Lionsgate and The Visionaire Group Win the Shorty Industry Award for Best Viral Campaign
Lionsgate and The Visionaire Group’s The Last Exorcism’s Chatroulette Reactions was awarded the Shorty Industry Award for Best Viral Campaign at the 3rd Annual Shorty Awards on Monday, March 28, 2011 in New York City.
Overview: In 2010, Lionsgate film company teamed up with digital agency The Visionaire Group to promote the August 27 release of the horror film The Last Exorcism. The team creatively leveraged Chatroulette, a website that allowed random strangers around the world to video chat with each other. Usually the site is off‐limits to marketers due to its frequently graphic adult nature. The Last Exorcism Chatroulette reaction video campaign utilized an actress, a green screen, special effects editing, and special programming to swap out the webcam feed for a video loop. Users thought they were video chatting with a cute girl who was teasingly unbuttoning her blouse, but then she suddenly turn into a demonic presence. The Chatroulette users’ entertaining reactions of fear and surprise were captured and then disseminated on YouTube and other social networking sites.
Impact: A YouTube video showing the “best of” Chatroulette users’ reactions to the movie effect received more than 1 million views within 72 hours of being posted online.
