Hollywood Goes Viral
Gone are the days when we can keep advertising campaigns “vanilla.” Marketers have to step up their game and bring something new to the table. The feature film Iron Man 2, is jumping on board the viral marketing campaign. Paramount Pictures has sent Superhero Hype what appears to be a fictional newspaper clipping detailing information on Tony Stark and his decision to reveal himself to the world as the heroic Iron Man.
So what exactly is viral marketing? That seems to be one definition that is clearly not agreed upon. For years marketers have tried to create innovative ways to incorporate their products and services into entertaining tactics to provide consumers a fresh perspective of their brand. This viral marketing has taken many shapes and sizes including social networking applications, YouTube videos, and advergaming. Below I have identified my top two favorite viral marketing campaigns.
1. Jack’s Links: a company that sells beef jerky and other hydrogenised meat products started to use advergaming as an advertising tactic during its ‘Messing with Sasquatch’ campaign. The first game, “Swing Big Stick,” allowed a player to swing a big stick, at woodland creatures. The second game, “Smash with Club” has the player smashing critters with a club. The third game is titled, “Don’t Wake Sasquatch.” The object of the game is to grab eight bags of Jack’s Links while Sasquatch sleeps. The fourth game, “Take Back the Jack” allows the customer to be Sasquatch and throw squirrels at hikers to prevent them from taking their Jack’s Links. In addition to thousands of Sasquatch-themed first-place prizes, each of the games gives one grand-prize winner $50,000 to “Feed Your Wild Side” any way he or she would like.
2. To promote last fall’s edgy vampire series True Blood, HBO created fake “Tru:Blood” beverage ads, vampire tolerance PSAs on YouTube, and a seemingly functional vampire-human dating site called LoveBitten.net. The stunts helped True Blood‘s Sunday night viewership grow 66% over the course of its first season — faster than The Sopranos did. True Blood has even tapped their way into social networking.
