So I’m pretty sure we are all aware that during its initial release in 1984, the Ghostbusters actually had a phone number to call…and people did. “They got 1,000 calls per hour, 24 hours a day, for six weeks (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087332/trivia).”
According to Wikipedia (which is always 100% accurate, right?), viral marketing began in the 50s and 60s with the pyramid schemes and the like…thought they aren’t really considered viral marketing by today’s standards. But then it jumps to the mid- to late nineties and talks about Hotmail and “The Blair Witch Project” as being the first real modern viral campaigns.
So my question is: Was “Ghostbusters” the first real example of modern viral marketing?
I don’t know that having a phone number for people to call really counts as viral unless that telephone number had some way for people to then pass it on to their friends etc. If the movie was only a huge success because of some sort of underground word-of-mouth campaign then yeah, it could be considered viral, but it was pretty much a big budget film featuring the biggest comedy stars at the time. I don’t think that the ad campaign was really viral for Ghostbusters any more than the advertising for the upcoming Tropic Thunder is viral.
Back in the Golden Age of Hollywood, studios like MGM, Warner Bros., Columbia, and Universal and RKO would always intersperse messages alluding to upcoming films in other films (in “Outer Space Jitters”, the Three Stooges mention the 1957 movie version of Pal Joey; W.C. Fields did this similarly in “Never Give A Sucker An Even Break” by opening the film with a marquee of his just released “The Bank Dick”) or by making short films that had a movies cast appear and discuss the film in some context. Charlie Chaplin utilized a war bonds short to promote his own movie, “Shoulder Arms” in 1918.
So viral marketing has always existed in some context or another. DC Comics even used the 1-800 number to decide the fate of then-Robin Jason Todd.
Viral is just the hip new term for “word of mouth” - it expands the concept to include methods of communication that don’t actually use, you know, the mouth. Basically, the ability to send links or files via email or IM.
Ghostbusters was an incredible example of word-of-mouth marketing - it pioneered a lot of things that are commonplace today (like the teaser poster that just has a single logo or image, either to catch peoples attention or to alert those in-the-know that something is up.) The theme song created a decade’s worth of people trying to hype their film or TV show with radio air-play.
It’s hard to say it’s they were the first modern example though, since it didn’t involve the net. It’d be better to call it the pinnacle example of the pre-Viral marketing age though.
That is what I was thinking of. You put it better than I did.
I agree, the internet has basically turned into a giant teaser for the next movie. One thing that I can think of is the new movie “District 9.” From what I gather, this is kind of going the way of “Cloverfield” (which I know was as teeter-totter of love/hate). But how secret can a movie be anymore?
Is the point of viral marketing to get interest in the movie itself, or to make people think they know more about the plot than they really do.
Realizing that I’m asking for rotten fruit to be tossed in my direction I’m going to say that I was not a fan of “The Dark Knight.” The viral stuff just didn’t do it for me and when I actually saw it I was a little let down after ALL the hype. But back to “Ghostbusters.”
If the makers or the game were to start a viral campaign along the lines of what they did for “The Dark Knight,” how many would follow blindly for a glimpse of a few seconds of game play videos, or some “insider” information released a few hours early? I don’t think I would, but I would enjoy following the exploits of those that did.
It did have a sort-of modern Viral Marketing effect, though. I forget where I read it, but not only did the teaser poster not mention who was in the movie or what it was about (Just the logo and “Coming to save the world this summer”), but nobody knew what they were about during the New York filming. They’d ask what it was all about (the logo, the Ecto-1, the guys in the gear) and Harold Ramis would just tell them “Ghostbusters” in an in-character fashion.
I have to say that I’m already sick of viral marketing. Remember when everything about a movie was actually IN the movie? And it was all a big surprise? (Unless they gave away all the good moments in the trailer.)
In the last couple of years they start sticking things in the movie just to do it, not because it’s part of the story. I went to see Cloverfield because friends of mine said it was a good Godzilla-type monster movie. Unfortunately, one of the guys I went to see it with couldn’t handle the shaky-camera and had to leave the theater so he wouldn’t vomit, but otherwise I liked it.
Then afterward I find out that there’s all this crap hidden in the movie (“Did you see the logo on that guy’s t-shirt? You know, he was at the party in the beginning??” “No, I didn’t. I do remember a big monster kicking the crap out of the city, and a bunch of dumb yuppies babbling all the time.”)
When I first heard this, it made me feel like I missed a lot of stuff in the movie…and then I realized that I didn’t care. The time to obsess over all the details in a movie is AFTER you see it and it sticks with you. Then you can go around quoting all the funny lines to your friends for years. (“You’re only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!”)
I think it’s for people who have nothing better to do than dig through the internet for hours instead of watching porn.
Cloverfield was a perfect example of “I don’t have the freakin’ time for this shit”. I’m sorry, but as much as I enjoyed the movie ( I thought it was really good), I got really tired of the attempt to generate hype by keeping everything silenced EXCEPT for all the useless youtube postings and phony web sites. You literally were supposed to spend days of your life sifting and digging around for tidbits and clues. Really? Who is this obsessed over something they haven’t even seen yet? Several folks from the look of it. Personally, even when I was a high school student, didn’t have that much free time, let alone now as an adult. Sorry, but it was too much and tried to be too clever. It came off as too contrived and like a cheap copy of the marketing ploy used by the first Blair Witch movie.
It works for some films, and is executed fine sometimes. But the whole “Let’s spend hours figuring this stuff out!” just sorta irks me. I guess it’s because I’m an overworked college student, but meh. Viral Marketing is becoming so cliche now anyway.
I’m shooting a bit off topic, but one of my biggest complaints is trailers these days. I miss the good old days of real teaser trailers (bttf, 5th element) that actually did tease you, then the official full trailer still didn’t ruin the whole movie for you. I feel like I don’t need to actually see the movie anymore after I’ve already seen the 5 minutes of cliffsnotes. Sure there’s some past history of trailers screwing things up like with Search for Spock, but I think in general they just show too much these days to make a movie enjoyable.
I remember seeing the trailer in the theater for “Forrest Gump” and it just went on and on…Gump meets this guy, he meets that guy, he’s in Vietnam, etc etc. When it was over, I said, “And he dies in the end?” and a bunch of people around me laughed.