An abandoned baby on the streets of New York?! Don’t let your guard down. That might be something else! [Fridays: Gorillas of Guerrilla Marketing]
Nowadays, social media platforms play an important role in advertising movies.
How often do we see a movie promotion stepping out of the digital world to advertise in a unique, shocking, and unexpected way?
This horror movie’s marketing team did just that!
Devil’s Due is a horror-mystery movie that revolves around the story of a newlywed couple who found themselves dealing with a demonic presence through an unexpected pregnancy.
In this movie, the couple (Zach and Samantha) headed to the Dominican Republic for their honeymoon right after the wedding. The morning after a drunken night, with barely any memory of what happened, Samantha found out she was pregnant. Not long after, the couple’s world turned upside down as they soon learned of her pregnancy’s sinister origin when eerie and unnatural changes started taking place.
In 2014, 20th Century Fox and advertising company Thinkmodo stepped up their promotional efforts for “Devil’s Due” with a fun and exciting (not to mention heart racing) guerrilla marketing campaign.
The campaign was called…
It featured a robotic devil baby in a remote controlled stroller (built by the team) that roamed the streets of New York City.
As the “city that never sleeps,” New York City is the perfect place to launch the campaign. With the large number of people out and about at any given time of the day, it’s almost a guarantee that someone would encounter this creepy-looking baby on the street.
Picture this!
The sound of a crying baby can be heard from a stroller left unattended moving around the streets of the city. Worried about a helpless baby, most people approached the stroller to help. To their surprise…
A devil baby pops out!
Not only did it shock and scare people with its creepy look and eerie cries but it also caused people to panic the moment it started vomiting.
Imagine yourself looking into that moving stroller and getting surprised by a horrifying baby…
We bet you’d run―even shout―out of fear or shock as well!
By installing hidden cameras within the roaming area of the devil baby on a remote-controlled stroller, the campaign team was able to compile the video reactions of people they pranked!
These were the results of the campaign…
The “Devil Baby Attack” gained global press coverage, with different news and TV shows featuring the campaign in their broadcasts within the whole 2 weeks after its execution and prior to the release of the movie in 2014.
These shows included:
- The Ellen Degeneres Show
- Thirty Mile Zone (TMZ)
- The View
- Anderson Cooper 360
- The Extra
- Inside Edition
With this unique guerrilla marketing idea, the movie was able to get media coverage worth over USD 6 million.
Wait, there’s more!
In less than a month since the campaign was executed, the video of the “Devil Baby Attack” gained a total of 50 million views on YouTube and 2 million Facebook shares.
The video also became the 8th Most Popular YouTube Video in 2014 and Unruly Media’s 2nd Most Shared Ad of 2014.
Due to the popularity of the campaign, the devil baby robot was also invited to make appearances on different TV shows such as The Today Show, The Insider, and Telemundo’s Un Nuevo Dia.
This exposure helped generate additional media coverage for the “Devil’s Due” movie.
Thanks to 20th Century Fox and Thinkmodo’s out-on-the-streets tactic, the campaign generated buzz and awareness about the movie, which earned over USD 36 million Worldwide Box Office sales and around USD 4 million domestic video sales.
Get inspired with this guerrilla marketing strategy when promoting your brand’s products or services!
You don’t literally have to create your own scary robotic baby in a remote-controlled stroller to attract attention―just think of ways on how you can bring your marketing efforts “out on the streets” to directly interact and engage with your target market.
Start thinking about an effective guerrilla marketing tactic that can represent your brand well!
With proper planning and execution, you’ll be able to build an impactful and memorable experience that will make your brand top-of-mind for your target market!
About The Dynamic Marketing Communiqué’s
“Fridays: Gorillas of Guerrilla Marketing”
Jay Conrad Levinson (1984) said that Guerrilla Marketing “works because it’s simple to appreciate, easy to execute, and inexpensive.”
Guerrilla Marketing is unconventional.
Looking beyond the traditional ways of advertising, marketers, and advertisers need to spice things up in order for their brand to have campaigns that not only make an impact but also stick to their target market’s mind.
Guerrilla Marketing usually aims to have direct contact with consumers.
This type of direct contact should spark an emotional reaction that leads to consumers effectively remembering the brand.
It’s about making a big impression and making that impression last a long time (if not forever).
Guerrilla Marketing can be inexpensive.
The effect of this is being able to create a buzz around the brand, and the strategy used to market it. Almost everything is passed around through word-of-mouth.
Word-of-mouth is one of the greatest outcomes and it usually doesn’t cost anything.
This is every business’ or brand’s dream!
Every Friday, we publish tips, examples, and other useful content on unconventional ways of marketing and promotion.
Learn more about how to grab your target market’s attention and make an amazing first and lasting impression without having to spend a lot of money.
Businesses don’t really need to spend much for a guerrilla campaign. You do not need a big budget to be successful. You just need creativity and a good imagination.
Hope you’ve found this week’s guerrilla marketing insight interesting and helpful.
Stay tuned for next Friday’s Gorillas of Guerrilla!
Cheers,
Kyle Yu
Head of Marketing
Valens Dynamic Marketing Capabilities
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