Paranormal Marketing Activity

“Don’t see it alone.”

That’s the tagline for Paranormal Activity, the 2007 found footage horror movie that spawned a franchise.

The original version was shot for just $15,000 and earned nearly $200 million at box offices worldwide.

It’s often cited as one of the most profitable movies of all time.

Its success was thanks to a groundbreaking filming style with a groundbreaking approach to marketing that Entertainment Weekly called a “work of art.”

Found Fervor

Paranormal Activity is not the first scary movie to use marketing to create excitement (see Psycho and The Blair Witch Project).

But the movie used a smart rollout strategy and new digital tools to build buzz, leveraging social media to create demand for more screenings in more places.

The film started on the festival circuit, where it was met with good reviews from enthusiastic horror fans. Then, Paramount pushed it out to a dozen cities nationwide. Rather than focus on major markets like New York City or Los Angeles, Paranormal Activity played in college towns like Madison, WI, and State College, PA.

As word of mouth spread, the movie leveraged Eventful, an online platform where users can request events in their area. Hopeful viewers who visited the Paranormal Activity’s website and Facebook page could click a “Demand It!” button to bring the movie to their town.

That simple button made it easy for fans to engage and for distributors to see where their advocates were. 

If the movie got a million “Demand It!” requests, Paramount said it would release it nationwide. It hit that target in just four days.

In the DVD release, the credits included 15 minutes of names – listing more than 170,000 who people who clicked the demand button and contributed to the film’s success.