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Paramount's Brilliant Grip on Internet Marketing: Blades of Glory and Disturbia

by Alex Billington
April 13, 2007
Source: SlashFilm

For the first time ever a movie studio has been brave enough to take on some of the most radical, but successful, marketing tactics on the internet. The two films, Blades of Glory and Disturbia, have been primarily aimed at the high school demographic that uses the internet the most anyway. So far with Blades of Glory, it's been immensely successful, securing two #1 box office weekends in a row (beating out Grindhouse, which isn't because of good marketing from Paramount, but bad marketing from The Weinstein Company). I have a strong feeling that Disturbia is going to take this weekend, too.

The two tactics are Ask a Ninja promoting Blades of Glory and Justin.TV promoting Disturbia.

Ask a Ninja (Click to Watch It)
The first time I was given a shock in internet marketing was when the rather crazy guys from Ask a Ninja somehow "snuck" into the press junket for Blades of Glory and got interviews with Will Ferrell and Jon Heder. I'm one of those guys who is a bit tired of today's bland and unoriginal movie journalism and am doing my best here to try and revolutionize it. But Ask a Ninja gave one of the best interviews I've ever seen. And it worked, Blades of Glory has been #1 for two weeks!

Justin.TV (Click to Read About It)
Finally, just before I was about to say that Disturbia is going to win this weekend, I'm alerted to a marketing scheme that seems quite radical but secures my thoughts even more. This new internet site called Justin.TV has a guy who wears a video camera that broadcasts live 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I've been told about it multiple times, but never watched it, and in 25 days time it's blown up into something pretty damn big. Finally Dreamworks jumped on it and now they've sponsored him with clothing he wears on camera and posters around his room. Sounds rather odd, but I dig the idea, especially given how apparently addictive his camera feed is.

Honestly, I'm impressed that they're embracing the internet in this way and really giving it the opportunity to make a more powerful impact than conventional methods. I'm going to attribute some of this to the public relations rep Tamar at Paramount, who I hope is reading, and I'm glad to see helping support this brave new medium. She's one of the coolest PR reps in the industry, and it's been paying off with success. Now the next step is watch and wait and see if Disturbia takes this weekend and again proves that they've got their marketing tactics down better than anyone else.

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