JJ Abrams up to his usual shenanigans: SUPER 8 viral
JJ Abrams up to his usual shenanigans: SUPER 8 viral
May 10
Viral advertising shits me to tears. Any advertising that requires me to do work offends my sensibilites — you’re trying to sell me a product here, not train me to replace Sherlock Holmes, for Christ’s sake. My time is important to me, so I don’t want to waste it deciphering opaque clues disseminated by smug internet fanboys; attempts to drag me into some exclusive club of people who “know” something special fall flat every time.
So it was with heavily-rolling eyes that I read of the viral crap surrounding JJ Abrams’ secret new project Super 8. Abrams is directing, with Steven Spielberg producing; these two names, in that order, are enough to get me to see any movie, even if it was a Teletubbies feature. The ambiguous teaser which was attached to some prints of Iron Man 2 in the states only serves to pique my interest further: it’s shot in a classy way, and the teasing cliffhanger is appropriately compelling. Kinda reminds me of the District 9 teaser — which was ironically better than the actual film, but we’ll forget about that for now.
Seriously, go read slashfilm’s coverage of the viral marketing. It’s ridiculous. People had to freezeframe the trailer to grab a bunch of words, string them together, and type them into their web browser, which led them to a screen with a number that decreases by 5 every second; from this they calculated that the timer is counting down to the 15th of May, when, presumably, more information will come around. How does that help anyone? By the 15th of May, everyone would know about it anyway. How is a week’s headstart going to help? Are fanboys going to start doing crunches and thought exercises to physically and mentally prepare themselves for the “big reveal”?
Super 8‘s already got my ticket — I’m there, I’m sold, come hell or high water in a year’s time, when it’s due to come out — so why the elitist online bullshit mind games? The only people who care are the ones already knee-deep in Abrams worship, so who does this advertising really benefit? Anyway, someone bootlegged the Super 8 trailer and it’s on Youtube. Get it now, while it’s hot.
You dont need to do any work…movie blogs like slashfilm will do the rest, your job is to sit there, read and be amazed on how much effort they go into the viral marketing…JJ Abrams knows this, the viral marketers know this.
The fact that any work had to be done at all is the problem, not who's doing it. The right way to build mystery and ambiguity around a future project is stay 100% mum on the subject — exhibit A: Inception. I don't know shit about that movie, and I will be first in line on opening day.
(I really need to sort out my Disqus account, i dont get replies and find myself shifting through your site to see replies)
I didnt know shit about Cloverfield but i wanted to know more and i was there day one…Super 8 will be the same, you wont know shit till you see it. Hence JJ Abrams way of marketing films, and i like it.