10 Years Later: Cloverfield Still A Stroke of Marketing Genius

The moviegoing public has become a bit spoiled when it comes to having every aspect of a film production known to us before our butts hit the seats on opening night. We live in a day and age where movie trailers now have teasers the day before they drop. There is very little mystery because audiences have been known to stay away from films that don’t paint a clear picture of what it’s actually about. Adding to this is constant internet and media coverage that takes us behind the scenes as we draw closer to the release date. Needless to say, the art of the tease is a bit of a lost cause in the current movie landscape.

This is a sentiment that didn’t seem to be shared by producers J.J. Abrams and Bryan Burk when it came to marketing 2008′s Cloverfield. The film, which celebrates its 10th anniversary today, was a film shrouded in mystery pretty much until its opening weekend of January 18, 2008. It was a bit of viral marketing that we hadn’t really seen before and it really showcased the power of the internet and growing fanboy culture that led to various forms of speculations in regards to the film’s plot. The mystery of the project is arguably why the film did so well upon release and allowed it to buck the trend. Less was more in the case of Cloverfield and I wish studios continued to take note when trying to sell us on a project.

Our first exposure to Cloverfield came during screenings of 2007’s Transformers. No one thought a trailer before the highly anticipated Michael Bay film (boy that feels weird to say) would steal a lot of its thunder but that’s exactly what it did. The filmmakers decided to create a teaser trailer that would be a surprise in the light of commonplace media saturation, which they put together during the preparation stage of the production process. The teaser was then used as a basis for the film itself. Paramount Pictures encouraged the teaser to be released without a title attached, and the MPAA approved the move. As Transformers showed high tracking numbers before its release in July 2007, the studio attached the teaser trailer for Cloverfield that showed the release date of January 18, 2008, but not the title. It also showed would seemed like seemingly tame found footage from a party that quickly turned to the chaos that we didn’t quite understand. It all ended with the Statue of Liberty’s head being hurled towards the terrified crowd and their confused and frightened response seemed to mimic that of the crowd watching the trailer. What did we just see? What just happened? What movie is this? After I viewed Transformers with friends that night we barely talked about the film. We were more concerned about the mysterious trailer that premiered before it.

Adding to the mystery was the fact that we couldn’t seem to find anything online about it. Most of the online stories were about moviegoers being confused yet in awe by the trailer but there were zero plot details available. It almost felt like we got the trailer by mistake before the studio was ready for us to see it. In a time when we are oversaturated with details, there was no way to connect the dots.

The studio had kept knowledge of the project secret from the online community, a cited rarity due to the presence of scoopers that follow upcoming films. This is why there wasn’t much to find about the film. The studio purposely withheld all the details and kept production a guarded secret. The controlled release of information on the film was observed as a risky strategy, which could succeed like The Blair Witch Project (1999) or disappoint like Snakes on a Plane (2006), the latter of which had generated online hype but failed to attract large audiences.

After the release of the trailer, the viral marketing for the film slowly began to take shape and as we were all hungry for any info, it fed just the right amount to us that we began to spin our own theories as to what the film could possibly be about. The sudden appearance of the untitled teaser for Cloverfield, and limited details available in the lead up to the film’s release fueled wide media speculation over the film’s plot, with many expecting it to be an adaptation of an existing property. Among the possibilities reported on, “The Star Ledger” suggested that the film could be based on the works of H.P. Lovercraft or a new entry in the Godzilla series. “The Guardian” reported the possibility of a spin-off to Abrams’ television show Lost, and a misinterpretation of the trailer’s line “It’s alive!” as “It’s a lion!” led “USA Today” to speculate on a live-action adaptation of Japanese animated series Voltron. “IGN” and “Time Out” suggested that the film would feature an alien called “The Parasite“, with that rumored to be the working title of the film. Elsewhere online, Slusho and Colossus had been discussed as other possible titles, as well as Monstrous. Amazingly all of this speculation would prove to be wrong.

The viral marketing campaign drew the attention of alternate reality game enthusiasts, hoping to uncover information about the film hidden online. Members of the forums at argn.com and unfiction.com had investigated the background of the film, with the “1-18-08” section at Unfiction generating over 7,700 posts in August 2007. The members studied photographs on the film’s official site, potentially related MySpace profiles, and the Comic-Con teaser poster for the film. A popular piece of fan art suggested that the monster was a mutated humpback whale. Again, this was all done to make us work our brains as to what the film would be and it only increased interest in the movie as it drew closer to its release date.

The funny thing about the marketing now is how a lot of it, specifically the viral marketing, had very little to do with the film itself. Instead, it focused mainly on the fictional drink Slusho! and the fictional company Tagruato. The drink had already appeared in producer Abrams’ previous creation, the TV series Alias. Websites for Slusho! and Taguruato were launched to add to the mythology of Cloverfield. The Japanese phone number in the Tagruato website did work, but only played recorded messages. For example, one of the messages was: “Thank you for calling Tagruato. Due to high call volumes, your call has been transferred to an automated answering service. There are no updates at this time. After the tone, please leave a message, and one of our associates will find you as soon as possible”. A building bearing the company logo for Tagruato can also be seen in the TV spot of the 2009 Star Trek film, and Uhura orders a Slusho! during the bar scene. When Cloverfield was hosted at Comic-Con 2007, gray Slusho! T-shirts were distributed to attendees and fans who had registered at the Slusho! website received e-mails of fictional sonar images before the film’s release that showed a deep-sea creature heading toward Manhattan. Fans who ordered merchandise received pieces of torn Tagruato documents and Japanese newspapers along with their products.

On July 9, 2007, producer J.J. Abrams stated that, while a number of websites were being developed to market the film, the only official site that had been found was 1-18-08.com. At the site, which now redirects to the Para home page, a collection of time-coded photos were available to piece together a series of events and interpret their meanings. The pictures could also be flipped over by repeatedly and rapidly moving the mouse side to side. Also, if the page was left open for six minutes, the monster’s roar could be heard. Eventually, Cloverfield Movie.com was created The site provided both a trailer and a number, 33287, which, when texted from a mobile phone, provided a ringtone of the monster’s roar and a wallpaper of a decimated Manhattan.

When the film was finally released on January 18, 2008 moviegoers and critics got to see what Cloverfield was all about. Despite January commonly being a dumping ground for lackluster content, Cloverfield defied that trend by being something worthwhile. The film received a fresh rating of 77% on Rotten Tomatoes and despite the found footage subgenre being a bit dated at the time, the film was able to use it to its advantage to create a terrifying film on a totally new level. I’ve said this countless times but I think Cloverfield is probably the best film to utilize the found footage motif. Even though the film ultimately became a “monster movie”, at its core it was really about survival in the face of intense mass destruction. Adding a layer of realism is that fact that the film was released in a post 9/11 climate. Seeing New York devastated by carnage took on a deeper meaning here that I don’t even think director Matt Reeves was entirely aware of. The monster doesn’t make Cloverfield scary, but realism of its mass destruction definitely strikes a chord.

10 Years later, Cloverfield shows that you don’t need everything spelled out for you to make an impact. The element of surprise can still entertain audiences and this film still remains a significant example of this fact. More films should take a look at this and remember how to tease us once again.


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About Gaius Bolling 3795 Articles
At the age of five, I knew I wanted to write movies and about them. I've set out to make those dreams come true. As an alumni of the Los Angeles Film Academy, I participated in their Screenwriting program, while building up my expertise in film criticism. I write reviews that relate to the average moviegoer by educating my readers and keeping it fun. My job is to let you know the good, the bad, and the ugly in the world of cinema, so you can have your best moviegoing experience. You can find more of my writing on Instagram @g_reelz.