Viral Adverts Research

Viral adverts help to spread the release of a new film or event and as the advert gets shared from person to person, interest in the film grows. They are an effective and modern way of gaining an audience and usually help establish what type of themes may be included in the film so that the audience know if the film will suit them or not. It is good for advertising lower budget or independent films as it does not necessarily involve the company spreading the advert around, but leaves it up to modern technology and the audience themselves. They can be spread through mediums such as social networking sites, emails, youtube or on actual fake websites created for the specific purpose of creating a buzz around the film. Merchandise can also be created linking to the film which will also help to garner interest, however the most effective way to use viral advertising is probably through youtube or email as youtube allows the advert to be publicised and is probably the quickest way for it to be seen or made famous while email means that it is sent from person to person in a chain that could go on forever. Some past viral adverts include:

Toy Story 3 "Lots-o'-Huggin' Bear" Advert
With the release of Toy Story 3 came many well publicised adverts, yet there was a rather effective viral advert that seemed to advertise the release of a cuddly bear with an uncanny resemblance to the evil Lotso from the film. The advert appeared to be from the 1980's and it was said that someone had uploaded the video from an old VHS tape; it looks like a real advert and the only way to tell that it isn't genuine is that it does not feature the 'Mattel' logo at the end. It was uploaded to Youtube and the fascination of why this bear looked so much like the character from the film sparked interest and gained it over a million hits. The idea of creating an advert to advertise a prop from the film is really interesting and I think it could be effective for both creating interest in the film and creating interest in the product if it was to be turned into merchandise, as the bear was. I believe that this type of viral advertising would be best to promote our film as we could use the remote to capture the audience' interest.

Contagion Bacteria Growing Window Display
Contagion used a literally viral advert to promote the release of the film, they used two giant petri dishes and filled them with bacteria in appropriate places so that the fungi would actually spell out the name of the film once it spread. They installed the petri dishes into the front of a store window in America and left them for the public to realise what was being spelt out. The petri dishes acted as a special kind of billboard and was a very unique and interesting way of introducing the concept of the film to the public. Since the film itself is about a virus spreading around the world and affecting the population, the billboard completely fits the film. The fungi also created hazard symbols and was really in detail whilst the billboard itself only featured the date of the release of the film. I think this is a really good way of making a statement about the film, and it did gather a lot of views on Youtube. If we could do an advert that literally related to our film, it would be really effective; the idea of doing a QVC style advert would mean that we could incorporate the biggest theme from our film, the idea of rewinding time, actually into the advert.

The Last Exorcism
For the film, The Last Exorcism, a video was posted on Youtube of a series of Chatroulette videos between unsuspecting men and a girl who was used to represent the point of the film. In each conversation she leads them on and pretends like she is going to undress for them, but as she starts she suddenly turns into a demon and starts screaming at the camera. The video got millions of views and is possibly one of the most watched viral adverts ever. We could use this type of modern technology plug in our film as we intend to create a fake ebay account so that we can use it to sell our remote to Jack. Using a modern site like Chatroulette means that a huge chunk of the population are targeted by the advert as many people know of or use this site, it is also a modern and interesting way of advertising a film.