NBC has begun running the following commercial for it’s new show Chuck. The commercial, which intentionally appears subliminal, runs about 30 seconds. See what you can pick up.
It’s a great shot at viral marketing. My guess is that they intended for people to TiVo or DVR this commercial, slow it down, and watch it again and again to try and figure it out. When a company gets you to voluntarily watch their ads, I’d say thats a success.
Here’s the video slowed down so you can read the captions.
You can go to www.chuckssecret.com and watch the same video, but this is where NBC falls short of a true viral campaign. Underneath the video is a link to the NBC fall preview page that gives you an entire two minute trailer for the show and explains everything. The right amount of mystery is what makes a viral campaign really work, and by giving it away already, NBC takes a lot of the momentum away.
If I were running this campaign I would have started three months ago with just a ten seconds of a blank frame except for the words “Chucks Secret”. I would run that for a month and stir up some interest and then add www. and .com to it, so it would read “www.chuckssecret.com” where the video would be playing. Then I would open up and start playing the thirty second spot on TV and then a month or before it airs, I would run the whole trailer.
NBC shows a good effort towards some new marketing ideas, but gets a little trigger happy with the exposure, canceling a lot of the viral effects.
How would you run this campaign?
4 Responses and Counting...
Ok alternate viral strategies on Chuck:
I agree with your cryptic strategy initially but other options:
- get NBC stars to chime in on the the secret
- provide hints/video easter eggs on different NBC shows a la scavenger hunt to get the answer
- get people to provide what they think chuck’s secret is – build a plot or show around the best submissions
- make chuck a total mock show promoting another show in a twist of surpise
- launch a guerrilla Chuck press junket with celeb bloggers that are in on the deal
- have Chuck date Lonely Girl and show up on underpasses of Boston freeways
- interview the most screwed up people in Hollywood on this – Hopper, Nicholson, Kathy Griffin, David Lynch or obscure people Ted Lange from the Love Boat, Jan Smithers from WKRP
Nice forensics on this one, hopefully you don’t mind me posting in entirety
“- have Chuck date Lonely Girl and show up on underpasses of Boston freeways”
Priceless. Why didn’t I think of that?!
It might work, but then again they might call the police and start a national scare…but maybe that’s just what they need…
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