PReally?: The Marketing of Paranormal Activity

On the 16th of October, Paranormal Activity was put to general release and is one of the more talked about new film releases at the moment.

The plot is one which sounds perhaps a little too familiar — haunting/possession by demon, strange and terrifying occurrences, being filmed from the characters' perspectives in a gonzo Blair Witch/Cloverfield sort of manner, and so on and so forth.

It is not however the plot that is behind the hype, rather the marketing campaign behind it.

This campaign then must have taken some painstakingly deep thinking through — how else could a $15,000 budget film rake in $7.9m?

Well, not quite painstaking, but more through a tried and tested two wave publicity stunt.

The first wave of this was to create the initial suspense for the film's release by following the X-factor Power To The People paradigm. Using the wondrous power of Web 2.0, by going to the film's website, visitors are invited via a large yellow button to "Demand it!" to be shown in cinemas near them.

Cynics amongst us may say that this is just distributor Paramount's way of filling people with a false sense of authority over where the film is distributed — and of course, they are right. They fooled us gullible bastards once more! Damnitt.

The second wave of attack consists of a pseudo-competition to get a Paranormal Activity party to come to your cinema. To do this, we are invited to get as many people together to sell out the 12:01 showing of the film on the 23rd of October. The first ten cinemas to do so will receive a Paranormal Activity party.

Here then, in a double blow from Paramount's PR team, hype is built up through people demanding — with a big yellow button — to see this film, and coercing their nearest and dearest to join them; and then to snag the rest, to get said nearest and dearest to buy tickets for the 12:01 showing of the film in an attempt to sell out the film. Meanwhile the marketing team at Paramount get a nice bit of time to themselves for a cuppa and a biscuit while they watch the fruits of their labour roll in.

Simples.