The Blair witch Project

The Blair witch Project

This essay will look at the most renowned digital campaign in the history of online, The Blair witch Project. The Blair witch campaign was based on a low budget movie of the same name. The campaign was released in 1999 when surfing the web was very new to many consumers. This online campaign took place before the internet was something most of the world went to on a daily basis. It was before Facebook, YouTube and Twitter even existed. (thedigitaljigsaw, 2013)

The Blair Witch project used guerrilla marketing. It used the then unconventional median of the web to create conversation and awareness of The Blair Witch movie. Guerrilla marketing is a low budget unconventional marketing tactic and The Blair Witch project is one of the best examples of this. (Aakar, 2002)

The main objective of this marketing campaign was to establish uncertainty among the public. Every marketing tool used for this campaign was used to stir confusion with the public. It was all used to achieve interest in the speculation of the story so as to increase talk about the movie. The campaign played on the concept of ‘was it real or not’ so that people would have to go see it. (J.Armitage, 2014) The theme of the campaign was a low quality and low budget the same as the movie and all marketing tools incorporated this theme.

The Blair Witch project is based on three student film makers. The students are investigating the legend of a Witch known as the Blair Witch in a town called Burkittsville, Maryland for a college project. The three student film makers interview the locals of the town before taking off into the BlackHills with their recording equipment and are never seen again. It is not until a year later their footage is found and used to make the movie. The actors were only given a broad framework and had to improvise most of the scenes. The actors being left in the dark as to a lot of the scenes and the amount of truth in the legend of the Blair Witch this was to keep the reactions on camera as unrehearsed as possible. This factor made the movie more realistic and scary.

Mythology

The legend of the Blair witch was set out by the film makers. It was recorded on the website and dated back to 1785, when an old Irish woman immigrated to the town of Blair from Ireland. The townspeople found that she was luring children into her house to draw blood from them so in 1786 they cast her into forest as punishment for being a Witch. The town of Blair was abandoned until 1824 and renamed Burkitsville. From then over the years of 1824 to 1941 a total of seven children had went missing without a trace. In May 1941 a man named Rustin Parr who lived on a hill in the woods walked into the market place in Burkstville claiming ‘I’ve finally finished’. Parr’s house in the woods was lifted and the bodies of the seven missing children were found underneath. He claims that a ghost of an old woman appeared to him in the woods near his house and that he done it for her. He was convicted and hanged. (Films, 1998)

The Campaign

The campaign was started with a basic website www.blairwitch.com ,by the film company Haxan Films in 1998, a year before the film was released. The website was the main component of the marketing campaign and all other platforms drove audiences back to the website. The website outlined the story of the legend of the Blair Witch and outlined biographies of the missing film makers. It also had other information such as interviews with family members of the film makers, pictures of the film makers abandoned car and photos of the police search.

The site like the movie was very low budget and had the effect that it had been put together by students. The website was used to generate a hype and buzz around the movie, the main intention was not to sell the movie to the audience. The main aim of the website however was to focus on the legend of the Blair Witch. The objective of it was to scare and confuse potential viewers so much so that they would sell the movie to themselves. The website was used as a point of reference for people and something that could be shared easily. It was used like many viral campaigns now with the potential to spread like wildfire.

The website left viewers intrigued not knowing whether it was real or not. That is where the success stems from. The belief that the story was based on true story was increased by snippets of the film and other ‘new information’ being uploaded to the website. (blairwitch, 1998)

Other marketing tools were used to keep people talking and referring back to the website.

Online chatrooms were used by the marketers of the Blair Witch project to plant seeds and get people gossiping about the movie and the website. Chat rooms were the go to for communicating online in 1999 and marketers used this to their advantage pretending to be typical users. They shared the pictures of the missing person posters, created hype about the validity of the film and directed them constantly back to the main marketing platform the website. (J.Armitage, 2014)

Missing person flyers were another marketing platform used to increase the uncertainty among viewers. They were handed out in college campuses, placed on pillars in towns and alongside articles in some small scale newspapers. They were used to verify the rumours which had been circulating among the public started by the marketing team of the Blair Witch.

The attention to detail on this campaign was another reason it was such a success. Every detail of the public’s behaviours had been taught about. The go to movie source website IMDB modified the page for the Blair Witch movie so that the list of the actors also came up as missing. This backed up the posters and fuelled the questions of concern among the public. Are they dead? Is this real? Is the footage from the movie real? (J.Armitage, 2014)

A number of low budget trailers for the movie were released in the marketing campaign. The trailers were snippets from the movie. They gave the viewers a chilling look into the footage but just enough to leave the rest up to their own imagination. The trailers were not shown in any mainstream outlets so as to keep the image of the low quality uniqueness of the film. They wanted viewers to feel that they had stumbled upon something special so that they would share the find with their friends and family. The trailers were shown in college campuses and on Sci-fi channel to keep with the theme of the campaign. (Davidson, 2013)

The final part of the marketing campaign just before the movie was released was a magazine ad in Variety magazine. The print ad was released on the opening weekend of the movie in July 1999. Like all of the marketing tools the magazine ad was simple it stated the views on the website to that date. The ad drew attention the website and the legacy rather than the movie. (Davidson, 2013)

The Success

The success of the campaign was so huge and is still noted today. It is so memorable because it was in an age unlike now, when the internet was new and seen as the unknown. It was the first film to be marketed online and introduced Hollywood to the power of the web. (J.Armitage, 2014)

The campaigns two main factors of success was its originality and uniqueness. Many companies have tried to copy this successful marketing campaign but have failed because they do not have the uniqueness or originality that the Blair Witch had.

The film used a dedicated internet website to generate maximum hype and discussion about the Blair Witch. (RAB, 1999)

The movie was shot on a budget of only $25,000 and went on to earn $250 million over ten times the amount it had cost to make. The website had 21 million hits just after opening weekend. This in a time where only 190 million people were using the internet regularly was a clear indication of the success of the online campaign.

The film was said to have grossed close to $11,000 for every $1 dollar spent according to the Guinness world record books. (Jones, 2014)

The campaign succeeded in achieving its objectives. It created so much curiosity and talk that it was impossible not to go and see the movie. It was remembered more for the campaign than it was for the movie. The end result was all the more terrifying because people didn’t know if it was real or not.