Viral Horror: The Paranormal Activity Campaign
As the Internet increasing empowers the voices it’s every day users, Hollywood places more and more reliance on audience members to spread the word about new films. Nowadays, it’s not uncommon to see studios using creative marketing techniques in hopes of becoming viral, such as Disney/Pixar’s campaign of faux-vintage toy commercials implicitly promoting Toy Story 3. However, one of the pioneers of this audience-members-as-grassroots-marketers method was a 2009 digital horror film with a miniscule budget– Paranormal Activity.
After Paramount bought the rights to the independently produced found-footage feature, they gave it a limited release in September of 2009. Following a successful but small first run, Paramount launched a “Demand It” campaign on the Paranormal Activity website. Visiting the site, fans could select a “Demand It” button and request the film be screened in their hometown/city. If a million people demanded the film, it would be released worldwide. The website encouraged people to spread the word about Paranormal Activity, and provided an easy one-click sharing option. Twitter and Facebook proved to be most effective in this campaign, and within four days the one million demands had been reached.
Once Paranormal Activity premiered, the studio kept the film’s social media presence hot by encouraging audience members to “Tweet their Screams” – write about their experience via Twitter. This facet also proved to be highly successful, helping the film to gross over $100 million as well as become a well-known staple in current popular culture. The film’s subsequent three sequels have continued to use the “Tweet Your Scream” (@ParanormalActivity) promotional tool.
Even though the fourth film just came out this month, the franchise seems to be broadening to more indirect social media tactics for what appears to be the fifth installment. As Dread Central reports, clues about the possible next film have surfaced via a Facebook and YouTube account belonging to a “Jacob Degloshi.” Though Mr. Degloshi has only posted a few things, minute details in his videos and statuses hint that he is a fictional character existing in the PA world. Fans of the series (as well as non-fans that just happen to be curious about this interesting marketing strategy) are sure to remain vigilant, just as the studio intended.
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