In my experience, viral campaigns tend to work best for people who would have already been excited for the film anyway -- though that's not necessarily a bad thing. We've covered them a little in the past on this site, most recently with Ridley Scott's sci-fi Alien Prequel/Not Prequel Prometheus. Now we've got a rather ingenius campaign for Steven Soderbergh's newest film Side Effects (his last theatrical film for the foreseeable future) which takes the form of an advertisement for an anti-depressant drug called Ablixa, and a consultation from Jude Law himself.
Here's the advertisement, for the fake drug Ablixa:
The trailer for the film:
It's not often that you get films with subject matter like this that can work perfectly for a realistic viral campaign, but it would have been great to see this ad without knowing that it's for a movie. There's a good chance I would have believed it, too, considering how many new drugs come out all the time and how many of them find their way onto TV advertising.
If you head on over to the website, you can get a free consultation from Jude Law himself, playing psychiatrist Dr. Jonathan Banks M.D., and depending on your answers to the questions, he may either strongly recommend Ablixa for depression, or simply suggest that you see a colleague of his to see if you might qualify for the free trial of the drug. Through that website you can also share with friends or sign up for an email list. It would be interesting to see how many people would be fooled by this if Jude Law wasn't a part of the campaign -- though I'm sure the legalities of that might get tricky.
What do you think of the Ablixa advertising? What are some of your favorite viral marketing campaigns? Let us know below.
Link: Ablixa -- Website
[via Creative Planet Network]
