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Rugimbana, Robert & Silver, Jon (2006) The Project : Forming strong attitudes, beliefs and consumer intentions from a myth. Consumer Behaviour: An Asia-Pacific Approach., 2006. [Article]

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“: Forming strong attitudes, beliefs and consumer intentions from a myth”.

A MARKETING CASE STUDY

Robert Rugimbana and Jon Silver

Published in:

Blackwell, Roger; D’Souza, Claire; Taghian, Mehdi; Miniard, Paul & Engel, James (2006) Consumer Behaviour: An Asia-Pacific Approach. First edition. Cengage Learning. South Melbourne pp. 295-296.

Introduction

The Blair Witch Project was one of the great movie success stories. The movie was supposedly pieced together from the video shot by three student filmmakers who had gone missing in a forest while hunting a mythical witch. (1)

The movie, a low-budget horror presented as a documentary, was actually made in 1998 by Haxan – basically, a group of unknown -school graduates from the University of Central Florida. The producers cast three other college friends to play the lead roles. Film distributor acquired The Blair Witch Project for US $1.1 million after a midnight screening at the Sundance .

Released nationally in the U.S.A. on 16 July 1999, The Blair Witch Project became a box office smash hit and achieved instant status. After a record-breaking opening weekend, grossing U.S. $1.5 million on just 27 screens, it had grossed over U.S. $135 million after sixty days of release. (2)

The impact of The Blair Witch Project is utterly unprecedented. Never has a – let’s be honest – weird movie budgeted at a ludicrously low $35,000 stormed both the box- office and the national pop consciousness. (3) And the marketers at Artisan Entertainment, who built the fervent want-to-see for the film through cunning use of the Internet, have been credited with revolutionising the way films are sold. ‘The Blair Witch Project was the must-attend social event for a plugged-in America. (4) Where the average studio film today costs at least US $25 million to market, The Blair Witch Project is an example of how marketers can utilize a good story, clever positioning and publicity to bring out basic attitudinal processes such as imaginative beliefs, and emotive powers to generate strong positive behavioral intentions. According to movie-makers, this kind of strategy can rival any studio marketing juggernaut. (5)

Movie marketing and The Blair Witch Project

Marketing movies in Hollywood has always been highly competitive. The motion picture industry now faces more competition for the entertainment dollar than ever before. The home entertainment boom was facilitated by the introduction of video in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In response, cinema chains worldwide embarked upon a massive program of building multiplex cinemas that continues to this day. (6) Today consumers have more choices on more screens in exciting environments, (7) and the industry has never looked healthier. The marketplace is so crowded nowadays that a good movie with weak marketing will undoubtedly fail, and according to experts, a poor with great marketing will succeed. (8) Clearly, it is how product is presented and what consumer influences are applied that will make a movie successful.

The marketing of The Blair Witch Project began in August 1997 when the Haxan producers managed to get exposure on U.S. cable television in John Pierson’s Split Screen movie show. It devoted a segment, which included an eight-minute short by the filmmakers and a mock history of the ‘Blair Witch’. Haxan then used the money it received from Split Screen to finance the trip to for eight days of filming in June 1998. (9)

The producers used ‘method filmmaking’ based on army survival tactics to extract realistic performances from the cast who were sent into the woods armed with hand- held cameras and instructions to be at certain places at appointed times. The filmmakers avoided direct contact with the cast – harassed and disoriented the actors, depriving them of sleep, and near the end, even food. The film’s hyperrealism helps moviegoers to suspend their disbelief long enough to be scared witless. (10)

According to movie critics, to say that The Blair Witch Project is a convincing experience is only scratching the surface. The fact is audiences were made to believe it by the following facts. First, vision was limited and the actors were, in reality, alone in the dark. Secondly, it didn’t even seem to be a movie but rather somebody’s home footage that had gone terribly, sickeningly beserk and hence it might be the scariest movie ever made. (11)

The movie has no sex or even sexual tension and no music of any kind. There is no prowling, voyeuristic camera from the killer’s point-of-view; this movie is about victims and the victims they make of each other. There are no cuts to the monster. In fact, there is no visible monster! The audience sees only what the camera sees. At night it is sometimes pitch black. The audience is essentially left to its own imagination. (12)

Even before a script was penned, producer Eduardo Sanchez developed a website about the fictitious ‘Blair Witch’ to show his friends and showcase the project to potential investors. (13) According to Sanchez, the biggest part of the suspense or buzz, was that ‘we wouldn’t let anyone see it’. Kevin Foxe, the movie’s executive producer said: ‘That frustrated the press. People were calling me from the LA Times and saying they’d spent four hours on the site, begging me for an advance screening. I’d just tell them ‘you’ll have to wait for Sundance’. (14)

Artisan began planning the campaign at Sundance as soon as they had bought the distribution rights. They also knew that a low-budget film with no big-name stars and no special effects would need to employ an innovative marketing strategy to turn it into a commercial success. Artisan deliberately targeted the youth segment as the primary audience for the movie. This is arguably the most regular movie-going target group. (15) Industry research shows that the primary audience for the horror genre is in the 12-24 age-range. Teenagers are the main factor in the success or failure of horror films with the early 20s crowds having a lesser influence. In recent years there has been a skew towards young females in horror movies. Examples of this include Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer and Blair Witch itself. (16)

The bottom line was that Artisan, a small independent distribution company, had limited financial capacity. It knew it could not hope to compete with the major studios in terms of the size of the marketing budget needed to attract this target audience. It therefore had to out-think the competition.

Acknowledgement.

This case is a revised draft of an earlier unpublished paper by Jon Silver.

Questions

1. What were the core strategies employed to market The Blair Witch Project? 2. Can attitude theory adequately explain why Blair Witch instantly became a cult movie and a must-see event? 3. Is the success of Blair Witch really likely to ‘revolutionise’ the way Hollywood markets its movies? Discuss.

REFERENCES

1. Associated Press (1999) ‘Blair Witch’ bodes well for ” at Salon.com – August 3,1999 http://www.salon.com/ent/wire/1999/08/03/blair_indie/index.html August 6,1999 09.16 pm 2. The-Numbers – Box Office Data www.the-numbers.com/movies/1999/BLAIR.html 3. Corliss, Richard (1999) “‘Blair Witch’ Craft” Time Magazine August 16,1999 pp 56-62 4. Ibid. 5. Carvell, Tim (1999) “How the ‘Blair Witch’ Project built up so much buzz” Fortune Vol 40 Issue 4 New York August 16,1999 start pp 32 6. Poulter, Adam (1998) “How Cinema set a new record in media spend”. Marketing Week. Vol. 21 Issue 23 August 6th, 1998 p. 14 7. Wasko, Janet (2003) “How Hollywood Works”. SAGE Publications. London. 8. Ibid. 9. Boyar, Joy (1999) “Bewitching cinema” Orlando Sentinel On-Line June 4,1999 06.33 pm EST http://www.orlandosentinel.com/calendar/060699_boyar06_51.htm 10. Ibid. 11. Atkinson, Michael (1999) “The Blair Witch Project” Mr Showbiz Movie Review http://mrshowbiz.go.com/reviews/moviereviews/movies/TheBlairWitchProject_1999.html Sept 23,1999 01.03 pm 12. Corliss op. cit. 13. Eskenazi, Michael (1999) “‘Blair Witch’ uses web to create box office magic” Yahoo! News Entertainment Headlines Friday July 30,1999 3:12 PM http://dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/en/story.html?s=v/nm/19990730/en/film- blairwitch_1.html accessed at Sept 13 07.56 pm 14. Ibid. 15. Dortch, Shannon (1996) - "Going to " Vol 18 Issue 12 American Demographics Ithaca Dec 1996 pp 4-7 http://www.americandemographics.com/publications/ad/96_ad/9612_ad/9612A04.HTM Aug 28,1999 12.50 pm 16. National Research Group Inc., e-mail to J. Silver, 20 September, 2999.