Brilliant promotional ploys whip up public interest
REALISTICALLY staged display of poltergeist fury stuns onlookers.
TV-Film producers spend a lot of money not just bankrolling their new movies and shows, but also whipping up public interest in and excitement over them, enough to assure the SRO success of their productions.
They resort to all sorts of attention-calling ploys, in the hope that the originality of their campaigns will make their show stand out from the madding crowd, where scores of other PR messages loudly and urgently compete for viewers’ addled attention.
One of the most unique and eye-catching promotional gimmicks we’ve seen this year was recently launched by the revival production of the hit horror film, “Carrie,” about a brutally bullied teen who eventually snaps and turns against her tormentors in a truly monstrous way.
The last straw for her is when she is proclaimed Prom Queen, but her sole moment of happiness is totally ruined by her nasty oppressors, thus pushing her to use her poltergeist powers to teach them a deadly lesson they’ll never, ever forget.
How do you promote a film like that without resorting to pretty much the same PR ploys that horror flicks have employed over the years and decades?
Project
The revival production’s answer was to stage a “reality” happening in a coffee shop, with a teenage girl getting into an argument with a guy, then losing her temper over something he did that supposedly ruined a project that she had spent a lot of time on.
When she “exploded,” her “powers” kicked in, and the force of her fury pushed the guy against the wall—and way up to the ceiling!
As the other people in the coffee shop watched with their mouths agape, other weird things started to happen, like chairs and tables being “pulled” by an unseen force this way and that, books flying out of a shelf—etc.!
The big finale was the suspended object of the girl’s ire crashing back to the floor with a painful thud—as some patrons fled the scene in fear and panic!
The display of poltergeist fury was so realistically staged that it got into the day’s TV newscasts, was talked about for days—and definitely succeeded in achieving its objective of making the new “Carrie” production a must-see item in many viewers’ books!
