This Monday a man posted a pretty sweet video on youtube of him projecting his image from is iPhone to a bunch of screens at Times Square in New York. In two days, the video has gotten over 1,000,000 views from curious people posing the question of whether or not it's real.
The answer is, it isn't.
The video is intended to promote an upcoming film called "Limitless," and the two men who posted the video are marketers that are effectively tapping in to retaining viewers on YouTube in order to gain awareness of the product being promoted. The point of the ad is to subtly promote "Limitless," while having more emphasis of the possibility of the video being a real viral video. The certain "YouTube grittiness" to it adds a level of realism that keeps viewers asking. The idea is to keep it low quality and keep it gritty in order to attract people.
This type of marketing is very interesting in light of the fact that many of us are film students at UCSB with the means to make stuff like this. All it takes is an iPhone camera, some experience in after-effects, and a great idea to get started. This could put viral marketing into the hands of pretty much anyone who is willing to invest the time and effort into making a realistic-looking hoax short.
No comments:
Post a Comment