"Is it real?" Marketing

With the return of the Blair Witch in theaters this September, I thought it fitting to take a look at the viral campaign that surrounded the original movie, The Blair Witch Project. For those who may not be aware or are too young to remember, way back in 1999, movie audiences were put on alert that something sinister lay deep in the woods of Burkittsville, Maryland.

A year earlier, three filmmakers had gone into the woods in search of the Blair Witch, a legend that has plagued the local townsfolk, and no one had heard from them again until the footage from their cameras were found. The footage was spliced together and premiered for audiences at the Sundance Film Festival and even after it was bought by Artisan Entertainment for one million dollars, audiences around the world kept asking: "Is this real?"

That was the beauty behind the campaign. The website and the marketing campaign promoted the movie as a documentary as if saying: "These events happened! These filmmakers went missing and now we know how and why. These are their final moments."

I was 24 years old in 1999 and I was brimming with a large amount of cynicism in those days and even I had to pause and investigate the movie to see if it was real or not. It's amazing how far technology has come in 15 years when you realize that all the producers had back then was their website, television ad campaigns and print-ads. There was no Facebook, Twitter or even MySpace. There was LiveJournal and other blogging sites, but in 1999, it was nothing compared to what we do now.

Could this type of "Is it real?" campaign happen today? It would be very hard to pull off, but it would be worth it if it was successful. The Blair Witch Project was made for around $25,000, sold for one million and went on to gross almost 250 million worldwide. It also was one of the early adopters of the "Found Footage" genre which has spawned countless movies such as Chronicle, Cloverfield and the Paranormal Activity series.

Looking back, the campaign's biggest asset was the fact it came about before the internet exploded with social media portals and handheld devices ruled our lives. That's a fair argument when critiquing the campaign, but it should not overshadow the originality of the campaign. Viral marketing has always been around, in some form or another. Just take a look at the campaign for Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho.

The Blair Witch Project took viral marketing a step further. Just like Hitchcock, the producers of the Blair Witch Project pushed boundaries by being original and creative. No matter the technology or lack thereof, being original and creative should be the first goal of every marketing campaign, including the IndieApp campaign.

Sources:

MWP Digital Media
Pajiba