September 8, 2010

The Last Exorcism goes viral on Chat Roulette

I’m unsure about you but I love fun, creative marketing campaigns. I was a huge fan of VW’s The Fun Theory and Facial Profiler. Instead of continue to act as a casual observer I’ve decided to start highlighting and weighing in on these little gems whenever I find them. More importantly, such creative tactics need to be shared.

The Last Exorcism on Chat Roulette

I thought it best to start with something recent. The Last Exorcism is an upcoming mockumentary horror film. The marketers have decided to take the film to Chat Roulette, a popular video chat website (see embedded video).

Yep. Is that not one of the best Youtube’s you have seen in a while? So, what can we learn from this little corner of Internet marketing?

  • The message is closely aligned: When going viral we sometimes sacrifice message or brand relevancy. The viral videos and experiences created by The Last Exorcism are closely related to the core product.
  • Chat Roulette is the right market: Chat Roulette is not the largest or most prominent network. Yet, compared to other channels, it lacks advertisement saturation and is used by the films target market. It can’t get much better than that.
  • It is an experience, but fun to watch too: If I had the living daylights scared out of me I would remember, but I don’t want the boundary pushed too far. For a campaign to go viral the experience must be fun for those involved (or something they can laugh about later) yet still be fun for the rest of us to watch. In this case it clearly is.
  • http://www.murlu.com Murlu

    I liked the overall concept of this viral ad campaign but what really made it stink (at least for me) was the branding at the end – I know you want people to go for what you’re promoting but I think it would have been a hell of a lot better if it was just the girl changing then completely black.

    Instead of just the jaw dropping moment it would have been a lot more buzz.

    Wouldn’t went from “holy crap that’s scary” to – “holy crap, dude I saw the weirdest thing last night, it made no sense” in which they begin searching through the net to see if others experienced it and if they could get additional information.

    At that point, if there was some kind of sketchy looking site that “accounted” the sightings it could have created this larger marketing effort.

    Anyway, hindsight is 20/20 – just figured to throw in some musings :)

  • http://www.murlu.com Murlu

    I liked the overall concept of this viral ad campaign but what really made it stink (at least for me) was the branding at the end – I know you want people to go for what you’re promoting but I think it would have been a hell of a lot better if it was just the girl changing then completely black.

    Instead of just the jaw dropping moment it would have been a lot more buzz.

    Wouldn’t went from “holy crap that’s scary” to – “holy crap, dude I saw the weirdest thing last night, it made no sense” in which they begin searching through the net to see if others experienced it and if they could get additional information.

    At that point, if there was some kind of sketchy looking site that “accounted” the sightings it could have created this larger marketing effort.

    Anyway, hindsight is 20/20 – just figured to throw in some musings :)

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