Viral Media and the Motion Picture Industry and Beyond

Dagmawi Biru

EMAC 4372 – Viral Media

9 December 2011

Viral Media and the Motion Picture Industry and Beyond

Viral media’s increasing prevalence and influence in the motion picture industryis beginningto shift marketing tactics. The consumers of today have already become desensitized to traditional marketing strategies. The motion picture industry is only now beginning to see the stored potential in viral media. Some have made headway into this uncharted field. Neill Blomkamp’s District 9 launched a relatively small but innovative marketing campaign both online and offline that contributed to the movie’s success. Since then, quite a few number of motion picture releases have embraced viral marketing and at times even made it the centerpiece of their campaign. The industry has recognized that the efficacy of traditional forms of advertisement has declined. In order to capture the attention of an increasingly impatient anddesensitizedpopulous, the film industry is going to have to present their product in an innovative way.

This is where viral media comes in. Movie makers are using a variety of emerging methods to get the word out on the latest flick. The effectiveness of viral marketing methods is evident as the movie industryhas seen increased ticket sales and user participation helping spreading their product. Several research papers have also been published that illustrate the effectiveness of viral marketing. While there are a variety of ways that movie publishers have used viral media to sell movies, the three major apparatuses used are social media, consumer participation, and viral videos. These three methods work jointly to generatea cohesive marketing campaign that the older generation of marketingtechniques could never achieve.

Social Media

Social media has been largely overlooked in the early 2000s as a marketing tool. Before the birth of the “big three” platforms – comprised ofFacebook, YouTube, and Twitter – social networking was an afterthought for the motion picture industry (PC World).

Most internet users at the time were not as heavily involved in their online activities as they are today. People did not share as much information as they do today. Most prominently, the networking platform that the film industry craved for was nonexistent. Additionally, technical limitations also made viral advertising implausible. The data transferspeeds required to stream high quality digital content had yet to proliferate into the homes of mainstream consumers.

From 2007 onward, things began to change. Facebook, a once small time social networking platform for college students exploded in popularity, overtaking its slow-moving competitor MySpace and rising to the number one spot as the most visited social networking site in the world. At the same time, YouTube and Twitter followed suit in popularity as broadband internet became accessible to more households. The number of users for these platforms swelled, with Facebook leading the pack with more than 500 million users and counting. These networking platforms began to draw businesses and entrepreneurs as they added monetizing capabilities to their sites. YouTube started a partnership program that paid uploaders that had a high number of subscribers and views. Facebook rolled out an elaborate application programming interface thatpermitted third party developers to bring in revenue from the applications they create. Twitter introduced “promoted tweets” that advertised keywords or hashtags to their entire user base. The climate was finally beginning to be favorable for the movie industry.

Motion picture companies started using these networks to advertise upcoming movies. In March 13, 2011, a video surfaced on YouTube titled “how to hack video screens on time square”. This video showed a man who claimed to take a pill called NZT that allowed him to use 100% of his brain, which in turn allowed him to invent a device that hacked into the video screens on Time Square. The video, thanks to the now robust social networking platforms, spread to multiple sites which sparked a chain reaction. The video gained over three million views. The blogosphere was abuzz with questions about the authenticity of the video and the pill. After much speculation, the video turned out to be a doctored viral advertisement for the movie Limitless (Goodman).There was a certain level of backlashas with all viral advertisements.Undeniably “this is particularly important because the inappropriate use of viral marketing can be counterproductive by creating unfavorable attitudes towards products” (Leskovec et al. 2).Regardless, the video sparked a conversationon the subject of the movie. In that sense, the viral marketing strategy was a success. The Limitless campaign also launched a site called areyouonnzt.comwhich encouraged visitors to“try” the NZT drug that was featured in the movie. What’s the catch? Visitorshad to log into the site with Facebook. Connecting a Facebook account with areyouonnzt.com granted visitors access to the site. In return, the viral marketers who made the site gained access to the visitor’s profile, which also allowed the site to post messages on the visitor’s behalf. This strategy increased the virulence of the site and the marketing campaign.

ConsumerParticipation

The second method that the motion picture industry is using to sell movies is through consumer participation. Like social media, consumer participation has been enhanced through the power of the internet.Consumers are becoming increasingly engaged with the motion picture industry – they are becoming part of the marketing campaign. Scholars are taking a closer look at what is dubbed a participatory culture. Henry Jenkins, a communications professor with the University of Southern California has attempted to tackle this concept. In his book Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture, Jenkins states that “a participatory culture isa culture with relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement, strong supportfor creating and sharing one’s creations, and some type of informal mentorship whereby whatis known by the most experienced is passed along to novices” (Jenkins 3). Jenkins goes on to stipulate that participatory cultures have several forms embodied within them: affiliations, expressions, collaborative problem-solving, and circulations. These elements have been exploited by the movie industry as they are crafting their viral marketing promotions.

The first element is affiliations, or “memberships, formal and informal, in online communities centeredaround various forms of media” (Jenkins, 3). Social media platforms like YouTube and Facebook fit this role. As we have seen with the advertising campaign for Limitless, the marketing team attempted to create a community by building their site around one unified platform: Facebook.Focusing on one platform and one platform alone allowed the advertising campaign to spread efficiently through the social networking site.

The second element is expressions, which Jenkins interprets as “producing new creative forms, such as digital sampling, skinning andmodding, fan videomaking, fan fiction writing, zines, mash-ups” (Jenkins, 3). The Star Wars universe has a large audience, many of which actively participate in fan fiction communities, extending the storyline and filling in gaps that the movieshave left open. These fan fiction communities did not arise out of the promotions for the Star Wars films. The communities formed by themselves, bolstered by extended content released by LucasArts. The extended content came in the form of comics, books, journals, animated series, and other forms of media. The extended content is then modified into mash-ups and remixes by the community to further expand the fan fiction content. LucasArts is the ultimate beneficiary from this expressive community formed around the movies, and it has contributed to Star Wars’ worldwide success.

The next element is collaborative problem-solving, defined by Jenkins as “working together in teams, formal and informal,to complete tasks and develop new knowledge” (Jenkins, 3). Again, social media plays a large role in bringing people together and forming communities under a common cause. Promotional websites for upcoming movies sometimes use collaborative problem-solving puzzles to create a buzz around a movie. The movie District 9 released a website along with a series of mysterious promotional posters that read “Be alert! Non-humans seen in the vicinity. Report any problems D-9.com”. The cryptic posters along with the website attracteda considerable amount of visitors who went to their social networks, their blogs, and their friends in order to find out what it all meant.

The last key structure in a participatory culture is circulations, which Jenkins defines as “shaping the flow of media” (Jenkins, 3). Circulations play an important role in viral marketing. Bloggers, vloggers, and tweeters constantly convey information to their audience, thereby altering public perception of a movie. Film promoters often try to tap into these individuals to generate buzz around a movie. These bloggers and vloggers would spark discussions pertaining to a movie. The content they create may come in the form of testimonial-like blog posts or video diaries that encourage the community to respond and converse with each other. The outcome of the community interactions may not entirely positive. Terrance A. Shimp of the University of South Carolina states “Testimonials, by their nature, generallyare written after consumers have triedand gained firsthand product experience” (Shimp 455). Individuals who have watched movie may provide a negative review of their experience,which may backfire on the marketers.

ViralVideos

One day on YouTube, a grainy footage is uploaded for all to see. Within a matter of hours, the video has a few hundred views, then a few thousand. Within a week, the video has been shared across Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus. Within a month, it’s featured on the front pages of blogs and online news aggregators. A short time later, it’s being shown on the national television. This is a viral video.

Viral videos play an important role in film promotion. These videos act as a central object of interest that first attracts the audience toward the film. Many viral videos and viral trailers are often enigmatic, giving little information about the plot or setting of the actual film. They are created not to advertise the film but rather act as a social appetizer to create a community around the movie.

To promote the movie Contagion, the film’s marketing team set up a billboard made from cultured bacteria which wasat first not invisible to the naked eye. After a few days the bacterial growth slowly became visible as it spelled out the word Contagion. Onlookers horrified and fascinated by the bacterial growth took photographs next to the billboard. For the marketers, this was exactly their objective. The entire process was captured on camera and posted on YouTube, where the viral object was exposed to an even bigger audience. Form YouTube, the video was further spread throughout multiple social networking platforms, including Facebook and Twitter. It ultimately managed to get almost 500,000 views on YouTube alone. The entire production value of the viral video may not have been more than a few hundred dollars.

One component that stands out in many viral videos is its amateur quality. Indeed, a lot of viral videos that top the charts on YouTube and many other video sharing sites are not multimillion dollar productions. Rather, they’re recorded using everyday camcorders and cell phone cameras. The film industry has tried many times to emulate this authentic aura of home movies by recording their video with handheld cameras. Rise of the Planet of the Apes is one such example. For this movie, a series of viral videos were released on YouTube that suggested apes were beginning to show signs of higher levels of intelligence, which was the premise of the movie. The videos were shot with a handheld camera and were edited as a documentary. Most of these videos had anywhere from a million to eighteen million views each. The success of this advertisement can be directly attributed to its authentic looking visuals. While the video was shot in high definition, it still looked like something that the average Joe could have taped. The amateur recording style makes the video relatable to the viewer. It may not be the sole reason why amateur-like viral trailers are often successful. There are many other factors that go into it, but authenticity is a key element.

Conclusion

The various viral marketing techniques discussed in this analysis are not meant to highlight the film industry’s success in marketing their product. It’s to illustrate how influential viral media has become as a result of our advancing technologies that have made it possible to create more intricate social networks. The film industry is but only one of many industries that have taken advantage of viral marketing to convey their message.

In the end, the winner from viral media is the consumer. Before the internet, consumers were subjected to television, print, and radio advertisements that did not engage with them. Repeated exposures to monotonous advertisements have desensitized us all. The internet, social networks, and viral media changed all that. We are encouraged to participate with producers. Instead of filing lawsuits for copyright infringement, movie makers and marketers alike are encouraging fan fictions, wikis, and other collaborative activities that in the end benefits all parties evolved.

References

Goodman, William. "CBS News." Times Square hacking video was viral trailer for film "Limitless". N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Dec. 2011. < 20044736-10391705.html>.

"Google+ Climbs Up Social Networking Ladder." PC World. N.p., 27 Sept. 2011. Web. 11 Dec. 2011. < tml>.

Jenkins, Henry. Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture N.p.: MIT Press, 2009. N. pag. Print.

Jenkins, Henry. Convergence Culture: Where New and Old Media Collide. New York: New York University Press, 2006. Print.

Leskovec, Jure. The Dynamics of Viral Marketing. New York City: ACM, 2007. Print.

Shimp, Terence A., Stacy L. Wood, and Laura Smarandescu. "Self-Generated Advertisements: Testimonials And The Perils Of Consumer Exaggeration." Journal Of Advertising Research 47.4 (2007): 453-461. Communication & Mass Media Complete. Web. 23 Nov. 2011.

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