield synopsis. Cloverfield, is a movie based on a group of

friends who live in New York. They host a party to say goodbye to their friend, who is moving away. They decide to produce a film with goodbye messages on. However, when disaster strikes, they begin to film their hopeful and terrifying escape from the monster in New York. At the beginning of the trailer and the film, the words- ‘multiple sightings of the case designate “Cloverfield” camera retrieved at incident site U.S. 447 Area formerly known as central park.’ The film uses a handheld camera, which creates two effects; firstly it gives the film an edgy and original look, as if the footage could be real. Secondly it produces a documentary feel, which is reinforced by the fact that the ‘camera man’ (one of the main characters) documents what is happening and talks to the audience, ‘pulling them into the film’.

The viral marketing campaign for Cloverfield!

When the teaser trailer was first released, it was believed to be related to the website, www.EthanHaaswasright.com, this website had the same conspiracies as the film, making the film appear more realistic than was first thought. It was later released that the official site was www.1-18-08.com, yet other websites were designed to help market the film.

www.1-18-08.com

This site had pictures of characters and explosions, with times and dates on (1-18-08). If users were on the site up for long enough, the could hear the monsters cries. The site had no other information, leaving users confused and still curious as to what the conspiracy and film was about. Eventually, an official website for the film was produced, which had trailers and a number to text for merchandise, including ringtones. This helped to create a more movie like feel.

Creating confusion

The producers of Cloverfield, tricked the audience and helped keep them interested by constantly changing the name, for instance; 1-18-08 (USA) (promotional title) Cheese (USA) (fake working title) Clover (USA) (fake working title) Monstrous (USA) (promotional title) Slusho (USA) (fake working title) Untitled J.J. Abrams Project (USA) (working title)

MySpace posts

The producers also created MySpace profiles for some of the characters. These profiles contained; pictures, videos, blogs, etc. This created lots of hype and confused possible viewers, as it made them question if the characters were real people.

Slusho

The creators of Cloverfield, produced a website www.slusho.jp, this was the name of one of the speculated film titles. The site was Japanese and showed a drink (which was in the film). On the website, users could look at the history of the product, different flavours and so on.

The poster

The original poster for Cloverfield, showed a shocking image of the statue of liberty with the head blown off. Also in background we can see New York being destroyed but it is not clear what is the cause. The only information given on the poster is the date, which is the movie release date. However first time viewers would not have known this was a film poster.