4. Viral Marketing & Puzzle Solving
Remember when advertising used to simply exist for the sake of selling you a product? Now, advertisers are constantly looking for that next thing that will "go viral," completely disregarding the message and instead focusing on trying to market the film to the widest market possible in the fastest way possible. The idea of in-depth viral marketing is certainly intriguing, giving audiences the option of seeking out behind-the-scenes material and extra footage if they please. The viral campaign for The Amazing Spider-Man 2 includes a tumblr account devoted to The Daily Bugle, giving fans news stories set within the Spider-Man movie universe with Easter eggs and fun comic book references. However, most studios don't quite know what to do with the viral marketing potential, and simply make it more work for the audience to see the things they're interested in. This tactic isn't annoying or inconvenient, but more pointless than anything. Who has time to solve riddles, work out puzzles, or decipher clues in order to unlock a clip from a movie? Or having to reach a certain amount of "Likes" on a Facebook page in order to unlock a movie trailer (that we all know is being released whenever the studio
plans on it being released). Wouldn't it be better for everyone if the studios would just release details and footage rather than making us spend time (and sometimes money) to seek the stuff out ourselves?