In response to Jonathan Harrison’s blog post on using viral videos on the internet to market products, as they are rapidly shared by people to all of their friends and colleges is a great idea, but I see one problem with this type of marketing: creating the right type of video for it to be successfully viral is incredibly complex. Many videos hit the viral status, most recently Gangman Style, but when I think of a extremely popular viral video I immediately think of Rebecca Black’s “Friday” music video. There is no need to link the video as there is almost a 99% chance that you have seen it or know what happens in it. And that’s because it went viral, but for companies to copy this and get that type of viral awareness so that everyone knows who you are from one video can be very risky. Why?? Because many videos, such as Rebecca Black, get the unbelievable amounts of views due to the fact that everyone thinks they are awful and great for a laugh.

So, creating a video that can get the viral status but is actually enjoyed by the general public and not completely trashed is going to be extremely difficult for companies to do as they need to find the right mix of advertising with comedy, but not to the point that its hated but enough silliness in the video for it to go viral. I think that it would be very costly to conduct research to determine what would meet this requirement, and then all the money spent on the advertisement could possibly be a waste if it doesn’t go viral. In my opinion, I believe it would be better for companies to stick to more traditional forms of advertising (including bus stop ads, TV commercials  and social media marketing) as they have knowledge on what makes an effective advertisement, and leave going viral for people who have time to make those ridiculous videos to entertain the world and don’t care about the possible backlash they may receive from people.

Source: comingsoon.net

One of the most anticipated films of 2013 is without question J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek Into Darkness.  On concept alone, the movie will be amazing as J.J. Abrams has entertained audiences for the past years with such hits as Super 8 and Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, but Star Trek Into Darkness seems to be no exception from early marketing for the movie. But my focus in this post is to look at the marketing campaign that is getting the internet buzzing and causing even more anticipation for the films release in May.

Abrams is sticking to his usual marketing campaign of keeping lock down on the specific details of the film to ensure that audiences will be wowed upon the film’s release, but this campaign is causing much more chatter than his previous films. The marketing campaign officially launched on December 3, 2012 when a teaser poster was released featuring a mysterious figure (most likely Benedict Cumberbatch) standing in front of a damaged London with the Star Fleet logo made out of ship wreckage surrounding the poster. Following the poster, a vague description of the movie was released, giving no insight into the film apart from that the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise will be up against a deadly villain.

Abrams added that the film would feature a re-visioning of a classic Star Trek villain, with Benedict Cumberbatch in the role of this unnamed villain. Questions and multiple internet theories have been raised since the casting of Cumberbatch as to what Star Trek villain he will be portraying, with the Khan and Gary Mitchell, but so far no information provided in the marketing campaign has given any hints as to who he is! Fans had hoped that all would be answered when the film’s first trailer was released days after the poster was released, but only more confusion was created.

Through only the release of the teaser poster and trailer, Abrams’ marketing campaign for Star Trek Into Darkness has removed the focus from other summer blockbuster releases, such as Iron Man 3 and Man of Steel, and focused it all entirely on who is Benedict Cumberbatch is portraying.

(Continued in Part 2)

(Click here for Part 1)

Abrams followed along the choices of Christopher Nolan (Director of The Dark Knight Trilogy) to release the opening scene in IMAX in December with the release to The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey as Nolan did with both The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises. The move worked for Nolan, and so far has seemed to work with Abrams as the 9 minute opening scene was met with positive reception and helped set an record for largest December opening for an IMAX film to date. Kicking off 2013, it was revealed that

Source: comingsoon.net

Cumberbatch would be portraying John Harrison, who conveniently enough doesn’t exist in the Star Trek universe so is most likely a pseudonymous which is straight out of Nolan’s playbook as he did the same thing for both Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Marion Cotillard’s characters in The Dark Knight Rises (and in addition to following the same moves of The Dark Knight, the whole marketing campaign is very much mirroring The Dark Knight which is playing on one of the most popular film franchises in the past year to get fans even more excited about the film.)

But Abram’s biggest move was with the Super Bowl. Days prior to the Super Bowl, an app was launeched that allowed fans to interact with images and trailers to gain exclusive content about the film, with a second surprise coming when fans used the app while the TV spot played during the Super Bowl. And now, after Super Bowl, the surprise is something very unusual but exciting: fans who have used the app and interacted with the Super Bowl TV Spot have the opportunity to buy tickets to advanced screenings of the film on May 15 in IMAX 3D (two days prior to the film’s wide release on May 17) exclusively through the app. Still nothing as to who John Harrison is, but none the less fans are dying to know, and this marketing strategy has definitely worked on this fan who already has his tickets via the app for the advanced screening and is anxiously waiting May 15 to figure it all out!