Experiential Marketing Campaigns: Warner Bros. Pictures’s ‘The Nun’ vs 24AM STUDIOS’s ‘Seema Raja’

Experiential Marketing Campaigns: Warner Bros. Pictures’s ‘The Nun’ vs 24AM STUDIOS’s ‘Seema Raja’

Untitled collage (1)
Experiential Marketing Campaigns: Warner Bros. Pictures’s ‘The Nun’ vs 24AM STUDIOS’s ‘Seema Raja

Previously, in my article titled, ‘Experiential Marketing Campaigns: Warner Bros. Pictures’s ‘IT’ vs 24AM STUDIOS’s ‘Velaikkaran’, I presented you the similarities between the marketing tactics of ‘Warner Bros. Pictures’ and ‘24AM STUDIOS’ for the 2017 American supernatural horror film, ‘IT’ and Tamil social thriller movie, ‘Velaikkaran’ respectively. As a follow-up, in this write-up, I share my thoughts about the Experiential Marketing Campaigns of ‘Warner Bros. Pictures’ and ‘24AM STUDIOS’ for their recent offerings, ‘The Nun’, an American gothic horror film and ‘Seema Raja’, a Tamil action comedy drama film, respectively.

Warner Bros. Pictures’s photo booth at ‘FANEXPO Canada 2018’ for ‘The Nun’:

Fan Expo Canada is a fan convention being held year after year in Toronto, Ontario. As part of the event for 2018 (August 30th 2018 – September 2nd 2018), ‘Warner Bros. Pictures Canada’ had put up The Nun-branded photo booth for the purpose of activation for the movie. Wherein, the fans stepped inside a mobile mirror room and clicked a selfie with the lookalike of the scary Valak. Taking a snap with the entity’s double in a room with an eerie backdrop created an illusion of posing with 100 of such creepy Valaks. When exiting the booth, people were provided with a complimentary photo, sharable in social media. Also, it was advertised that fans will get a chance to win prizes including passes for the advance screening of ‘The Nun’. The customized photos had the movie’s name and theatrical release date i.e. September 7.

Atop the booth was the call-to-action, ‘SHARE YOUR #LASTPRAYER’, which was prominent enough to encourage people to share their photos using the hashtag, ‘#LastPrayer’ in social networking sites. The phrase, ‘WITNESS THE DARKEST CHAPTER IN THE CONJURING UNIVERSE’ was imprinted over the exteriors of the booth along with the movie’s name, theatrical release date and the technologies in which the flick is going to be available in theatres like IMAX and Dolby Cinema.

To prepare audience for the feel, which the movie is going to deliver them, replicas of tombstones rigged with bells (Reminiscent of a nightmarish graveyard sequence from ‘The Nun’) were erected over a couple of false burials at the booth’s entryway. And, a couple of effigies of a faceless nun (Reminiscent of the character appearing in the movie) were placed at the top of the booth.

An announcement, about The Nun-branded photo booth, was put out by ‘Warner Bros. Pictures Canada’ and ‘FANEXPO Canada’ in social media.

Check the replies to the below tweet to have a look at the customised versions of the photos, captured at the activation!


Marketing Journo

To receive updates of our new blog posts, sign up now!


24AM STUDIOS’s karaoke booth at popular multiplexes for ‘Seema Raja’:

Karaoke Booth in Luxe
Couple of karaoke booths (One for adults and the mini version for kids) placed at ‘Jazz Cinemas Luxe‘ at ‘Phoenix Market City‘ in Chennai

24AM STUDIOS’, apart from deploying traditional marketing tactics, has been a production house, which has been interacting with the movie going audience using innovative ways for their films.

For their debut venture ‘Remo, the studios had employed Cupid Standees’ campaign, which served as a perfect example of how content can be personalized in such a way that it resonates with the target audience.

For ‘Velaikkaran’ (24AM STUDIOS’s second film), the makers had made the slum set, featured in the movie, open for a public visit.

People do not pay attention to advertising; they pay attention only to things that interest them.

I came across the above phrase in the book, ‘Guerrilla Marketing: Easy and Inexpensive Strategies for making big profits from your small business’ written by the late American Business Writer Jay Conrad Levinson. The recent promotional strategy of ‘24AM STUDIOS’, for their third production venture, ‘Seema Raja’, Seema Raja-branded karaoke booth appears as a perfect illustration of the above quote.

Of late, a lot of people seem to actively express themselves in platforms like ‘musical.ly’ and ‘Dubsmash’. So, there seems to be no better time than the present to roll-out the offline customer engagement marketing tool, karaoke booth. Karaoke booth is where people can privately render their vocals for pre-recorded music and eventually combine both.

The booth unveiled for Seema Raja, emphasizes the movie by offering the pre-recorded musical tracks of five songs from the film as of now. Also, it contains the lyric videos and the trailer of the movie. People can also try out Dubsmash with the teaser of Seema Raja.

The best from among the performers in the karaoke booth will be picked and provided with an opportunity to meet D.Imman (Music Director of Seema Raja). It has also been advertised that the performances of the people will be uploaded in YouTube. In order to encourage an online conversation around the campaign, hashtags such as ‘SingAlongWithSeemaRaja’ and ‘#SeemaRajaKaraokeBooth’ have been created.

This participatory tool powered by ‘CanLah! Studio’, has been placed in popular multiplexes like ‘Palazzo’ at ‘The Forum Vijaya Mall’ and ‘Jazz Cinemas Luxe’ at ‘Phoenix Market city’ in Chennai, ‘Cinipriya Complex’ in Madurai and ‘FunCinema’ at ‘Fun Republic Mall’ in Coimbatore. This approach should have helped the movie to gain more exposure among the theatre-going audience.

A Special Midnight Screening for ‘The Nun’:

To make fans feel utterly terrified, ‘Warner Bros. UK’ offered them an opportunity to watch ‘The Nun’ at midnight on September 6th 2018, inside Brompton Cemetery (a London cemetery in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea). To get a pair of tickets, the fans had to visit www.seeitfirst.com and enter the code, BCM37X.

Click here and watch fans appearing panic-stricken by faceless nuns, jumping out at them at the cemetery, before the screening!

A Special Touring Talkies Screening for ‘Seema Raja’:

Touring Talkies’, an almost defunct concept, is the practice of screening films under a tent, usually covered with a thatched roof or a ceiling using asbestos sheets. ‘24AM STUDIOS’ tried reviving this thing of the past by arranging ‘Seema Raja’ shows at three locations of Tamil Nadu namely ‘S.E.V Matriculation School’ (Natham Road, Madurai), ‘St. John’s Vestry Anglo Indian School’ (Trichy) and ‘Cluster Media Academy’ (Peelamedu, Coimbatore) at 7:00 PM on September 16th 2017. The hashtag, ‘#SeemaRajaTouringTalkies’ was created to nurture an online dialogue around the campaign.

Apart from karaoke booths and touring talkies shows, ‘24AM STUDIOS’ came up with Seema Raja-branded mini trucks, carrying bioscopes equipped with head phones, which traveled across Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry. Wherein, people were able to watch the videos of Seema Raja. Customized hashtags, ‘#SeemaRajaBioscope’ and ‘#SeemaRajaBioscopeVandi’ were launched to integrate this street marketing drive with the online space.

Leveraging the marketing tool,360° video’ to encourage the audience to go through an immersive experience:

To promote ‘The Nun’, ‘Warner Bros. Pictures UK’ had released a 360° video titled, ‘The Nun – 360 Experience – Official Warner Bros. UK’ in its YouTube channel. In the video, the fans get a chance to virtually traverse through the cloistered abbey, featured in the movie.

Click here to watch the 360° video!

Conclusion:

In addition to being interesting, the aforementioned experiential marketing campaigns of ‘Warner Bros. Pictures’ and ‘24AM STUDIOS’, for ‘The Nun’ and ‘Seema Raja’, offer some important takeaways such as the right place (or) platform where a campaign has to be deployed and the ideal partnership to be involved in, to plan and implement a striking marketing strategy. To top it all, the campaigns had boosted a significant pre-release buzz for the respective movies and have become memorable!

And, here ends my blog post about the Experiential Marketing Campaigns of ‘Warner Bros. Pictures’ and ‘24AM STUDIOS’ for ‘The Nun’ and ‘Seema Raja’ respectively. Now, let me know your opinion on my article in the comments section!

Comments are closed.