by Kacey Stapleton

Created on: September 07, 2010   Last Updated: November 13, 2010

Snakes!  Snakes were on Samuel L. Jackson’s plane and he wasn’t happy about it.  In the most colorful manner possible, he would voice his displeasure with the legless reptiles on his flight. His voice echoed from cell phones, emails, and endless trailers on YouTube.  There was an interactive rush to hearing all about the 2006 movie Snakes on a 

Plane.  The hype was amazing and fun.  The online and mobile advertising blitz showed how such a campaign could capture the imagination of millions.  Unfortunately, it proved an old advertising adage. A great ad can only generate interest in a product, but no amount of advertising can sell a dud. 

The old tried and true formula for a movie becoming a cult hit was solely word of mouth.  If enough people left a late night movie talking non-stop about its wonders soon others start crowd the theater seats.  The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Texas Chainsaw Massacre of the mid-1970’s, and Dazed and Confused 1993 all received little commercial backing or advertisement yet, eventual filled theaters.  All still top many DVD rentals, and purchase list despite the fact all these movies possess little in the way of technical skill or cinematic glitz.  People have and will enjoy them simply because other people got a kick out of watching them. 

Building a buzz for a movie can be a costly enterprise. Posters, trailers, and other promotional materials are not only expensive getting these items displayed prominently enough to vie for attention above other movies of a similar genre isn’t easy.  A lot of work and planning goes into deciding the best time to release a movie depending on dates other movies will be coming out, but often the game of distributing movies rests outside the producer’s or marketer’s hands.  Small independent films or those not gaining the favor of a large studio are often left to fend for themselves in a tough market. Many find the celluloid version of a slow death in the DVD only release bin. 

Perhaps this is what propelled the advertising ideas for Snakes on a Plane. Up to this point, home produced videos and blogs were already becoming viral hits, but like cult movies, most did so in a somewhat natural order of gaining attention with a small group of people then spreading out gaining millions of hits quickly.  Using the entire range of the less expensive Internet marketing tools like sending updates to cell phones, social sites, and email accounts, not to mention a blitzing of YouTube Snakes on a Plane became one of the first well-planned viral hits. 

Unfortunately, for the makers of the movie those elements that make a great Internet hit like interaction, a great profanity-laced catch phrase, and very short intense video images did not translate well to the theater.  Snakes on a Plane tanked in the movie ranks despite having met its advertising teams dreams.  Part of the trouble might have been in using so much footage of intense or comical moments from the movie the advertising actually stole some of Snakes on a Plane’s thunder in the theater.  Regardless of the theatrical outcome, this film started a new and promising form of promotion on the web.  

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