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Poltergeist // 20th Century Fox

20th Century Fox came to us to help promote the theatrical release of their 1982 classic remake, Poltergeist. To do so we put together two real-time campaigns inspired by the film. The used the premise that "the Poltergeist already knows its victims' deepest fears, and is very willing to use that against them." The second brought to life "The Other Side," the purgatory that haunts the walls of the house in the film.

The Fear Factory

In tandem with the first trailer release, the Fear Factory opened on Twitter to seek out fans talking about their fears using the films hashtag #WhatAreYouAfraidOf. Those who dared to share were quickly sought out by the Poltergeist and served custom content straight out of their nightmares. ​From the time someone tweeted using the hashtag, we were able to serve them a custom video in a matter of minutes.

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This campaign is one of my favorites to date. While other brands had been jumping on the trend of making custom graphics in real-time, The Fear Factory was the first to make custom video content in real time.

 

AdWeek liked it too! You can read more from them here and here.

Moments after go go yubari tweeted her fear of demons, we were able to reply to her tweet with this custom video showing the Poltergeist finding her tweet, then deliberately cutting to a clip of the demons from the movie.

Here @thewongone is afraid of clowns:

and @ksoll716 is afraid of snakes:

Promotional Cinemagraphs

In the days leading up to the trailer release, we created creepy cinemagraphs cut from the film and dared people to share their fears with us. This allowed us to create a pool of people to pull from as soon as The Fear Factory was open.

"The Other Side" on Periscope

As the movie's release date got closer, we kept the social buzz going with a unique live event on Periscope. For a limited time, we opened a portal to "The Other Side," (the purgatory that existed in the movie). Within that window, we were able to interact with people who tuned in to the live stream with custom audio and video.

Some cool facts about the activation:
  1. We built a custom rig that allowed us to stream video of "The Other Side"
  2. Each ghostly character was called up in real-time using specific keyboard commands
  3. We filmed and edited each ghostly character action in-house
  4. That's my voice! (with a voice modulator) speaking to Periscope viewers in real-time 
Screenshots from the live stream

Sr. CW // Greg Schneider

Assoc. CD // Alexandra Wells

Video Editor // Charlie Coutrakon

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