Viral Marketing research

Viral marketing refers to the method of marketing whereby consumers are encouraged to share information about a company's goods or services via the internet. Viral marketing for film is good as it can help raise awareness for the film through a cheap and almost free marketing method. It has been effective for many films and our group has taken into consideration making a viral marketing for ours as an extra means to advertise the film.

One of the most effective viral marketing ads that i found was for the film The Dark Knight. This film had fans chase down dollars that were drawn in the Jokers likeness, hanging campaign pictures for Harvey Dent, and even calling numbers written in the sky. The pre-Dark Knight campaign involved headlines on real news sites, a travelling agency sending fans on trips around the world, and even a mock election. This type of viral ad involves the audience directly and makes them interact closely with the film while also marketing the film for the production company. It immersed many of the fans into the story and grew hype for the film which was effective for the sales overall.

One of the first viral ads ever was from The Exorcist. The Exorcists inextricable shock legacy was not but blindly but rather from first hand accounts of fainting, vomiting, and extreme psychological and spiritual trauma suffered by its initial audience. All of these stories, some of which were collected by YouTube use behind the Exorcist in the video below, built a world of mouth viral ad campaign, which ended up being incomparably effective in capitalising on morbid curiosity.



Lastly, the film The Blair Witch Project also used viral marketing when advertising its film. It did this by using fake documentary making the film seem to be about a true story that happened to these people. It used the found footage approach in its trailers and the film was shot like it as well which made it seem almost real.  It held the illusion by having a complete lack of credits, music, production value etc. which led to the film doing quite well at the box office and the big reveal that it was all a hoax made this viral ad one of the most famous and successful.