Pathe Promos New Horror Film with PlayStation Portable Downloads

According to Netimperative, French film company Pathe is promoting their latest horror flick 'The Descent' by creating special trailers for use on the PlayStation Portable:

Anna Butler, marketing director at Pathe, said: “We wanted to try something new with out trailer downloads, we already commit a substantial amount of work to promoting each film digitally and this seemed like a natural progression.

"PSPs are an exciting development and we wanted to start using this new medium.”

Reaction Negative to Paris Hilton's 'House of Wax' Promo Podcast

If the comments surrounding Paris Hilton's promotional podcasts for 'House of Wax' are any indicator, Warner Brothers' experiment with the format has been poorly received by members of the podcasting community.

According to the message boards on Podcast Alley, a leading source for podcasting shows and info, people are finding the rambling musings of Paris as she wanders around as "boring celeb-spam." Here's an example from one post written yesterday:

I started listening to podcasts in January, and I gotta say that, after hearing the first Paris Hilton "podcast", I am really impressed with how fast the whole thing appears to be going right down the tubes...The Paris Hilton "podcast" is exactly the kind of drivel that drove people to take broadcast content into their own hands in the first place. *This* is what the podcasting community should boycott, and if it is on Podcast Alley only because of the cash involved, P.A. is in real trouble..."

Backlash from insiders is one thing, but are these podcasts going to get anyone interested in the film? After having listened to the show, my verdict is a resounding no. The production values are embarrassing, Paris' unfettered ennui is tiresome, and the grating theme had me reaching for the mute button on my keyboard.

So what have we learned from this experiment?

1. Poor production values -- If you're going to do a commercial podcast, do it right. Hire professionals to record, edit and mix the audio.

2. Boring content -- They should have structured the content to complement the film and build interest in it. We're not talking hiring a crack team of writers or anything -- but even a little bit of structure would have been nice.

3. Wrong audience for the film's demographics -- podcasting is still in it's infancy, and is largely a tech-savvy audience catering to hip, literate men and women in their mid to late twenties. Paris Hilton, awash in disinterest and perpetually disengaged, is about the worst person you could pick to reach out to these people.

So what kind of film would have benefited from a podcast? I can think of two:

Seems like big-budget sci-fi fans are the perfect demo to consume podcasts -- for example, imagine how popular one for the upcoming 'War of the Worlds' film could be, especially if it was a 2005 version of the famed Orson Welles broadcast...

Or maybe a studio could use a podcast to cheaply add web value to a preexisting franchise -- think "Shrek" or "Napoleon Dynamite". Perhaps you could have Napoleon run a fictional Idaho radio station, playing his "flippin' sweet" tunes...

These are just off-the-cuff examples, but I can see something in line with these ideas having a greater impact and the potential for a "viral effect."

You can catch the first two 'House of Wax' podcasts here.

[Via Always On]

Amityville Horror remake backed with online ad push

In their latest issue, Brand Republic covers the online movie marketing push for the Amityville Horror remake. Sam Ball of London-based Lean Mean Fighting Machine, the agency behind the ad, described their approach:

It was important that the flies looked and behaved realistically to create an impression of a plague of disgusting flies infesting your computer. By giving each fly its own simple artificial intelligence the illusion was made possible despite the tight file size restrictions.

Horror marketing campaigns are becoming quite the playground! We would really like to see this ad -- if anyone has a link, please forward it to us.

Amityville Horror remake backed with fly-ridden online ad push - Brand Republic