This trailer looks amazing, and the story behind it has an interesting online pr/marketing aspect.
A few days ago, director Edgar Wright, one of the four famous people I follow on Twitter announced they would release the trailer early if the Facebook fan page got 100,000 'likes.'
They followed through immediately, posting the video early Monday morning. The cool thing about this approach is it opens a somewhat permanent channel to their fans between now and the August release through Facebook. I know for myself and a few others I asked, people tend not to bother 'un-liking' stuff unless it becomes too annoying. So, if they play their cards right, they will have at least 100,000 fans to view other content before the release and to springboard future campaigns.
This is one of the better examples I can think of using social media to create buzz over a product. What began as a single Tweet on Friday spread quickly due to the director's large following and frequent updates. Then it moved to Facebook where it reached 100,000 fans in about 48 hours. A quick scan of more main-stream entertainment sites and blogs shows that it got huge pick up, and most stories also mentioned how the campaign worked.
I'm a huge fan of the books and will post about them later!
This makes me wonder if a similar technique could be used by simple PR practitioners, or can it only be done by such a big name with such a large following? I guess, overall, whether it was through an agency or the director himself, word would have spread, but maybe not so fast.
ReplyDeletethis really does look like a great movie though, but Cera needs to branch out and away from George Michael Bluth a bit more.
Stephen D (CCPR)
It's amazing how well companies as well as individuals are using social media as way to creatively plug products/services. A UFC fighter that I follow on Twitter has said that as soon as 5,000 people begin following one of the companies that endorse him, a winner will be selected to spend a day with him on his boat (the company is Malibu Boats).
ReplyDeleteI think we will only see levels of creativity improve as we gain more experience with social media.