Cloverfield’s Viral Marketing

Cloverfield is already an interesting compilation of genres, with thriller, sci-fi, first persona and horror elements spread across all three films in a variety of applications. Along with the franchise being an interesting experiment of filmography, unique and interesting viral marketing was employed to promote all three films.

Cloverfield

The first film was ground-breaking in employing a viral marketing scheme where a website was created with the domain name; 1-18-08.com, this refers to the release date for the film in the US. The purpose was to create an atmosphere of enigma, as it was not clarified until later in the campaign what the date actually referred to. The site eluded to the famous Slusho! which instantly informed fans that this was indeed a J.J Abrams venture. With other clues on the site, fans took to social media to speculate and dissect the site to finds its true meaning. Eventually the more traditional marketing of a trailer was provided to appeal to the general audience, but fans of the genre and creator were already hyped.

10 Cloverfield Lane

The second instalment of the franchise used the films shift in genre to mislead audiences into not immediately connect the two films together and it was only later that they reviled the title for this film and its links to the massively popular first film. This marketing scheme’s strengths are with how well the deception tactic fits with the narrative of the film. It’s a much smaller more focused strategy compared to the first films and again that suits the narrative of the overarching connection between the films as the first film is located over ground in the sprawling city of New York and the second film largely takes place in an underground bunker. 

Cloverfield Paradox

The third and final film in the franchise was slightly consumed by production and budgeting issues, and therefore didn’t receive a theatrical release but instead was sold to the streaming service Netflix. Despite this last minuet circumstance, the marketing team still managed to produce a viral campaign that reached a massive audience. The Superbowl is one of the worlds largest sporting events and was not only used to advertise the film but also to launch it. During the advertisement section of the half time show, Netflix premiered an ad that informed the world that the film was now available to stream online. The ad then became viral, as so many half time show ads do. The most interesting part being that this was the first and only promotion for the film, probably because it cost so much to get the time slot at the Superbowl.                        

UK Weekend Box-office: April 19th – 21st

With DC’s newest film, Shazam! being in the cinema this weekend, it holds its place at the top of the chart and fatigue finally hit the Captain Marvel film. Its clear to see that any and all superhero films are dominating at the box office in this generation. The extent these films achieve is on a scale not seen before in box office history, these universal stories of good verses evil have sprawled to a massive phenomenon where films released theatrically are almost like new episodes to a TV show. The live action re-make of the Disney classic, Dumbo, means that Disney have again got two films in the three at the UK box office. These nostalgia driven re-imaginations always do well in the box office because it reminds one generation of their childhood while simultaneously introducing a wonderful story to a new generation. We have a completely new box office line-up this week apart from Captain Marvel, again show just how well comic book movies do at the box office. Compared to previous weeks, were we saw films hitting the £1 million and over mark, this week has seen relatively low numbers, which is odd because all these films are newer. This is probably a lull before the storm (the storm being Avengers: Endgame).                         

Galaxy’s Edge Disneyland

One of the worlds largest studios; Disney, brought the rights to one of the world’s largest franchises; Star Wars, back in 2012. Finally, one of the most exciting consequences of this purchase is coming to fruition. Disney are opening a Star Wars themed adventure in some of their selected parks. Here you can find all the information you’ll need to get hyped for the opportunity of going.

Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge rides

The main attraction to the Disney themed parks is of course the rides, so what do they have in store for us in the new Star Wars land? The first ride you will be introduced to is the Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run. This ride aims to realise every Star Wars fan’s dream of piloting the one and only Millennium Falcon. The ride itself will be a simulation style ride with up to 4 people taking the role of different cabin crew on-board the Falcon, these roles are; pilot, co-pilot, engineer and gunner.

The second rise is called; Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance and to fully comprehend what it will entail, you first have to know what Disney Dark Rides are. Disney Dark Rides are an immersive experience where you embark a vehicle that is guided along a track, be it a car along a track or a boat floating down a river. You will, along the way, pass wonderfully lit scenes of animatronics, music, special effects and narrative. For example, the long existing It’s a Small word and Pirates of the Caribbean both fall under the Disney Dark Ride category. The Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance will be one of these dark Rides that places you in action of an explosive battle between the dreaded First Order and the hopeful Resistance.

Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge opening date    

The official Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge opening date has been set for May 31st, although this seems to only be a test run until June 23rd. The interesting social media tactic was to announce this and at the same time generate a compelling call to action. the original Tweet incites viewers to like it to gain further information, this then allowed the Tween to gain traction online very quickly.

Once you liked the Tweet, you were instantly @ed a response to inform you that once reservations are available, you will be one of the first to know about it. The level of anticipation is increased and almost creates a competition for people to book their tickets immediate or they will lose out due to the tickets being sold out, thus ensuring that Disney will sell each and every ticket they offer to complete their target sample size to best test how good their rides are and the efficiency of their other services such as food courts, merchandise stands and queuing systems.       

Disney Streaming Service: What we know so far

For some time now, Disney have been preparing to enter the streaming wars. Firstly, rumours were the key sources of information but now the Disney streaming service name was announced, the Disney streaming service price was given in US$ and the Disney streaming service launch date has been set. With a multitude of streaming services available to consumers an analysis of released information can be compared together, giving the consumer a high level of power in deciding on substitutes.

Disney streaming service name

The name of the streaming service has been announced as Disney + which was, to me, surprisingly uncreative. The name seems to follow the trend of adding the addition symbol to any name and instantly give the connotation that it is technological and innovative. Apple another organisation that have recently announced a streaming service, have also gone with the addition symbol but this time they even extended their current Apple TV service to becoming Apple TV +. Two very large organisations that made their billions from leading the world in innovations in their respected industries, even collaborating in terms of Pixar Studios to create many of the best computer animated films, yet their streaming services that aim to disrupt the market have some of the most generic names I’ve heard. How could this be?

Disney streaming service price

For a black log, library of Disney’s greatest hits and a consistent stream of new content (hey, that’s why they call it streaming), it will only cost you US$6.99 per month. With a similar price rage as other streaming services such as Netflix, it also seems plausible that over time the price would slowly creep up. The issues here are that the streaming model, which was so innovative in toppling the cable package monopoly on entertainment, is becoming what it was meant to destroy. With so many services to subscribe to the overall monthly cost per house hold for entertainment alone will be massive.

Disney streaming service launch date

The date for the streaming service has been set to launch on the 12th of this November in the US. They have said that it will be alible in all major territories across the world, but how long we must wait is undetermined. With the Star Wars show; The Mandalorian and a slue of MCU tie in shows, I for one can’t wait to give even more money to this impressive monolith of an organisation, so with high audience anticipation I don’t estimate a long roll out period for the service to be accessible from the UK.    

Calculating Cinemas Worst for Ware Website Worries

With 811 cinemas in the UK, booking tickets online has become very popular. The customer journey for cinema goers has developed over time to become consistently streamlined. The ease of booking tickets online and receiving a digital ticket through email, the cinema chains also have apps for smartphones were users can access all the functionality of the website. The issue is that the technologies incorporated into the digital aspects of the box office always seem to be a step behind other industries.

Comparing the design of cinema sites with that of retailers, you can see that retailers put focus is on the online experience for the customers. For example, hmv have a home page more akin to an entertainment news site and therefor provide greater value to the viewer, cinema sites just don’t do this. It’s interesting to compare cinema site to hmv because similarly they both have had intense competition form digital disruptors, such as Netflix.  

A further evaluation of these cinema websites is needed, therefore I used the digital auditing tools; nibbler.silktide and website.grader. I took personal experience into account in choosing which sites to evaluate, this was so that I could align my personal opinion as a user with the numerical results of the auditing tools. The sites I chose are Cineworld, Showcase and Odeon, this incidentally is the order I would rate the user experience from best to worst.

However website.grader ranks them in a different order; showcase ranks first with 87/100, Odeon ranks second with 84/100 and Cineworld ranks last with 72/100. The main issue with all these sites is the performance aspect, with all the sites having pages that make a lot of HTTP requests, therefore it slows them down a lot.

Nibbler.silktide changed up the order again, showcase scored the highest again with 9/10, then it was Cineworld with a score of 8.4/10, and lastly Odeon with 8.1/10. Showcase’s largest problem seems to be with their mobile adaptation, personally I haven’t had any issue with Showcase on mobile but Odeon on the other hand I have had issues when using their site on a mobile platform and it is also reflected in their Silktide score. In Cineworld’s case their largest website floor is with the lack of descriptions for the internal links, this would negatively affect their ability to enhance their SEO.  

Having now analysed the technicals of each website my original ranking has changed, I would now put Showcase at the top and Cineworld second mainly because it performs better and because I haven’t actually used Cineworld in a while. Odeon would still be last though.     

Horror Movie Marketing Campaigns

Horror movies have always been held separate from other genres, it has a dedicated fan base that relies more on the genre than franchises, like the ones that rule the action categories. And with the recent resurgence of remakes and truly scary story telling being brought back by the like of Jordan Peele and his new film US we ask the question, how do horror films market themselves and is it different that other genres?

Action films have action stars, actors and actresses that gained fame through their daring stunts and high adrenaline sequences. Horror films have their vial and bloody monsters, the likes of Freddy Krueger, Jason and Pennywise. This is one main difference between the genres, horror heavily employs strong visuals to deliver its message, whereas dialogue and realism holds its place more in dramas.

Horror movies are always seen to be pushing one boundary or another, be it making as tariffing or gruesome a film as possible or creating a viral campaign for all of social media to be frightened by. This nature steams from the grandfather of horror Hitchcock. Cinema was a different experience before him, starting times were more of a suggestion than anything else, and it wasn’t until his film Psycho which ran the campaign of stopping people from being seated in the cinema once the film had started. The reason behind this was likely because of the films large twist, shall we say the lead actress doesn’t make it far into the film and unlike many horror movies it did sell itself on this star influencer and the new rule was put into place to avoid people walking in a believing the advertisements a lie and a sham.

From this many new and exciting marketing campaigns have been developed, with horror specifically allowing creatives and studios more room to experiment.