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PART TWO—Internal Influences
Lured but not Caught? How A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) Set the Bait
Marketers are increasingly looking for ways to reach the consumer; to make them
aware of their offering, or develop the buyers’ liking for the offer, or instil a
preference for the organisation’s particular offer. This challenge is increased when the
market is intensely competitive, the cost of investment is high, the time to recoup cost
is short, the marketplace is global and consumer word-of-mouth can sink your product
before the majority of potential consumers have had the opportunity to try it. You
have to touch as many potential consumers as you can simultaneously, in a way that
drives the majority to act and engage with your product—in this case a movie.
The cost of developing a major motion picture begins at around $10 million.
Depending on the special effects, the location, the actors and the story, this cost can
be as high as one or two hundred million dollars (for example, Titanic had an original
budget of US$110 million and a final film cost of US$200 million; The Hulk had an
estimated cost of US$150 million). Increasingly such films have a narrow window of
opportunity to grab the attention of the consumer as more and more films are created,
cascading the release of one new ‘blockbuster’ into another.
The success of a movie is dependent on many factors: the most basic of all is the
ability to capture the awareness and interest of the potential movie-goer.
One way of influencing consumers in order to positively predispose them to a film is
viral marketing. The use of viral marketing arose initially as a relatively cheap and
simple way of having consumers electronically pass on information about your
product. However, like many ideas in marketing, good execution of concepts such as
viral marketing are neither cheap nor simple.
The film often quoted as pioneering the use of viral marketing to a level that was
sophisticated and complex enough to capture the imagination of the consumers was
Steven Spielberg’s A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) (http://aimovie.warnerbros.com/). The
promotion for the film commenced in mid March 2001, three and a half months prior
to the launch on 29 June. The promotion worked on the premise that science fiction
fans are curious and inquisitive; looking for new bits of information on what a future
world might be like. The challenge for the marketers of A.I. was to entice potential
consumers of the film with something that provoked curiosity so that potential
consumers would seek and share information. What bait could be laid that would not
seem deliberate; one that required more than a cursory glance to understand? It
needed to be a piece of bait that once found would have the curious following a trail
that led them to engage in one of the strongest forms of marketing communication:
positive word-of-mouth.
The campaign for A.I. was developed by media firm Three Mountains Group
(http://www.threemountain.com/), who provided one simple and subtle clue in March
2001. In small print at the bottom of the film’s initial promotional poster was a credit
for Jeanine Salla, ‘sentient machine therapist’. What does a sentient machine therapist
do? Curious fans typed Jeanine Salla into Google and the game had begun. The
promotion led the curious through a maze of clues, immersing them in a murder
mystery in the year 2122.
PowerPack Online Cases t/a Consumer Behaviour 3e by Neal et al
Part 2
Given the target audience, clues could not be too obvious; they required some thought
on the part of consumer and possibly the sharing of ideas amongst others to determine
the next step in seeking clues. Even more challenging was the realisation that not all
the clues were in the various sites; clues were imbedded within other media—
television, billboards, posters, etc. By moving the information required beyond the
Internet, different players in the game (as it now had become) often needed the
assistance of others to spot clues in order to help solve the crime.
Keeping the players engaged required an output that ranged from the simple to the
complex, from the expected to the unexpected. Initially, 13 sites were the domain of
the clue hunters with the format of the clues being relatively static but enticing
enough to have players dig deeper into the sites, seeking out possible connection
points to other sites and more clues. By 29 June, when the film was launched into
theatres, there were between 30 and 40 different sites, many graphically interactive.
Interaction with the sites often gave rise to unexpected outcomes for players,
including emails from characters in the films and voicemail pre-recorded messages
from robots directing them to the new clues. The campaign progressively required
more time engagement.
Whilst the individual’s engagement with the site is important, most notably because it
provides one measure of the impact of the viral campaign, what consumers do after
visiting the site may be of greater interest to marketers. In the competitive movie
market, the decision making process can be shortened by the information provided to
us by others. Information from those whose opinions we trust may lead us to bypass
further external searching; if the reference group or opinion leaders say it’s a good
film, then that is all we need to know in order to make a decision.
The influence, and in some cases the power, of reference groups or opinion leaders on
the individual’s decision making process may be significant. Having the consumer
bypass further external information search means that any potential competitors are
knocked out of the decision making process. In seeding information in a diverse range
of media, the A.I. viral campaign led some participants to seek the help of others in
order to find the clues. Such acts extended the viral campaign beyond the simple form
of electronic word-of-mouth to a more complex objective of building a reference
group to the film. It might even be suggested that within the sub-culture of science
fiction fans there was another sub-culture who traded information relating to A.I.
Today, many films utilise viral marketing as a tool. One of the more interesting sites
relates to the mystery teen thriller Donnie Darko (http://www.donniedarko.com/).
Although not a success at the box office, the buzz prior to the film’s release was
driven by the complexity of its Internet site. Similar to A.I., the campaign relied on
limited amounts of information to entice the potential consumer.
Where there is intense competition in the marketplace, creating a vast amount of
product on which consumers are happy to offer each other opinions (positive or
negative) the objective of the viral marketing campaign is to create credibility
amongst consumers; to have them do the marketing for you. In the end however, the
product has to deliver.
PowerPack Online Cases t/a Consumer Behaviour 3e by Neal et al
Part 2
Discussion Questions
1.
Do you think it is important that the creators of the campaign know who is
exposed to the viral campaign?
2.
Viral marketing is considered to be electronically enhanced word-of-mouth.
Consider the nature of reference group influence. Identify the types of reference group
influence that have been used in the A.I. campaign.
3.
Why do you think Steven Spielberg and the film distributors have chosen to
create a viral marketing campaign for this film?
Sources
Box office receipts can be found at www.the-numbers.com
Film review at http://movies.go.com/movies/D/donniedarko_2001/
Landau, P (2001), ‘A.I. promotion’, Mediaweek, 12 November, p. 13.
Three Mountain Group—case study section, http://www.threemountain.com/
PowerPack Online Cases t/a Consumer Behaviour 3e by Neal et al
Part 2