Weekly Poll Results: Best Viral Marketing Campaign

Posted by on July 23rd, 2009   Filed under: Polls

pollresultsviralmarketing

Last week’s Film Junk poll stretched beyond movies and into their marketing, and we asked you to choose the movie that had the best viral campaign to date. Coming out on top was Cloverfield, followed closely by The Blair Witch Project — two movies where the marketing played an obvious and essential role in their success. The Dark Knight and District 9 also received quite a few votes, while the rest of the choices were clumped together near the bottom of the pile. I’m a bit surprised Watchmen didn’t get more recognition, but perhaps all the comic book fans voted for The Dark Knight. Do you agree with these results?

1. Cloverfield — 27.7%
2. The Blair Witch Project — 25.8%
3. The Dark Knight — 15.4%
4. District 9 — 14.8%
5. Borat — 4.9%
6. Snakes on a Plane — 4.6%
7. Funny People — 2.5%
8. Watchmen — 1.5%
8. Tropic Thunder — 1.5%
10. Transformers — 1.2%



  • Whahathah

    Am I the only one who have never seen any of these viral videos before? If i search, i find some, but is there site that shows all the movies that have viral videos?

  • Glendon

    Cloverfield without its title and people were interested. However, Blair Witch had a fake Discovery Channel program and people even believed the movie was real.

  • Glendon

    Cloverfield withheld* its title.

  • Falsk

    What was the viral marketing for “Cloverfield” beyond the trailers which had no title? Wasn’t the movie technically its own viral marketing? Either way, if we’re talking about what generated the most buzz, I guess it would be “Cloverfield”.

    I voted for “District 9″ just ’cause I love those bench/billboard ads. :D

  • Andrew Kline

    What was Cloverfield’s viral marketing campaign? Well, let’s begin:
    1> Trailer-no title; however, it showed 01-18-08.
    2> put 1-18-08 in google: 1-18-08.com = random photos
    mystery deepens.
    3> Some people discover connection between slusho drink, movie, and monster. Slusho’s nectar is the monster’s food. Slusho makes appearance on JJ Abram’s TV shows. http://www.slusho.jp comes online. (I got to say that this webpage is kind of freaky; kind of like “innocent” but actually hiding something deadly; comments in the “Happy talk” section are specially mysterious and freaky since they make references to deadly properties of slusho (ex., Marlena’s explosive death).
    4> Myspace pages of main characters are discovered. Not many clues (that I can remember)
    5> One of Rob’s friend(I don’t remember her name; she is the one that is sleeping in the couch during the party), makes a webpage for her boyfriend (Ted hansen) where she sends him private messages. Her boyfriend is working for Traguato, a Japanese company extracting slusho nectar. Later on, Ted is kidnnaped by Traguato for some strange reason. Apparently, Ted discovered the real, dark motive behind slusho. No one knows what it is.
    5> “Fake” TV and news footage (in a range of different languages) shows the destruction of an oil rig. The oil rig is attacked by an unknown entity. Shot are seen being fired to the sea.
    It is implied that some monster attacked it. Possibly because the oil rig is extracting the nectar for slusho and attracted the monster.
    6> Oil rig is owned by Traguato. Supposedly, the slusho drink is addictive, kind of like coca-cola. Some speculate that in the movie, the monster only eats people who have ever consumed slusho. This might explain why Rob and his girlfriend are not eaten by a the monster at the end of the movie (if they have never consumed slusho).
    7> Traguato website is hacked several times by clandestine organization that considers Traguato’s endeavours harmful to the environment (pretty huge clues in the clandestine organization’s site; again, I don’t remember it).
    8> During the movie, the Traguato logo is seen in the ship that crashes with the NY harbor. (Will that be “the ship crashed” or more like “the ship was thrown”?). Some say that the monster was following the ship, which might have carried slusho.
    9> After the movie is released, JJ Abrams reveals that Cloverfield is a newborn baby looking for its mother. Imagine the size of the mother. Footage of satellite is seen at the end of the film crashing into the ocean. Some people say that this might have awaken the monster.

    These are only a few details of the huge viral marketing of Cloverfield. I gotta say that it deserves to be number one.

  • mark

    I thought aqua teen hunger force had the best viral campaign with everyone getting paranoid over ‘bright lights’. Classic.

  • Maopheus

    Maybe I just missed it, but what was the viral marketing for “Dark Knight” and why would it need viral marketing? It’s not like it wasn’t going to make a ton of money without. Let’s see: Batman; Joker; sequel to Batman Begins. What more do you need? Maybe people were not aware that it was a Batman movie because the name “Batman” was in the title.