The seemingly accidental viral marketing campaign of ‘The Northman’
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You know what we don’t get much of these days? Successful viral marketing campaigns. The time when Bradley Cooper would have shill a new medicine in a video that turned out to be an advertisement for his upcoming film. Remember the I like bees to promote Halo 2? the Great Lunar Panic of 2007? People are just too wise to fall for these stunts now. Maybe it’s for the best. Once everyone got the hang of it, they kind of stopped being fun. This week, however, the marketers behind Robert Eggers’ new Viking movie scored a viral slam-dunk. The problem is that they may not have tried.
It started a few days ago when people started Tweeter Pictures posters of the film located in New York City subway stations. The posters looked like every other in the film, except for one glaring omission: the title. None of them said they were for The man from the north (although they mentioned Eggers’ involvement no less than three times). Anyone not keen enough to recognize Ethan Hawke, Nicole Kidman, Alexander Skarsgård and Anya Taylor-Joy in all their Viking attire probably wouldn’t have known what the movie was, or even that it was about. an advertisement for a movie.
The internet, doing what it does, immediately began offering alternate versions of what the posters might advertise: Finding Nemo 3, Tarzan, a ABBA movie. Honestly, that was the most I’d heard anyone talk about The man from the north in weeks. It was written in The Independent and in Vulture, which asked a series of commuters what they thought the movie might be based on the unnamed commercials. Best response: “I like Aquatic World 2 or something. Postapocalyptic, but it’s tribal, so it’s kind of got a Neanderthal and Viking era vibe to it. But maybe not. Maybe it’s like Atlantis or something. There is definitely war and some colonial goals. (It’s actually Eggers’ take charge Hamlet.)
Whether intentional or not (a representative for Focus Features, the film’s studio, did not respond to an email seeking comment), the posters have created some buzz. It might not make much difference, but now people are talking about the movie for reasons other than “Oh, it’s a new movie from the guy who made The witch and the one where Robert Pattinson had turpentine drunken blackoutor “He’s the guy from true bloodAnd for a movie that remains a niche product, no matter the size of the names involved, that level of awareness can only help.
It also serves as a reminder that marketing can be fun. Over the past five to ten years, we’ve grown accustomed to targeted ads on Instagram, Google, and other platforms. It all feels a little too organized and, frankly, scary. The hunt for cool used to be an analog process. You had to go to a bookstore, record store or movie theater to experience something new. In its heyday, viral marketing captured it with secret websites and USB sticks left in the bathrooms. But once the jitter lifted, people lost interest. Now services like Spotify and Netflix can tell people what they might like with decent accuracy. There is much less serendipity. Seeing an unnamed movie poster that the internet turned into a brief meme brought back a bit of that providence. If it was an accident, he was a happy one.
