I just have to commend Universal Pictures on their advertising strategy for the new movie, "Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Due to the elementary-type slogans, such as "My mom never liked you Sarah Marshall", my boyfriend and I braved opening night last night to go to the Grove and see it. The unique advertising strategy has caused quite a stir in Los Angeles this past month and the movie definitely lived up to the hype. It's hilarious! I'd recommend it to everyone.
On an even cooler note, the director and main actor came to the theatre before the showing, wasted and taking pictures of the audience. It as quite a night!
The advertising strategy is the most interesting aspect of the movie for me. Recently I was talking with a peer about the need for unique and outlandish advertisements in our current society where we literally are bombarded with ads every second of the day. The Figueroa Post goes on to say that Universal Pictures hoped that this innovative strategy would leave LA and the rest of the country scratching their heads, wondering "who the f$%& is Sarah Marshall". And it did just that. Kudos Universal Pictures!
4 comments:
I was going to write something about this! Literally, it had exactly the correct effect on me - I saw an ad on a bus on my way to work one day that said: "I always hated you Sarah Marshall." I got all creeped out and was like, what the hell??
When I found out that it was for a movie, I could not stop thinking about how genius that marketing technique was.
I'm currently in a Sports PR class, and my teacher is the PR Manager for the LA Avengers (arena football). For his first season, to really stir things up he had an ad campaign that was just black billboards with white writing that said things like: "On April 14th, somebody is going to get his skull crushed" and really weird stuff like that - but it worked!
In today's world, you really do have to do crazyyyy stuff to catch people's eye.
Thanks for writing this it was so cool!
It seems that marketing that is relatable to a wide audience (something that's funny and tongue-and-cheek) resonates with people most. "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" is a funny take on a real-life situation: a guy trying to get over his ex-girlfriend but just can't get away from her and contemplates getting back together with her. I think Apatow's hilarious approach to a relatable situation is what makes this movie so popular. I don't think I've heard anyone say yet, "Don't go see that Sarah Marshall movie, it sucks."
I went and saw the movie and I felt that it was the marketing that really made me see it (not to mention the fact that it was from the makers of Superbad).
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