Firefly Movie Using Viral Marketing?

CABridges writes "According to the official movie site, some interesting "security excerpts" have begun popping up online, first at iFilm. The videos (two, so far) appear to depict River Tam during various stages of her incarceration and mental capacity. More to come?" Also, in vaguely related and somewhat humorous news XJHardware writes "For those of you who really need an obsessive/compulsive hobby here's a good example. Seems this fellow Chris Doyle built a model of Serenity from the upcoming movie and too-quickly canceled series Firefly."

Comments

Viral Marketing

[kevin_conaway]

For those that don't know (myself included), Wikipedia is your friend

Re:Viral Marketing

[dan the person]

No need for an encyclopedia to explain the concept.

It's simply another term for "word of mouth".

Re:Viral Marketing

[mmkkbb]

Not exactly. It's socially engineered word-of-mouth.

Re:Viral Marketing

[Harbinjer]

Issn't that called astro-turfing? In other words artificial grass-roots type thing?

Or is this somehow the same thing?

Re:Viral Marketing

[bigpat]

Issn't that called astro-turfing? In other words artificial grass-roots type thing?

How is this "artificial" if you can convince unpaid people that your product or cause is worth telling other people about? I heard the buzz over the last few years, all the people saying how great the series was and it was a sin that it was canceled. I bought the DVDs and I agree and I want as many people as possible to know that we were deprived of good art by stupid executives at Fox that were apparently unwilling to continue with the series, probably because of the riske nature of the series' atmosphere in light of political pressures at the time.

Marketers can't artificially create a self sustaining buzz, they can only serve to help get it started. If I had bought the DVDs and they sucked then I would have told people that it was a bunch of horse shit. But they didn't suck, it was a great series. You know the type of thing that you can't stop watching all weekend long even though you have lots of shit to do? And I'm not talking about the bad monster movies on the sci fi channel that you watch when nothing else motivates you to leave the couch on a Sunday afternoon. I'm talking about really interesting stories with some hillarious dialog. They got it, they got it good.

There is nothing artificial about successful viral marketing, especially as regards to Serenity. And if it is unsuccessful then who cares.

Re:Viral Marketing

[Rhinobird]

Asto-turfing is creating fake grass roots.

Which then make this sort of thing more akin to prmitive farming or cultivation. The grass and roots are real, but seeds do have to planted and allowed to grow. what would we call it? Farmed grass? Cultivated roots? Lawn grass (as opposed to wild grass roots)? Bamboo?

Re:Viral Marketing

[RedWizzard]

Isn't that called astro-turfing?

It is similar. But the goal of astroturfing is to create support for something by giving the impression of support (by apparently "neutral" third parties) where none exists. It's fundamentally dishonest. The goal of viral marketing is to create support by getting customers to spread the word themselves, usually by engaging their curiosity with something mysterious. The best viral marketing campaigns are not dishonest, though lately companies have taken to getting people to spread the word by givening them prizes or even just paying them which can get dishonest if those people are pretending that they don't have a business relationship with the marketing team.

Re:WTF

[raventh1]

Watch this:
http://www.apple.com/trailers/universal/serenity/t railer_2/

Go buy / rent this:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000 0AQS0F/qid=1124886150/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-4982 309-0060827?v=glance&s=dvd&n=507846

Ahem -- Lego

[sigmaseven]

Seems this fellow Chris Doyle built a model of Serenity from the upcoming movie

There's a key word missing from this sentence that might put it into a clearer perspective, and that word is Lego. That said, the Lego Wash is adorable.

Re:Ahem -- Lego

[KingSkippus]

Wouldn't it be great if they shot some of the scenes on full-size Lego sets? I know that's one extra feature that would be a sure way to get me to buy the DVD!

I hope that someone makes a Lego version of the movie at some point.

Oh, and you're right, the Lego version of the crew is awesome, though I have to reserve "adorable" to describe Lego Kaylee! Lego Jayne and Lego Book are too funny...

Those were lame

[pHatidic]

I have to say though that the DVD series was my best purchase of the last year. I was skeptical when I bought it because some of the Amazon commenters were saying that the only reason it was getting five stars was because of people rating it over and over. However, having watched it I think it really lives up to the hype and then some. I'm just sad they aren't making any more, it was the only drama I've ever actually liked.

Re:WTF?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Go check out: www.fireflyfans.net for more info - it's quite an active online community with tons of good info on the show etc.

Coral Cache link - before we slash him

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.reasonablyclever.com.nyud.net:8090/lego /firefly/index.htm

Re:Skip the excerpts checkout the Legos

[Chyeld]

Seen them, read about them, liked them. Don't fear spoilers. It's stuff you should already be able to figure out if you've seen the series and not from the movie from all accounts. It IS new video created specificly for this campaign.

Watch it, it's interesting.

iFilm Link

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's the link to the clip in question at ifilm (in all it's ad-laden glory) since the site mentioned in the summary seems to be /.'d already.

http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2677821

You'd think Universal could afford some decent servers to host this on.

Re:Err...

[Nutcase]

You are totally wrong.

The dialog and characters in Firefly and Serenity are pretty damn far from Hollywood. The trailer is cut that way because it's a trailer, and wants to depict a typical fun sci-fi action popcorn movie, so more people will see it. You know, marketing.

Watch a few episodes of the show. Then add a much darker plot line, insanely higher levels of space action, and some incredible character twists.

Also, this is NOTHING like Matrix, Star Wars, or Star Trek. It has more in common with The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, or maybe even something like the Bourne Identity.

Question

[WormholeFiend]

Do I need to watch the Firefly episodes before I go see Serenity?

Re:Question

[Anonymous Coward]

No, but after you've seen the movie you'll want to see the series. All of the back-story you need is told and expanded on in the first 15 minutes.

My wife and i were lucky enough to be at the premier in Edinburgh two nights ago and we, plus the other 500 firefly fans, were totally blown away. You're all going to love it!

Re:Question

[Anonymous Coward]

I've seen the pre-showing.

No, it's not absolutely necessary - but it helps.

The movie does a decent job of covering the back story, but it can't give you the full sense of the character interactions and the 'in-jokes'.

In other words, you can understand the movie without seeing the shows, but it will be a lot more fun if you do.

Re:From the Firefly podcast

[lesinator]

Well, barring "My Bodyguard II" what else has Adam Baldwin got to do with his time?

Yeah, Adam hasn't really done much between My Bodyguard and Firefly..... only Full Metal Jacket, ID4, The Patriot, X-Files for 2 seasons, etc...

L

Re:Sorry to be offtopic...

[Heisenbug]

I must admit I've seen most of Buffy and liked it, but Firefly is in a whole other class as far as I'm concerned. My roommate, 20ish geekish sort of guy, doesn't like Buffy, and after he saw the first episode of Firefly he watched the rest of the episodes in one (10 hour?) marathon.

There's always people on these threads who weren't into it, so obviously YMMV. I'm betting if you're into sci-fi at all it's well worth the $40, though.

Re:The ambulance from the show was found...

[Robotech_Master]

The fellow subsequently went back and took many more, better photos--including himself (wearing a "Han Shot First" T-shirt) standing on the mockup or sitting in the cockpit. According to a subsequent LJ entry he has found out who the owner is, and gotten a price from the owner (which he says is reasonable considering, but doesn't want to reveal for fear of some private collector snatching it up). But he's not sure where to go from there.