Back in 2008, over 7 years ago shockingly, an enormous advertising campaign was started by one J.J. Abrams. The movie Cloverfield was essentially sold to consumers without a title, any real idea of a plot, or any mention of actors to portrayed. The trailer, or rather the teaser, was first aired with only the title of the producer and the air date. The trailer:
This overly successful marketing campaign drew upon some very basic elements of civic life. It showed the US being attacked, which any American would be both concerned about and suffer disbelief leading to heightened curiosity, and then it showed some very average people dealing with it. These are not the only two pieces, but they were what immediately stuck out to me. This was only one piece of the campaign as well. My RCL Blog posts will go in-depth about the rest of the campaign and dissect the tools that the campaign used to make Cloverfield such an attractive movie to go see without really any hint to the actual plot. My blog will also go into how these same concepts have been and continue to be applied else where in advertising and other means.
3 thoughts on “Civic Artifact: Cloverfield Advertisement”
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I found this topic interesting because movie trailers are often more important than the quality of the film itself for bringing in money. I’d really love to see an in depth analysis of how this trailer in particular targeted us as an audience and how it appealed to a subconscious emotions. I find the art of shooting movie scenes really cool, so I’m excited for this one!
I love the creativity of picking a movie trailer as your civic artifact! And I think it is even cooler you chose Cloverfield as your movie. I haven’t seen the movie but I have definitely heard of it, and it has such a unique style by filming the movie in what looks like a poor quality movie camera. You’ve got a fun speech to prepare!
I considered doing a movie trailer, too, and “Cloverfield” (sorry, I can’t do italics in comments) is a great choice because it’s definitely one of the most memorable advertising campaigns. I feel like the thing here that draws in the audience is that the way the movie is made makes the movie feel more authentic. That explains the successes of movies like “The Blair Witch Project” and “Paranormal Activity.” “Unfriended” is our modern-day “Cloverfield.” So two commonplaces that this suggests is that the more realistic a horror movie feels, the scarier it is, and we as an audience like to be scared in a harmless way as a form of entertainment. Although I wonder if those are commonplaces or just facets of human nature (and if there is a distinction between these two terms).