xiik – Interactive Marketing

In the spirit of Halloween, I decided to choose a spookier topic than normal. Or should I say paranormal?

I took the liberty of spending the extra money and watched the newest scary movie rave, Paranormal Activity, in theaters the first night it was released nationwide. We arrived at the movie theater nearly 45 minutes prior to the showtime and it was already sold out, so we had to wait until the next showing. Talk about a crowded theater! But my question was, why are all these people here to see such a low budget film?

I’ve got two words for you — viral marketing. Now, when I said low budget, I wasn’t kidding. Paramount produced the entire thing for right around $15,000. With minimal research, I found that a normal feature film’s budget is right around $35 million. A nice piece of information to know. I’m sure you can do the math. Since the movie’s release, it has made over $65 million. Compared to its budget, I’d say Paramount, thus far, has made a pretty penny from the movie. So, how did they create so much hype over such a low budget and low quality film?

In one of our most recent blogs, I spoke about the Dos and Don’ts of Social Networking. Paranormal Activity used the internet and more specifically, social media, to spread this craze about some home-made looking scary movie that came out of nowhere. Twitter was one of the main focuses, having the title of the movie as a trending topic for weeks — that is very unlikely. We haven’t seen that strong of a trending topic since Michael Jackson’s tragic death. But, this says something about the power of viral marketing that targets social media and the youngsters of our generation. Paramount decided to create a website where people could demand to have the movie played in their city, saying that if it surpassed 1 million (which they knew it would) it would be released nationwide. Sure enough, it was released just about everywhere!

You’ve been waiting for my review of the movie, haven’t you? Well, I’ll say just a few things about it. For the budget, it definitely deserves an A! Yes, it was a classic shaky handheld camera, amateur actors sort of flick, but we were able to get past it and become engaged into the terror of this haunting. I have 2 complaints, though. First off, the ending was way too cliche for me. Literally cut the last 15 seconds of the movie and it would have been so much better. When you see it, you’ll probably think the same thing. Second, the sold out theater almost guaranteed some of those people in the crowd looking to clown and “try” to impress their dates by screaming out obnoxious things throughout the movie. (Sorry for the rant.) This movie would be a good one to have just a couple of people watch on a nice home theater system at home, cuddled up on the couch with some marshmallow flavored popcorn. Date idea? Hmmm…. You can thank me later.