Awed

After watching an untitled trailer a few months ago, not until recently that I found out that the film is called Cloverfield. Searches on the net failed to provide more info on what the film’s about and all that are given is the trailer that showed a playback from a home video taken at some party when suddenly the earth shatters and when everybody went outside, the head of the Statue of Liberty came flying onto the streets. This was enough to get anybody curious wanting to watch when it comes out. And so me and Nadia went(without any high expectations) today. And OMG, the film was AWESOME! I’m not gonna give you any spoilers, but all I can say is it’s like watching The Blair Witch Project and Godzilla(or any monster movies) at the same time. Damn, it can’t get any better than this! The film’s topic that interest me the most was the struggle to survive. In fact, it was what drives the film. You have to see it yourself to know what I’m talking about. Please be warned that this will not be your usual film watching experience, get ready for a ride!

Part of the film success is due to its brilliant viral marketing approach; untitled teaser trailers, using Myspace for the film’s characters, highly controlled release of information, even during production they keep changing the title, scripts were not given to the actors during casting process(which was carried out in secret), instead they gave them the producer, J.J. Abrams’(from Lost and Alias fame) previous scripts. The same approach of marketing was done by Blair Witch; they made a fake documentary on Sci-Fi Channel about urban legend of the mysterious woods of Burkittsville, the location of the film, right before its release, put out posters of missing people of the film’s characters, even the film’s soundtrack was “from one of the characters’ mix tape found in his car”. Nine Inch Nails recently left some USB thumbdrives in concert hall toilets right after their European Tour show, that lead fans to secret websites, unreleased songs, “classified” videos, and a special gig(!). You have to check this one out! BRILLIANT.

I think this is the way marketing should be today(if not, try), not just for films or music, but any form of products or services worth using the method. People are tired of the old fashion, passive, one way communication promotion, they want to involve and experience the product beforehand. Marketing execs take notice(if you want to secure a few more accounts this year!).