Viral marketing are marketing techniques that use existing social networks to build on their brand awareness or to achieve marketing objectives such as sales of dvds. The way in which viral marketing works is by word of mouth and can take form of video clips, interactive flash games, ebooks, brandable software, images or text messages and consumers simply forward or inform other people of this media and they will inform their friends and family and the cycle goes on. This is where the name comes from as a virus replicates itself rapidly and a viral campaign works in the same way.
One viral campaign which caught my eye was the transport for London campaign called test your awareness.
http://www.dothetest.co.uk/
The purpose of this campaign is to inform drivers that it is easy to miss something that they are not looking for. This viral campaign is brilliant as they have combined the two main important principles which are surprise and competitiveness. This will hook the audience on to the viral campaign as it puts them to a challenge and makes them realise themselves the purpose of the campaign instead of the facts telling you.
The idea I have for my viral campaign for ‘The Vanishing’ is a clip giving information on the killer. I want to make the film seem realistic and the way to do this is by making a clip where the killer himself is telling everyone his background and why he is so blood thirsty. The clip will be around 0:45-1:00 minute long and will be based on a deep voice talking with a black screen. There will be images appearing every few seconds of the actions in which the killer done, for example, a handless arm or a man lying on the floor with blood on his face. This will gain interest as there will be no images of the killer supporting the voice which will create enigma.
I also had another idea which is a series of clips from CCTV cameras of a man walking around following his daily routine. The point of the clip is to support the idea that you might not be able to see them but they will be able to see you. The idea will support my film as in my film, the boys don’t know that the killer has their eye on them until he starts to kill them one by one. The message at the end will be presented in white text which will turn to red and start to drip down like blood. This will link to the horror genre and may physiologically affect the audience as the fact that you are filmed more then 300 times a day on average (supported by times online) will make people realise that they are always being watched as this viral campaign is based on facts.
