Viral marketing is a technique that encourages the quick sharing of marketing messages across the internet, leading to exponential visibility growth. It has gained popularity in the film industry due to the rapid spread of information through social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. An example includes 'The Dark Knight' campaign, which used a fake newspaper to engage fans and reveal the film's first official image.

1. What is Viral Marketing?
April Carr

2. Viral Marketing defined:

3. What is viral marketing?
• On the Internet, viral marketing is any marketing technique that
induces Web sites or users to pass on a marketing message to other
sites or users, creating a potentially exponential growth in the
message's visibility and effect.

4. Technological Convergence:
Within contemporary Britain the internet is one of the fastest ways of
sharing information. This is especially proven through technological
convergence in the form of smart phones.
Therefore viral marketing is an extremely popular form of
advertisement within the film industry as information gets spread
worldwide and fast.

5. Social Media:
• Social media such as Facebook and Twitter allow users to share
information quickly. For example an audience member could view a
film and then use Facebook to share that they have viewed it and
their opinion.
• Social media also acts as a free platform for production companies to
advertise through creating a film page and sharing information, video
trailers and teasers.
Harry Potter
has received
over 73million
likes through
viral marketing.

6. Example:
• ‘The Dark Knight’ (Director Christopher Nolan, 2008)
• In 2007 Warner Bro set up a viral marketing campaign by setting up a
‘fake’ newspaper named ‘The Gotham Times’. An interactive
document online made to look real.
• This campaign utilized the films tagline “why so serious?” The site
aimed to interest fans by having them earn what they want to see.
Emails sent by fans slowly removed pixels, revealing the first official
image of the joker.