• The marketing campaign used to advertise Cloverfield was a ‘viral marketing campaign

• This is a marketing strategy focused on spreading information about the film from person to person through things such as internet, social networks and websites. This is because it can reach a large amount of people in a short space of time.

• Cloverfield did this by creating various websites that contains conspiracy theories found in the movie and so made the feel of the movie more realistic and engaging to their audience. There was a lot of hype about which website addresses worked and which didn’t (there was multiple made and very few of the websites established gave the viewer’s information. For example; when the teaser trailer was released, people believed that the website they could access was www.EthanHaaswasright.com but later on in the film’s campaign it was announces that the address was actually www.1-18-08.com. Other websites were also made to try and promote the film and create as much hype as possible.

• The marketing strategy for cloverfield was viral marketing and so they had to come up with ways to include and get people talking. They decided to put together an ARG (Alternate Reality Game). It includes 1-18-08.com, Slusho!, Tagruato, T.I.D.O, Wave and other things that are part of the film that can successfully promote the film using the real world as it’s platform.

• The ARG mainly focused on the fictional Japanese company called Tagruato and its subsidiary company Slusho!. Other connections were made to the film however there were very few direct connections. Websites were also made to increase the effect of realism. A competition was also ran. This was to create an advert for the frozen soft drink company Slusho! And advertise its addictive nature “You can’t just drink six” and also to emphasise the happiness it would bring its customer.

• Slusho! Was the company that Rob (in the movie) was taking a job with and so had ties again with the movie.

• The name of the film ‘cloverfield’ was simply a nickname for it in production. And when Director Reeves started properly thinking about naming the film, he couldn’t justify calling it anything other than Cloverfield due to the name being leaked out too many times and so the film was well known by their audience as Cloverfield. If they called it anything else, their marketing would have seemed a bit skew-if

• The other name they had in mind to call it was ‘Grey shot’ this was named after the archway that the survivors (at the end of the movie) Take shelter under.

• The film release in Japan received a subtitle and so was released as Cloverfield/Hakaisha. Hakaisha meaning ‘Destroyer’ in Japanese.

• There was also another subtitle added to the Manga spinoff of the movie and so was called Cloverfield/Kishin. Kishin meaning ‘Demonic God’ In Japanese. This was released exclusively in japan.

• The website www.1-18-08.com contained the movies trailer, however, this trailer didn’t state the title of the movie, merely this date/website and so the hype about cloverfield started. It also contains a picture of two young women staring up at something unknown in shock. New photos had been added to the website after this however, this was the first bits of information.

• A widget is a piece of software that can be attached to blogs and various forms of social media e.g. Myspace (at that time it was popular). This widget that they had made contained the first five minutes of the film with a special introduction from JJ Abrahms. However, in order to download this widget, people had to register their contact details.
• This registration would then enter you into a competition that was based on who could distribute this widget to the most people and so this ultimately encouraged more marketing, more ‘word of mouth’ marketing and more people online talking about Cloverfield.

• ‘Slusho!’ Is a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate ‘Tagruato’. Slusho! Is a soft drink company that Rob (in the movie) gets a job offer with. Tagruato is a drilling company based in Japan.
• Both of these companies have tie in-s with the film in terms of characters and plotline. They also played a big part in the ARG that helped promote and engage people and promote the upcoming ‘cloverfield’

• The manga spinoff of cloverfield ‘Cloverfield/Kishin’ is indeed a manga version exclusively released in japan. Some fan sites translated each episode into English but these may be hard to find.

• This spinoff also contains references to ‘Slusho!’ Tagruato and the cloverfield monster and so if watched by cloverfield fans or before the release of cloverfield, fans in japan were able to gain information on the movie.

• There are a total of four chapters.

I believe that Cloverfield’s marketing strategy was excellent but definitely a lot of hard work.
Their target audience definitely included mid-teens to young adults and so all of these would have been involved with social media and the internet. This is perfect for their marketing plan and also not as expensive as performing PR stunts or spending twice as much on standard advertisements that could indeed be a hit or miss.
It was also mainly a big hit on the box office as the marketing team had started very early on in terms of promoting the team and so the idea with releasing the teaser trailer with simply the release date made people get talking (word of mouth, viral marketing). All of this alongside the other marketing strategies (ARG ect) created a big buzz about the movie before the initial theatrical trailer was released and so they created a strong following before it even hit the box office.