10 Most Ridiculous Movie Marketing Campaigns
5. Paying A Student $1800 To Re-Enact The Movie's Plot - I Love You Beth Cooper
Don't feel bad if you haven't heard of this 2009 romantic comedy, nor the woefully misguided marketing ploy Fox cooked up to try and promote the film among graduating teenagers.
The film's plot revolves around a high school valedictorian, Denis Cooverman (Paul Rust), who uses his graduation speech to declare his love for his long-time crush, Beth Cooper (Hayden Panettiere).
Fox figured the best way to sell the movie to this age group was to pay a real Los Angeles valedictorian, Kenya Mejia, $1800 to re-enact the scene by professing her love for a fellow student while namedropping the movie.
The speech was recorded by the marketing firm in intentionally low quality to make it seem more convincingly real when it was posted online.
But alas, the video failed to gain traction online, and more than 11 years later has still only amassed around 35,000 views. Yikes.
Beyond this, the film itself was both a critical and commercial dud, failing to recoup even its modest $18 million budget.