Avatar's Successful Social Marketing Strategy. How James Cameron Generated Community Engagement
The global-hit James Cameron's 3D science-fiction epic has deployed a full-on and successful social web marketing strategy.
The Simulcam and Fusion 3D camera inventions are not the only technologies that made Avatar a massive box office success -so far has gotten $1.2 billion in revenue, the #1 highest grossing film of all time.
Avatar has its own Facebook, with over 770,000 fans; MySpace, YouTube channel, and Twitter pages, with 20,000 followers. Although the Facebook-Twitter-YouTube equation is getting to be standard these days.
In addition to official online spots, thousand of fan pages and communities populate the Internet.
Beyond that, the film's social media campaign started with a trailer debut strategy. First it was announced on Twitter and released in Apple's Website. A second trailer rolled out a month later. The web trailers gained additional buzz when fans remixed them with other movies.
More on web video, an interactive trailer was presented as an Adobe Air application to be download. It featured content and updates about the movie. It got press coverage and word-of-mouth.
On December 3, MTV.com put together a Facebook-hosted and LG-sponsored webcast called "Avatar Live". James Cameron, producer Jon Landau, and stars Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana were interviewed by MTV News’ Josh Horowitz, but the questions were submitted by Internet fans in the days leading up to the event. This 30-minute interview was one of the most effective Hollywood webcast to date.
This community engagement worked. Existing fans became more passionate about spreading the word, and people who didn't know much tuned in.
The red carpet premiere in Los Angeles, a week before the film hit theaters, was broadcast live to web audiences on video streaming web site Ustream and My Space (who sponsored the broadcast.)
It was just one more way to generate buzz and get press in the final days leading up to the movie's release.
