Movie studios are finding cheaper ways to market their movies. A simple phone call froma Universal studio exec to a blogger, which lasted about 30 minutes was enough to seed a buzz. More reaction from the blogosphere here. It also shows that seeding the buzz is quite easy, if made correctly. It is an interesting development, but one of the reasons why viral marketing appeared is to put the little guy on the same footing as the big guy, enabling different companies with vast differences in revenues to compete more effectively in the same arena.
One of the better examples of a viral marketing campaign came from the movie Snakes on a plane. The movie execs wanted to change the name of the movie. Because of the efforts of people within the blogosphere, they changed the title back to Snakes on a plane. More on snakes on a blog. If you haven’t heard about the movie, the title aptly describes it. Samuel Jackson is starring in it.
Another successful example of a viral marketing was the ThatGirlEmily campaign. Whatiswillthinking gives pointers on how to spot viral marketing campaigns. Here is someone who spots part of the campaign in NYC. The premise of the campaign is a scorned wife named Emily who learns that her husband is cheating on her, decides to make his life a living hell for the next two weeks. Here are the more interesting parts of his astute analysis:
