Horror Movie 'Smile' Conducts Spooky Marketing Stunt

If there is anyone who is a fan of horror films, it's me. I'm the annoying movie friend who gatekeeps the good ones and is dramatically disgusted when you say you didn't really like 'The Shining' (but seriously, how can you not like that movie?). Because of my adoration for the genre, I always like to keep an eye out for new things going on. Articles like this are exactly what I'm looking for.  

The article, "Who are the people smiling at the baseball games? Horror Movie 'Smile' plants actors in MLB stadiums as a Marketing stunt," details the recent marketing tactic employed to draw attention to the recently released movie, Smile. Smile is a horror film about an ominous condition that infects different individuals who begin to see a smiling paranormal figure. These individuals only have seven days to live until passing away in some gruesome way. During that time, they undergo intense psychological distress and grin constantly. Recently, many sports watchers, especially MLB, have spotted smiling figures in the backgrounds of the game. In the case of the MLB appearances, these spooky characters are often seated just behind the home plate, just like the man in the blue shirt below. This is not the only place they've appeared, however. They have also been spotted photobombing The Today Show. The article also points out that this is not the first time the public has been subject to a creepy horror movie marketing tactic, most notably, the Blair Witch in 1999. With the online release of very realistic "interviews" with those claiming to know of high schoolers who had gone missing in the woods featured in The Blair Witch, there was intense speculation over whether the film was actually a true story.  

 

 

The value proposition of Smile is to provide a thrilling movie watching experience that movie goers can add to their Halloween to-do list. The team behind Smile hopes to produce an engaging film that audiences can attend for some quality scares, especially throughout the month of October when many people are looking to grab a couple friends and do something festive.  

By initiating this marketing campaign, Paramount, who represents Smile's distribution and marketing team hopes to get people curious about the movie by creating buzz and adding the very fun element of realism to the film. Any of the MLB's hundreds of thousands of viewers may have caught the scary bystanders and proceed to do what most people do nowadays, talk about it on social media! "Look how creepy this is!" "What's this all about?" "Oh, well those people are actors who are promoting this new movie, Smile." Instantly, you have social media doing the marketing for you. And if some in that audience did not reach to social media to talk about it, they may have simply spoken with people about it throughout their day who leapt to social media or connected it to the movie trailer they saw on TV later, spreading the word all the same.  

Films in general have been facing a major challenge recently, theater presence. Audiences coming to theaters to watch films is often where films receive a lot of their profits. However, since COVID where people became used to staying away from the theater, that same audience has been slow to return. Many films have been struggling to make the kind of money they might have made 5 years ago. This means that they often must jump straight to streaming services to make up for some of those lost profits. Smile and many other films being released right now are hoping to make a film that reemphasizes the experience of seeing a movie. The movie has a very intentional release date close to Halloween. Hopefully, by creating a buzz for the film, they can get an audience excited to go attend the theater to see the movie as a part of their October plans.  

The marketing tactic was unique in that... well, it really had never been done before! Yes, horror movies have used unique ploys to get the public talking, and yes, sports games have been used to display marketing, but this tactic is special, particularly because it coordinates with the premise of the film! Placing actors in the audience who appear to be "infected" with the nightmarish disease in accordance with the movie is a fun way of proposing the movie is a true story, especially after learning that part of the premise appears to be that when you visually encounter one who is infected, you can become infected too. Maybe, these are not actors, and maybe, in the next couple of days you will be infected too! Planting these actors inconspicuously in the eye of the public with this notion in mind is unique and noteworthy for many in conversation or social media, including myself who say the spotted throughout my daily scroll. 

Generally, I love this approach. As I mentioned, the extra aspect that it could all be real, and you could be next is fun, clever, and perfect for the atmosphere of the film. I do have one major problem though; throughout my research and from what I could tell from the article, this tactic was almost entirely utilized at MLB games. According to Market Watch, the average MLB watcher is 57 years old. I would assume the target audience for the film is far younger, mostly teenagers and young adults. Partnering up with a few big youtubers or ticktockers to show up inconspicuously in the back of their videos seems like a better fit for the target audience.  

By reading more about this unique marketing tactic and others like it, my mind was opened to the world of possibilities that really do exist when it comes to marketing. After being subject to so many of the same kinds of marketing, and after taking classes that discuss these very pragmatic core forms of advertising and marketing over and over again, I almost found it hard to believe that there was really any other way to do it. This article reminded me that there is absolutely room to be creative and think outside the box, and you can get a lot of attention simply for doing just that.