P1-Existing cross media advertising campaign

 The Blair Witch project advertising campaign

The advertising campaign for the Blair witch project used innovative forms of shock/guerrilla advertising to promote the viewership of the film. The campaign included marketing strategies such as the combination of new and old media to creating missing person stories which innovatively spread through the new found social media with the use of websites and print-out pamphlets and found footage videos which created a reality to the film that the general public perceived

Aims and objectives- The use of shock advertising in this campaign shows that the aim of this advertising was to broaden the range of the viewership of the film to create box office success through the use of viral marketing through social media due to the shocking nature of the advertising. As well as this, the campaign was specifically designed to provoke social media interaction and sharing by the use of shockvertising in the missing persons pamphlets and the created narrative which greatly increased the shareability of the campaign. This was backed up by the use of the newly created internet to easily share the website and chatrooms.

Target audience-the demographic of this advertising campaign was likely directed at a young male audience since the genre of the film is most appealing to a young audience. The location will likely be directed at Americans since the film was American made and produced but despite this, the film had large reach outside of America. The demographic is likely to be white male due to the genre being horror which is more typically enjoyed by males. As well as this, the target audience will be members of society who are somewhat well off since it enables them to access the advertising campaign such as the use of a computer to access the website and chatrooms as well as being able to afford a cinema ticket.

Slogan- "In October of 1994, three student filmmakers disappeared into the woods near Burkitsville Maryland while shooting a documentary.... a year later, their footage was found" The use of slogans in film advertising is commonly seen and is used to condense a general theme of the film into a short, catchy sentence. This slogan is effective since it reinforces the idea of the theme of the found footage style which gives the audience an insight into the style and genre of the film. 

Key messages-The use of the advertising campaign to generate excitement to a film means that there must be messages conveyed to the viewer to give them insight into the themes of the film as well as demonstrating that there will be a fulfil of needs of escapism under the uses and gratifications theory. The advertising campaign has many unique selling points such as the narrative created for the advertising campaign seen in the website that described the mythology of the Blair witch. This provided an interesting storyline for the target audience to indulge in which was then corroborated by the chatrooms that were created where the narrative can be discussed.

Approach- the approach to this advertising scheme is a mix of guerrilla, shock and viral advertising to promote the product. Guerrilla marketing is seen in this advertising campaign through the use of missing persons pamphlets and websites that were created about the characters as if they were real. This in turn, turned the campaign into a viral marketing scheme since the unusual nature and realistic nature of the guerrilla marketing encouraged the target audience to share the websites and pamphlets as well as use the chatrooms that were created for this purpose.

Call to action- The use of viral marketing highlights the call to action of the campaign to make the audience spread the advertising campaign themselves after viewing the missing persons websites that were published. The chatrooms created encouraged the call to action of discussing the narrative created and therefore discussing the film. The use of a TV and print ads however, provided a different call to action, directly encouraging the target audience to watch the trailer.

Representation-The characters in this advertising campaign are representative of missing persons and their families. The advertising uses stereotypes to demonstrate how people act to missing persons such as the families. Stereotypes are also used in the representation of the social groups of university students where they are shown to be smart and capable however they lack maturity and favour having fun over the project at hand which is seen throughout the narrative. The campaign represents women by a subversion of stereotypes where a woman is one of the main protagonists instead of the damsel in distress. Instead the protagonist is portrayed as smart and outgoing, which is atypical to many popular horror films to provide a positive empowerment of women.

Campaign logistics- This campaign abided to the flighting/bursting model of advertising where the advertising ran where the demand is peak with increased number of ads shown around the time of release. This was seen in the full page newspaper ad in Variety Magazine after the films opening weekend which promoted the film as well as the website which boosted promotion to the website and film itself

Choice of media- This campaign used the upcoming social media scene as well as print and TV to display the campaign. This was appropriate for the campaign since the upcoming internet and social media was dominated in use by the films target audience such as the chat rooms that were created which boosted the promotion to the target audience through viral marketing The use of the internet was extremely effective in this advertising campaign as the website that was created had reportedly had 21 million hits after the opening weekend. 

The campaign used TV as a medium by creating TV trailer as well as a documentary on the myth of the Blair witch. They used a partnership with the sci-fi channel on American TV to promote and show the TV trailer. As well as this, the trailer was shown in universities and niche setting to be more in line with the target audience. The campaign used print in the missing person leaflets that were posted around places as well as fake news stories in the real life local area.

Legal and ethical issue- The producers of this campaign will have considered the ethical issues of the nature of this advertising campaign since it the use of social media and print created very large uncertainty amongst the local population by the creation of missing persons stories. This created ethical issues due to the obvious emotional toll it could have potentially created due to the seriousness of the narrative created as well as the deceptive nature of it. The BBFC rating of the Blair witch project is a 15 meaning the advertising campaign could not exceed this in and TV trailer or print advertising that was created. This meant that the content shown could not be overly gory or demonstrate overly sexual scenes.