‘Rings’ Promotion Prank Video Gets Over 250 Million Views
Viral marketing agency Thinkmodo has done it again. Their latest attempt, which is a prank video promoting the upcoming horror movie, Rings, has gone viral and garnered over 251 million views on Facebook and over 3.6 million views on YouTube. Following its trend of releasing viral prank videos for the promotion of horror movies, including 2013’s “Telekinetic Coffee Shop Surprise prank for the movie Carrie and the “Beauty Shop Scare” prank for the movie The Last Exorcism Part II, the company released its latest video promoting the upcoming movie, Rings, which is part of the popular Rings movie series. Their latest video blew up at an unprecedented rate, and with over 250 million views, has set a new record for a Thinkmodo production, Adweek reports.
You can check the video out below:
AdFreak talked with James Percelay, the co-founder of Thinkmodo after the video blue up. Percelay seemed just as overwhelmed with the staggering number of views the video had garnered.
“Even for us, this is a bit of hot coffee. Twenty-four hours, 200 million views. It’s the top-trending video on YouTube. It’s kind of an eye-opener. The world of viral marketing is certainly alive and well.”
Percelay believes the prank’s setting, the TV store, was a key element in the success of the video.
“Drama comes from contrast. A place that’s brightly lit and has a friendly salesperson is where you’re least likely to be scared. But also it’s relevant to the movie, where somebody views something on TV and they become the subject of imminent death.”
Perceley also believes that the kind of prank videos Thinkmodo have been making for the promotion of these horror movies have a better impact on the target audience than the actual movie trailers.
“It’s about taking things from a movie and putting them in a real-life context. There’s no separation like there is in a movie trailer. You’re watching it going, ‘Oh my God, I go to TV stores. This could be me.’ There’s this connection that takes it out of Hollywood and puts it into your local Best Buy.”
Perceley says that the fact Thinkmodo likes to add an element of humor makes the videos more amusing, and hence, more shareable. But as amusing as these videos end up being, Perceley admits he doesn’t quite enjoy the experience of making them since he doesn’t enjoy scaring people. Perceley compares the Rings promotional video to a video they did earlier, the “Beauty Shop Scare” video promoting The Last Exorcism Part II. Both videos have a little, contorted, dead girl that scares store patrons. Bonnie Morgan, the stunt contortionist who plays Samara in the Ring movies, plays the role of Samara in this viral video by Thinkmodo. Percelay says that the latest video was much more aggressive than the work they’ve done before, leaving a lot of the pranked patrons visibly shaken.
“With the beauty shop, a lot of the reactions were very subdued. They didn’t want people in the room to think they were crazy, so they internalized the fear. In this case, it was so bold that it was really hard to keep it in. People just reacted very physically. We had a few cool customers who were shaking in their boots but managed to keep it in, but for the most part, even young guys were incredible scared. But all of them laughed afterwards.”
Rings is set to release in the United States on February 3, 2017, following the world premiere in France two days earlier. Bonnie Morgan reprises her role as the creepy contorted dead girl, Samara, while Alex Roe, Matilda Lutz, and Johnny Galecki also appear in lead roles.
[Featured Image by Paramount/Facebook]
