The 2012 movie viral campaign – the hype and the havoc

November 30, 2009 at 10:43 am | Posted in Ad commentary | 1 Comment
Tags: 2012, hype, IHC, Institute for Human Continuity, NASA, Sony, teaser, The Guardian, trailer, viral campaign

The movie, 2012, has generated so much hype that my dad asked me to show him the teaser trailer to the movie on ‘Tube Yube’ this past weekend. The movie’s big draw-card is that it is another ‘end of the world’-type movie, but it differs from the ‘been there, done that’ feel ofDay After Tomorrow in that it’s supposedly based on real predictions and the fact that the traditional Mayan calendar ends on 21 December 2012. Scary stuff.

So the movie is based on a good premise, but does it live up to the hype? Seeing as it’s not yet out in South Africa, I’ve had to go with what’s out there in the social net… there is a surprising amount of commentary about the movie, and.UK’s The Guardian goes so far as to say it feels that viral marketing is getting too clever for its own good. The movie trailer alone is sure to interest many who would usually give this type of movie a miss, by stating “search ‘2012’ for the truth” – a quick Google search brings up over 1 000 websites and 175 books based on the idea that everything will come to a halt in 2012. It’s not often that a movie IS based on a form of truth. Lots of past events, and many common fears, yes. Potentially catastrophic future events… not so much.

The Guardian article goes on to state that 2012’s hype was linked to a web campaign on the Institute for Human Continuity (IHC) site. This gives readers a chance to enter the ‘IHC lottery’, which ‘guarantees every citizen on the planet an equal chance of survival in 2012”.

We’re not supposed to believe everything we see on TV or on the net, but if a website looks legit, people will start quoting it and passing links on to others. Before you know it, there’s mass –if not global – worldwide panic. This is what actually happened. The IHC website sparked many people to contact NASA – good old security system of the skies – asking them to stop the destruction… so many queries were made, in fact, that NASA in turn set up a specific site to deal with these concerns, comparing the hype about 2012 to that of ‘Y2K’. This was all about the movie, before it had been released, with the NASA page last updated on 9 November, and the international release date of the movie between 11 and 13 November.

My verdict? A very effective campaign by Sony, in that it definitely sparked people’s interest in the movie… if not a bit out of control in terms of mass hysteria. See it in SA from 2 December and decide for yourself whether the movie justifies the hype.

For more on the movie, visit www.whowillsurvive2012.com.

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