Results and Effectiveness

After 4 weeks, the nightmare ended. This mobile-led stunt smashed all benchmarks. 1.8 million Impressions of the prank text message delivered. Achieved a massive 34.6% CTR 622,800 people watched the video experience (CTR benchmarks for mobile interstitial are 2%-6%). Our engagement levels proved the pranking insight & idea were spot on. Of the 622,800 viewers, 47,576 then pranked their friends by sharing the ‘text’, creating a further 61,135 views. 683,935 views was 7X more than the objective 93,000. Global box office for PA4 were down 34% on PA3, in Australia Paranormal Activity 4 exceeded its box office target by 4%.

Creative Execution

Seeing a mysterious SMS pop up on your phone can give you the creeps. But the audience were being pranked-by the films main character. The ‘lifelike’ SMS was in fact an auto-expanding ad. It was automatically rendered to resemble a text message. Timing was critical. The SMS appeared between the witching hours of 8pm and 4am, when the audience were most likely to be alone, in the dark. Tapping anywhere on the message activated a video clip of the most terrifying movie scene. Upon completion of the video a splash page appeared, inviting the user to prank their friends with the same chilling experience. Furthermore, users were invited to watch the full movie trailer. Re-pranking was made as easy as possible. A pre-populated SMS was created and users simply chose friends from their contacts. To maximise sharing, users could also “prank a friend” using Facebook, Twitter.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

Paranormal Activity 4 was scary. 4th instalment of a limited appeal horror genre, predicted -15% in sales, stiff competition & fickle males 15-24yrs that had lost interest. A dramatic approach was required. Goals Video views 93,000. Audience engagement. CTR benchmark 6% 15-24 yrs pick films in packs, we needed a shareable element that would get them talking. Pranking is a way of life for this audience, as reflected in the phenomenon of prank TV shows such as Punk’d, Prank Patrol & Scare Tactics. It feeds their appetite for extreme stimulation. This includes a perverse love of being scared. INSIGHT: “It’s great being scared, but it’s more fun to scare.” IDEA: SMS… Scary Message Shared To scare people through their most intimate touch point - their mobile phone. This was the perfect vehicle to stage a scary paranormal prank, using the most intimate message method – SMS.