Paranormal Activity was advertising genius. I hate
movie theaters and everything they did to sell it made me go watch it opening
night. The first commercials weren’t as long as this one. They began about 30
seconds long with a note at the end asking customers to vote online. If a state
had enough votes, the movie would be shown at their local theaters. Later on
they began showing commercials like this one, containing scenes from the movie
and the reactions of those watching it. After so many terrible horror movies,
this seemed very refreshing. We were confused, intrigued, and definitely
curious. The commercials didn’t tell us anything about the plot but it didn’t matter
because the point was that it was scary.
They used a trick that’s seen a lot in retail: exclusivity.
By claiming a product to be unavailable to the majority, they convinced the
customers into thinking that it’s more valuable than it actually is. Showing
the movie in only a select number of theaters made customers want it (or “demand
it”) more, like the common saying goes: you want what you can’t have. Why did
we need this in our theaters? It was just a horror movie but it claimed to be
different from the rest. The clips of people’s reactions during the trailer
seemed to authenticate its horror status. It was claimed to be “the scariest
movie of all time”. They made customers think that they needed to be scared (or
maybe test their bravery?). It also contributed to the myths of ghosts and
demons, which nowadays seems to be the only theme in horror films. Paranormal
Activity was the beginning of many mockumentaries in the preceding years. Spoken
out loud, the whole thing sounds ridiculous but I, unfortunately, fell for it for
their clever advertisement strategy.
This is a great example of how an advertising campaign can kick off a big sale. I think this movie was filmed on a budget of $18,000? That's tiny compared to most movies seen in theatres. It was also created by people who weren't big names in the business, and featured actors who weren't well known either. By all rights, this movie shouldn't have been shown in commercial theatres. But because of their successful ad campaign, consumers literally demanded it (by voting) and it became unprofitable not to show it.
ReplyDeleteExclusivity is certainly a powerful popular cultural and economic idea. As long as a product is desirable and in short supply, its value is seen as greater. I think this is interesting to look at from a producer’s point of view. The logic is that selling something at a higher price will make someone more money; however, this isn’t necessarily true as selling something in large quantities at a lower price might actually make a producer more money in the end if costs can be minimized.
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