How many people have a least one movie or movie character’s profile on their friends list? I know I have the whole cast of characters from the recently released film “John Tucker Must Die” and the entire cast from “Clerks 2” on my MySpace. It seems that the easiest way to promote your teen oriented films nowadays is to create a giant MySpace campaign.
MySpace profiles have popped up in the last year for virtually any and all movies coming to theaters. Indie films such as the Dixie Chicks documentary “Shut Up and Sing” has a MySpace, along with the horror franchise of “Saw” movies. MySpace profiles, in some cases, have become the “official websites” of a particular film, such as the New Line teen thriller “The Invisible.”
How many people have signed up for MySpace’s “Black Carpet” project? This is where you, along with a printout of your MySpace profile, are eligible to get into free movie screenings. This recently happened to great acclaim with the movies “Borat” and “Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny.”
Other recent ways movies, conjoined with MySpace, are getting awareness out is through contests. I entered a contest for the film “Marie Antoinette” where I had to use pre-approved images and layouts to create the best “Marie” themed profile in order to win a shopping spree. While I didn’t win, that profile stayed up for a good month, allowing me to slowly absorb the fact that the movie was coming, and showing everybody who visited my site that the movie was coming as well.
And this is where the brilliance from this type of marketing comes from. Thousands of teens visit MySpace every second. Ask any movie promoter and they’ll probably say that the core demographic in terms of movie viewer ship is 16-25 and mostly female. Last August, a hard core campaign for the dance movie “Step Up” played out on MySpace. Not only did this allow the movie to become number one at the box office, something that none of the box office predictors counted on, but made thousands more aware of the film. Little known films such as “Shut up and Sing” have gathered awareness through grassroots MySpace campaigns.
It is also incredibly easy to promote a movie yourself. I know my MySpace profile has become an unintentional Mecca to the movie “The Invisible.” For those who don’t know, this film is a teen thriller starring “War of the Worlds” actor Justin Chatwin. After he’s attacked and left for dead, his body is in limbo and he must solve his own attempted murder before he dies himself. Now after seeing this film in theaters I knew I wanted to see it. Without my knowing it I have unintentionally made every person in my friends list, all ninety four of them, aware that this movie comes out January 26th.
How exactly did I pull this off? I have the movie’s profile on my Top Friends list; I have the trailer on my page along with a music video from the band Sparta cut with clips to the film. This is how easy it is to get viral marketing out to thousands of people. Any person who visits my page will now be inundated with info about this movie.
Fans can do this anytime they want, you don’t necessarily have to make a page in the name of the film. If you like a particular film, you can simply stick the movie’s poster on your page, or link to the trailer. With this type of marketing true dogs such as “Little Man” can become number two at the box office, something that actually happened with the help of MySpace. Or you can become like me and become obsessed with a film and hope that one day New Line will acknowledge how you helped make their movie number one…hint, hint.
Links to check out
The John Tucker profile
Clerks II profile
Shut up and Sing profile
Saw 2 profile
The Invisible profile
Step Up profile
Little Man profile
My "Invisible"-ed profile
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