• by Cory Treffiletti , Featured Contributor, July 18, 2007

Sometimes you have to watch the movies in order to understand your very own world just a little bit better. In this case, the movies are a crash course in developing our understanding of viral marketing!

Those of you who are fans of "Lost" will know the name J.J. Abrams. Abrams is the mastermind behind the twisted, addictive chaos that is "Lost" and he was also the brainiac that brought the world "Alias." He is up to something very new and is creating quite a string of interest with very little information -- a new project, but surprisingly, he won't tell us what it is! This project has no title so far, no apparent stars are involved, and at this point no one has much of an idea what the project is about, but we do know that Abrams is doing "something" in January 2008!

The rumors began when a trailer appeared in front of the movie "Transformers" two weeks ago. The trailer is low-fi at best and depicts a house party in New York City that appears to be a going-away party for some guy we've never seen before (go here to see the trailer.). The party gets disturbed by an explosion and we then witness crowds of people running and some reference to a lion. The trailer is cool, and being something of a fan-boy myself, I am anxious to know what the project actually is, but the marketer in me is the one that's really interested, because the fallout and the response is what I find to be of most interest (at least while I'm at work).

Abrams followed up with Harry Knowles of Ain't It Cool News with this posting (http://www.aintitcool.com/node/33261) to leak some of what the public had already found. It appears that there are sites posted and hidden throughout the Web that are starting to build buzz without revealing what is going on. The sites are cryptic, such as http://www.1-18-08.com/ and they make no sense. Is this a movie? Is it a new TV show? Is this the "project" mentioned on his site with HBO? Rumors fly about a Voltron film and a new Godzilla film, and all of it is based on nothing more than what someone else might have said about it. Amazing!

The lesson in all of this is what makes viral actually work! Viral needs to be interesting and timely. It needs to speak to the needs of the audience and be interactive. It needs the audience to participate -- or else it's just a chain email! The reason that people are talking about this trailer is that it is also unique. I cannot remember when a trailer tried to interest me before by only telling me who was directing it. I've never heard of a trailer that doesn't give me something of a plot to look forward to. This is a teaser in the truest sense of the word and is more indicative of the Internet culture that follows artists as much as they follow stories. The trailer basically plays off the fact that people will see anything Abrams does, no matter what, as long as his name is attached. The only other person close to this is Steven Spielberg, and he has one amazing resume that spans 20 to 30 years!

The viral element here is a hook, in this case a name of a director with a rabid fan base, and its creators understand that this fan base likes to be surprised as well as to appear on the inside track. They give the audience a tease of an idea, and basically invite them to interact with it. This invitation actually creates content, which generates buzz -- and then people like me write about it, adding fuel to the fire.

This is something brands try to do all too often, and sometimes with little or no success. You tease, you invite interaction, but more than anything you understand the motivations of your audience. For brands to do this effectively, they need to segment the audience ever lower and ever smaller and understand that the motivations of a mom are different than those of a dad, etc. The closest a brand has come is with the recent Dove campaigns, and they succeeded because they understood the motivations of the audience.

While I sit and wait and read about the possibilities tied to this trailer, I will witness how a media company and a single man have created a viral effort better than most attempts by companies with large budgets and lots of time and energy. Of course, this is also much easier because it's entertainment, but that's a topic for a different day.