I Hate Sarah Marshall
So my girlfriend and I were driving to get some late night Boba Loca over in Garden Grove when I saw the billboard for I Hate Sarah Marshall. I saw this about 6 times the last time I was driving around in Westwood, so I finally decided to check it out. I asked Kim to look up Sarah Marshall on her iPhone and we found out it was a blog of some sort.
I’ve recently dived into the blogging community and I thought, “Wow, blogs have gotten so powerful that jealous boyfriends are now using it to ruin the reputation of their ex-girlfriends.” It was literally a blog about how much this guy Peter Bretter hates Sarah Marshall for breaking up with him. I joked around that I’m going to get the url ihatekimear.com just in case 
And then it hit me. I had the I-think-I’ve-seen-this-guy-before feeling and it was because I had seen Sarah and the guy on top of the horse in a movie preview before. Kim and I had gone to see Semi Pro last weekend and The Sarah Marshall movie was on one of the previews.
WOW! If this is not a great way of using blogs for viral marketing, then I don’t know what is. These billboards were posted absolutely every where I looked, which drove me to the site. The site itself is very cleverly made and is made to seem like it is actually the blog of Peter. There is even a little youtube snippet of him hating on Sarah. There is a picture of Sarah on the top right that says “Click here only if you’re over 18.” Of course everyone is going to click there! It’s like putting a red button in front of people that reads “Don’t click.” We will click; it’s human nature.
So this is the power of viral marketing. If you use blogs effectively, you are able to reach your target market directly and have them spread the word for you. The only things that I can add to their strategy is to incorporate comments, trackbacks, and all that other good stuff on their posts. If you can get a conversation going on the site, it will attract even more attention.
Good point, Jun! I noticed this same kind of marketing with “The Ruins” video on Justin.tv. Just do a search for “the ruins human lab rat” and you’ll see exactly what I’m talking about. It seems Hollywood is getting wise to viral marketing, and with some of the best creative minds in the world they are starting to do it right. (What’s even more impressive is that the marketing gurus were able to resist putting Kristen Bell’s gorgeous face on the billboards. She’s so hot.)