It’s not easy to spend little money and get high visibility in a closely watched professional sports broadcast, but kudos to Paramount for scoring a viral success for their recent horror release “Smile.” “Smile” stars Sosie Bacon as a psychiatrist haunted by an eerie presence, one which does all kinds of horrific things to victims while keeping an scary smile all the time. Not exactly family-friendly MLB enticing content for a Pennant Race.
So what did Paramount do? Buy signage in and around MLB games? Nope. They bought tickets, figured out camera angles and then dressed actors and actresses in noticeable gear and with noticeable facial expressions that appeared in broadcasts virally. No reads, no signage, just subtle smiles.
How did it work? While at a Mets game at Citifield a couple of weeks ago people were stopping and taking images of the “Smile” lady because they saw her on TV Friday night…at The Mets game in Oakland.
Now its not easy to pull off the viral stunt in and around sports as often times sales and marketing people can sniff out a stunt that may be taking dollars out of their pockets and budgets. There have been commercial success before, especially around tennis, college basketball, NBA and MLB games where the cameras have tight shots and background images are pretty much unfiltered and part of the broadcast. Fans of a past era will also remember Rollen Stewart, known as Rock N Rollin, who used his biblical signs and a multicolored wig to find his way into the camera of almost every big sporting event, and became a brand unto himself for a while.
However, in the social media age it’s not just about the image, its about wider storytelling. You also have to have the correct social tags and placements in place so when visual magic strikes, you can amplify the message, and it doesn’t hurt to have a good communications team around making sure the right pop culture sites are aware of the stunt as questions arise on who the person was.
A creepy smile with a great payoff, what’s better than that?
