2. Background
• Simple Incorporation – During the height of MySpace’s
popularity, movie studios offered free layout coding, trailers, and countdown
clocks to put onto pages.
• The Power of the Trailer – Trailers become a social media
staple after Apple Trailers debuts and allows sharing. YouTube sharing sees a
significant rise, support on MySpace and Facebook grows quickly
• Facebook Pages – Pages, a feature incorporated into later versions of
the Facebook layout, allows movie studios to create fan pages for films. Users can
then “like” the movie to receive content updates, which they can, in turn, share
with their friends
3. Active Social Media Markets
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Eventful
• YouTube
• Google+
• GetGlue
4. What is Eventful?
• Eventful is: Eventful is a leading digital service connecting consumers with
entertainment and live events.
• Over 20 million people visit Eventful each
month – Users can find activities to partake in, from movies, concerts, and
sports to family fun and nightlife. Promoters can create their own events and share
it with the Eventful community.
• Demand It! – Eventful’s most successful feature – over 100,000 artists,
comedians, filmmakers, studios use Demand It! to interact with fans and
determine content and locations of performances.
• Social Media Marketing Campaigns – Eventful
maintains campaigns for artists, studios, filmmakers and more, including social
networking, email, mobile, and more
5. What is GetGlue?
• GetGlue is: A leading social entertainment destination where users check-
in and share what they’re watching, listening to, reading, and playing.
• Users earn rewards (usually stickers) for check
in’s – Users can request real copies of their stickers once a month (in intervals
of 30)
• GetGlue is partnered with over 50 major
entertainment companies – Including NBC Universal,
Dreamworks, Sony, 20th Century Fox, ESPN, etc.
6. Why Do Studios and Filmmakers
Use Social Media?
• To provide commentary and insight into the project in real
time (from production to release and beyond)
• For promotional contests and sneak previews
• Facilitating collaborative efforts with fans and undiscovered
talents
• To build hype and conversation about the movie
• Transparency
• Directing traffic to the movie website
• Sharing news, press releases, etc.
7. How Effective is Social Media?
• Box Office Profits show direct correlation to
social media activity – The Most Popular
Summer Blockbuster Movies in Social Media
• The success of The Help
• Making Avatar the most successful film of all
time
• Toy Story uses progressive media to reach an
older audience
8. The Rise of Viral Marketing
• Viral Marketing – Marketing techniques that use pre-existing social
media outlets to increase brand awareness or achieve other objectives, typically
spread by word-of-mouth through channels on the Internet. It may take the form
of video clips, pictures, websites, Flash games, software, or text messages
• Cloverfield – Released January 18 th,
2008 by Bad Robot, Cloverfield
launched its viral campaign on July 1st, 2007 with a cryptic teaser trailer attached
to Transformers. That day, the website 1-18-08.com launched, and featured still
photographs (more being added at random intervals), giving clues to the movie.
• Facebook Pages – The site began revealing pieces to a large-scale
ARG (Alternate Reality Game) in the fall of 2007, including fake (yet extremely
convincing) Facebook pages for all of the characters in the film, being updated in
real time. MySpace pages were created as well.
9. Cloverfield
• The title of the film was not confirmed until
November 16th, 2007
• Clues were implemented in ABC’s Lost, and
NBC’s Heroes
• Cloverfield went on to gross over $170 million
nationally
10. Made by Social Media
Cloverfield was one of the first films to have
success by promoting via social media, but in
2009, one film built a campaign entirely via
the Internet, and in turn, created one of the
most successful movies of all time.
11.
12. Paranormal Activity
• Filmed in 2007 for under $15,000, director
Oren Peli teamed up with Eventful in August
2009 to create one of the most successful
social marketing campaigns of all time
• The film opened in 13 college towns on
September 25th, 2009 – Audiences were encouraged to tell their
friends about the movie, and get them to “demand it” in their city by visiting
Eventful.com
13. Paranormal Activity
• October 2nd, 2009 – Thanks to viewers in only 13 towns, and a
single teaser trailer released quietly on YouTube, “Paranormal Activity” became a
trending topic on Twitter, and the Eventful Demand It! page had received 75,000
requests. To accommodate the increasing demand, Paramount Independent
quickly released the film to twenty additional major markets.
• October 3rd, 2009 – 33 screenings in 20 markets sell out,
Paramount Independent commits to releasing the film in an additional 40 markets
the following Friday.
• October 6th, 2009 – After receiving requests from virtually all
markets nationwide, Paramount agrees to release the film nationwide if users can
achieve one million unique “Demands” on Eventful.com
14. Paranormal Activity
Just How Powerful is Social Media?
On October 10th, 2009, the Eventful.com
counter hit one million requests (taking in
over 400,000 in the initial 24 hours)
Paramount releases Paranormal Activity
nationwide on Friday, October 16th, 2009
15. Paranormal Activity
• Paranormal Activity took the top box office spot
for the weekend of October 16th by substantial
margin
• Over 1,500 markets (including Bangor) held
special midnight screenings the first weekend, all
of which sold out
• Paranormal Activity went on to gross over $193
million domestically, making it one of the most
commercially successful horror films of all time
16. Paranormal Activity
• Sequels 2 & 3 – While Paranormal Activity’s legacy guaranteed its
sequels a huge national release, Paramount Independent again chose to partner
with Eventful.com (and their Facebook tie in application) to allow users to
“demand” the film be screened in their city prior to the release.
• Want to Host the Premiere? – The top vote-getter
would host the official premiere of sequels 2 and 3, with the rest of the top ten
receiving special screenings as early as a week before the wide release. Members
of the cast and crew appeared in each city to hang out with fans, chat about the
movies, and thank those who participated
17. Additional Social Media
Successes
• Grave Encounters – A 2011 Horror Film that used Eventful and
Facebook to rack up “demands”. The film eventually garnered so much attention
on the two outlets that Video On Demand providers for Time Warner Cable,
Comcast, and DirectTV agreed to offer the movie to their customers because no
major studio was willing to release the film domestically.
• American Reunion – Playing directly into their target market,
Universal Studios is relying solely on Facebook to promote the upcoming sequel to
the American Pie franchise. Trailers have been released based on “likes”, and
additional content is shared exclusively with fans prior to being made available on
YouTube, Apple Trailers, etc.
• Twitter Success – Jonah Hill (Superbad, Moneyball) recently took to
Twitter to encourage his followers to find him new fans and help him surpass co-
star Channing Tatum. If successful, Hill would “leak” the first trailer to he and
Tatum’s upcoming film, 21 Jump Street.
