Social Media Spooks Hollywood, Scares Studio Heads, Haunts Up Opportunity For Journalists to Make Puns

If you haven't heard of the micro-budgeted indie ghost film, Paranormal Activity, you will.  The tiny flick started its marketing campaign by holding free late night screenings at colleges and encouraging the audiences to Tweet about the movie.  It worked.  Paramount was originally just going to remake the film with a ton more money and big stars.  Instead, due to the buzz on Twitter, Facebook, and everywhere else social media, they tested the waters theatrically - and this weekend they did everything they could to get more theaters.  Their per-screen average was massive this weekend and they grossed over $20m.

They also employed Eventful.com to let the audience decide where to book the theaters.

http://eventful.com/performers/paranormal-activity-/P0-001-000212499-6/competitions

From Variety:

"Paranormal Activity" took the No. 3 spot with $20.2 million as it expanded to 760 theaters in its fourth weekend, posting a 155% uptick and a boffo per-screen average of $26,530. Par's micro-budgeted pic has cumed an estimated $33.7 million, and the studio plans to expand to some 1,800 locations starting next weekend.

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118010081.html?categoryid=13&cs=1

The New KMartDesign Site Is Live!

More video, more great fashion and design trends and tips, more fun! 

http://www.kmartdesign.com/

Social Media Ads Go Offline - What's Old Is New Again

Hmmm, something about this seems very wrong, yet equally hilarious.  Touche' to the ad agencies that came up with these.

Social Media Ads Go Offline - What's Old Is New Again - Urlesque - Internet Trends, Viral Videos, Memes and Web Culture.

Social Media saving the music industry?

Record company embraces use of its music in YouTube wedding video, makes money - Boing Boing

Stop making your ads feel like ads

Interview with HEAVY.COM CEO that has some good insight into online video advertising... what works, what doesn't work.

Stop making your ads feel like ads (page 2 of 3) - iMediaConnection.com.

HIGHLIGHTS:

--The breakthrough will come when advertisers start to develop content that looks and feels less like advertising.

--success with video advertising will come via a structural change in the industry, when marketers move away from making 30-second advertisements...

--"You can actually make a marketing experience that says more than just, 'Here's my message, see my ad, I'm done,'" he continues. "It's actually an experience that people are engaged in, appreciate, and walk away from thinking, 'Wow, that was really cool. I really like that brand.'

--The classic mistake he sees time and time again is when brands and marketers try to develop hits or entertainment, and they turn into an obvious advertisement.

--Don't put all your eggs into one basket, because the odds of creating a hit are long.

--Find someone who knows what they're doing when it comes to viral -- a company that can show its word-of-mouth successes -- and this may not be your agency.

Be It Twittering or Blogging, It’s All About Marketing - Question - NYTimes.com

Be It Twittering or Blogging, It’s All About Marketing - Question - NYTimes.com.

Gary Vaynerchuk may sound like an all-American boy, but at 33 he is a successful, grown-up businessman who has put his enthusiasms — and his penchant for publicity — to work in achieving 15-fold sales growth in his family's wine business in the last decade, to $60 million.

Winners and Losers in the Super Bowl Ad Game

Winners and Losers in the Super Bowl Ad Game

Which Super Bowl advertisers effectively drove their message home, and which fell short? More importantly, which successfully utilized online video and social media to get the most bang for their advertising buck?

While those in the online marketing world live and breathe social media, we have to remember that outside our inner circle, there are still millions without Facebook accounts and that many think Twitter is a Looney Tunes character.

In this article, we analyze which companies effectively drove their message home, and which ones fumbled their big opportunity. After all, a TV spot during the big game is expensive; extending that brand to your audience via social media costs far less, and is often free. Plus, it was a guarantee that the ad was going to end up online on Hulu (where it would itself be sponsored by another advertiser; oh, the irony), which meant that targeting an online audience and offering some degree of social media interactivity should have been a no-brainer.

The commercials were judged on the following two criteria:
1) Was the spot effective in driving their marketing message?
2) Did the website deliver on that message

Check out the results

Email campaign case studies (one good, one bad)

"In one week, I heard from two companies in the same industry. The comparison is instructive, I think."

Here's the rest

KMart Digital Efforts

Kmart, Sears Holding Explore Digital Media | BNET Retail Blog | BNET.

Kmart has tried ethnic initiatives before but what is interesting about a new campaign for Black History Month is that the Sears Holding division is making online a major part of the effort.

Keep Bloggers from Hatin'

A Nice post on how to work with Bloggers, and why most P.R. firms just don't seem to understand Blog mentality.

Link to Post