In early May of 2013, leveraging analytics tools that I’d campaigned for over a year to put in place, I noticed an uptick in mentions of Syfy on social media. Deeper analysis revealed the brand mentions were associated with the soon-to-be released movie Sharknado.
Time because the Trend was Caught Early
A Memeable Movie Title
A Fast-Acting Creative Department that Could Churn Content out on a Dime
Fully Staffed Digital and Social Media Marketing Department
Marketing Strategy Inclusive of Social Media
An Allocated Budget for the Campaign
Time because the Trend was Caught Early
A Memeable Movie Title
A Fast-Acting Creative Department that Could Churn Content out on a Dime
Fully Staffed Digital and Social Media Marketing Department
Marketing Strategy Inclusive of Social Media
An Allocated Budget for the Campaign
Partnering with Youtube influencer, Machinima, we distributed a new trailer exclusively for social media. Reports of this “red band trailer” that was “too violent” for television was picked up extensively by the blogosphere, generating 500k views for the video prior the premier and amassing 5.7 million views by the morning after Sharknado’s television debut.
A Sharknado viewing kit with GIFs, video clips and an exclusive Sharknado Bingo card, was sent to Syfy celebrities such as Wil Wheaton, Oliva Munn, Chris Hardwick and more. VP of Digital, Craig Engler, took control of the Syfy Twitter handle for the night of premiere to feed the frenzy.
To continue feeding the frenzy, we quickly repurposed content and developed new assets in less than 24-hours for a new media package, replete with GIFs, Quick Snip Video Clips, the Red Band Trailer and an Analytics One Sheet.
This package was sent to influential pop culture sites such as Buzzfeed, Culture Vulture and as well as traditional media outlets such as the Today Show and CNN to help fill out their news coverage and sustain the pandemonium.
