As a newly-released movie, the last exorcism hadn’t received a lot of buzz during its promotional campaign (come on, how many movies can you make on exorcisms!?). The trailer for the movie appeared to be pretty bland as far as horror movies go, and it wasn’t until they campaigned online that interest perked up.
For those who don’t know what chatroulette is, it’s an interactive video chat site where you can talk to complete strangers through webcam. The site essentially pairs you up with someone else and you vidchat until you feel the need to “next” them. At that point, you are then paired up with someone new and the process starts over again. Here’s what happened when the promotional team of The Last Exorcism used chatroulette to advertise their film…
Overall, I think this method of advertising was pretty brilliant. I hadn’t seen anything like it before, and I can appreciate the fact that they’re trying something new. I particularly liked the way they twisted chatroulette’s purpose as it is sometimes used as a way of sharing inappropriate actions/behaviour. In this case, all viewers of the ad thought they were going to see a beautiful lady shed her clothing but were then devastated (and in some cases, traumatized) to find she was possessed. Whether or not the film bombed at the box office, I think it’s promotional work through chatroulette sparked a lot of talk, talk which worked in their favor. If you can get people to start talking about something, it’s a start and this method of advertising definitely did that. It was also smart of the movie’s promotional team to target a young demographic through a channel of social media that is really relevant to their lifestyle. I’m pretty sure The Last Exorcism isn’t targeting the grannies and gramps of today, hence their more modern approach to a younger audience and advertising channel. At the end of the day, I can’t say I’m interested in seeing the film, but I’m definitely interested in telling others about this cheeky campaign.
