Category: Best Use of Screens
Advertiser: UIP (UNITED INTERNATIONAL PICTURES)
Product/Service: PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 3
Media Agency: MINDSHARE, Istanbul, TURKEY
Senior Executive: Çağla Özçelik (Mindshare)
Business Group Director: Berrin İnaluk (Mindshare)
Marketing Manager: Pınar Özyiğit (Uip)
Sales Manager: Nida Özsan (Fox International Channel)
Sales Manager: Banu Loca (Fox International Channel)
Media placement: TV - 146 Spots - Foxlife - 10 October 2011
Media placement: TV - 181 Spots - FX - 10 October 2011
Insights, Strategy & the Idea
There have been so many spoofs of horror movies in recent years that audiences no longer see them as scary. We had to change that in our promotion of ‘Paranormal Activity 3’. This genuinely scary movie would be promoted by creating dramatic fear. Our low-budget, high-impact idea was to talk TV stations into allowing us to interrupt their shows – not the ad breaks – with our dramatic promotion. We wanted to create strong fear and powerful anticipation. We would show it late at night to maximise fear and on TV channels with a strong audience reach.
Creative Execution
Late at night, viewers of Foxlife and FX were at home, sitting comfortably, with the lights low after a busy day. All was quiet in the house. Just as they were watching their favourite series, everything stopped. Suddenly, a caution appeared on screen: “Don’t watch this advertising alone. If possible, call someone.” Strange sound effects followed. Then our ad for ‘Paranormal Activity 3’ ran. We had talked TV stations into interrupting normal programming unexpectedly for our promotion. This scary phenomenon took place 10 times across 14 days. The results were dramatic.
Results and Effectiveness
Immediately after the ad was shown, other channels began calling us asking if they could show our promotion on their channels!
Facebook ‘likes’ for the movie soared by 59.7%.
We beat box office takings on the two previous ‘Paranormal’ films by 36%.