Friday, October 23, 2009

Viral Marketing and The Fourth Kind: A Hoax Gone Too Far?

I'm always interested to see marketing campaigns go viral (or viral content turned into marketing), and so when I saw a sneak preview of "The Fourth Kind" last night I went straight home and started looking at what info the movie folk had put out there.

Now, the movie does a pretty good job of convincing the audience that it is based on "real" events, providing haunting audio and video clips supposedly taken by a doctor studying sleep disorders, even going so far as to pass out a sheet of info at the screening about the "backstory" of the movie, and creating fake online medical publications that "prove" that Dr. Abigail Tyler is a real person. Even the director of the movie and the main actress Milla Jovovich break the fourth wall before the movie and warn the audience that the movie is extra disturbing.

But is this just a good old fashioned attempt to create confusion and buzz about the movie that will lead to a marketing campaign gone viral, or is it misleading advertising? Is there something ethically wrong with trying to trick the audience into believing that this is more documentary than fiction?

Director Olatunde Osunsanmi leaves it up to the audience to decide if the mysterious dissappearences in Nome, Alaska are the work of alien abductions, but he does everything he can to make it seem that the movie "archive" footage and the story the movie is supposed based on are the real deal. I heard a number of people discussing the movie as a documentary as we were leaving.

After the movie, my movie-going friend and I began to dissect the style of the film and the marketing surrounding it, and here are some of the weak spots (and potentially questionable tactics) that appear in both.

Is Dr. Abigail Tyler real?

In addition to the portrayal of Dr. Abigail Tyler by Jovovich, the movie runs some "archive" footage side by side of the "reenactments" that are supposedly the "real" Dr. Abigail Tyler. Now the actress who plays the "real" Dr. Tyler is probably one of the best-cast parts I've seen in a while, her face is seriously haunting, but as for her background story, it doesn't add up. Tyler's only presence on the Web seems to be on a site called (incredibly vaguely) "Medical Journal Archive" and Dr. Abigail Tyler's bio leaves a lot to be desired (like where exactly the "Dr." got her degree). The supposed paper that she wrote about sleep disorders that is republished on the site is ridiculously short for a medical paper. I also find it odd that a site claiming to be a medical journal archive contains only a few "studies" and a couple bios, as well as no "about us" page. The url doesn't match the site name (Alaskapsychiatryjournal.org versus Medical Journal Archive), and the homepage leaves a lot to be desired.

I'm going to continue my search to find the real name of the actress who portrays Dr. Tyler, but I have no doubt she is an actress and not a real doctor.

The Interview at Chapman University

Another piece of "archive" footage is the "real" interview with the director of the movie and Dr. Tyler that supposedly takes place at Chapman University. I was surprised that the director decided to use the Chapman University name and logo in the movie along with that "archive" footage (my fellow movie goer and I thought that it was a weird choice, seeing as how he could have chosen any random university name). Later research brought out that Osunsanmi is actually an alum of Chapman, and a post on the Chapman blog points the movie out as a work of complete fiction, responses to the post chastise the university for allowing the misleading use of its good name, the blog's author responds by saying, "I wouldn't take it too seriously - I think everyone will realize that this is a "Hollywood-ized" fictional film based on supposed "actual events."

Dr. William Tyler's Death

So, even though at this point further disproving the story seems unnecessary, Dr. William Tyler of Nome does not seem to have existed either. The mysterious death of Abigail's husband is a key element in the movie. However, the only bit you can find on Will Tyler online is on a site called the Alaska News Archive, it is a short and oddly vague obituary. The site Alaska News Archive (oddly similar to the Medical Journal Archive), is not a real news site. Again, no "about us" page. And, if you, like me, are an internet nerd, you might have looked up the registration information for the site and found that it was only registered in August of 2009 which seems odd for a site claiming to be from 1998 on.

Anyhow, I'm wondering what people think about marketing tactics such as fabricating medical research papers and inventing "real" doctors. Also, for a movie to say "based on true events" how far from the "true" events should the story line be before it can't claim that? Do you think many people will believe that the movie is actually real? If so, is there harm in that?

I'd also be curious to know what the people of Nome think of the movie.