I watched the true HD version of this in my office, on a big screen, with the lights off, and the sound turned way up.

It was so worth it.

What is it about the character of Indiana Jones that makes Harrison Ford remember that he has a personality? Don’t answer that. Ignorance is bliss.

And hey, Yahoo. I know you’re busy right now, but a way to grab embed code directly from the player above wouldn’t hurt.

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We’ve done analog advertising before, but this one is just too cool to hold in.

Download our Harold and Kumar Prison Activity Fun Book by clicking here.

Color outside the lines, children. And then when you’re done, you can use it as rolling papers. That’s what H & K would probably do.

And when you’re done with that, you can re-watch Shaq’s Super Bowl spot from our friends at vitaminwater. It’ll be even funnier, if that’s possible.

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The news is all over the trades today about the new Jackass movie, Jackass 2.5, being launched online.

As the NY Times reports…

Paramount Pictures is lurching onto the Web with its “Jackass” franchise, with what it says will be the first studio-backed feature film to have its premiere online. And the studio hopes the result will be considerably more pleasurable than the old MTV show’s trademark shot to the groin — perhaps by paving the way for more profit-making Web-only material.

On Dec. 19, the studio will make “Jackass 2.5” available in connection with Blockbuster’s Movielink service. The hour-plus film has original material and previously unseen outtakes from the second “Jackass” movie in 2006. The new movie, made for less than $2 million, will stream for free but will have 15- or 30-second commercials before and after it plays.

TechCrunch likes the strategy’s potential…

The move is said in part to be a curtain raiser for the new online home for Jackass, “Jackass World” that will officially launch February 6.

As much as it sounds like a marketing ploy from Paramount, any move to debut a movie online for free has got to be a positive in the overall progression from the traditional media model to one that reflects the realities of the internet age. Of course it will take all of about 5 seconds for the movie to be ripped from the site and put onto BitTorrent, but maybe at least in this example, Paramount, unlike many of its competitors, may not be jackass’s after all.

And I agree. In fact, I agree so much, that Deep Focus has been involved in this effort for quite some time now. We will be handling the online marketing around this effort, and are proud to be involved with the very forward-thinking folks at MTV, Paramount, and Blockbuster, Mr. Knoxville, amongst others.

In the meantime, wet your whistle with this, the trailer for for the new film filled with outtakes and new and deleted scenes from previous Jackass movies. And kids, don’t try any of this at home.

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The LA Times does a bit of a feature on some of best in 2007 movie marketing tactics online. Check it out by clicking here.

Among the 10 films mentioned in this piece, I’m proud to say that Deep Focus was at least partially involved with of 4 of their online campaigns.

Congrats to all of our clients featured in this piece!

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In a Google/Nielsen study of 2,000 US moviegoers, we again confirm what we’ve known for years — online content and advertising impact moviegoing audiences’ moviegoing decisions.

Highlights from the study:

TV and the Web hold almost the same amount of sway over potential moviegoers–as 68% of respondents said that TV was influential in their decision to see the film, while 66% said the same about the Internet.

24% of moviegoers polled said they had watched the trailer for the movie they’d just seen online
91% of these said that it was “very or somewhat” influential in their decision to see it.

Moviegoers who had seen ads and content were:
68% more likely to search for more information on the film
130% more likely to visit the official movie Web site
23% more likely to talk to others about the movie than their info-only counterparts.

Respondents who’d seen both ads and Web info pertaining to the movie were 40% more likely to recommend it to their family or friends.

The report also found that the number of moviegoers who said the Web was their first source of information about the movie they had just seen increased from 8% in 2006, to 13% in 2007–a 63% increase year-over-year.

Here’s the rub, though: No matter how much research comes out saying that online advertising impacts moviegoing, it will always be just part of the equation. A very important part, but a part nonetheless. Television advertising is still (for now) what most directly impacts overall audience awareness for a film.

Why? Because there is such a disproportionate amount money spent on television, that it is impossible for online to make a dent. If you watch television frequently, there is no doubt that you will see the same ad for a film a dozen times. For each one of those ads run above the optimal frequency you could have “owned” the homepages of some of the most popular sites on the web in a way that is more targeted, more relevant, and more engaging.

The problem is that the movie business is such a high-risk business, that there just isn’t that much room for experimentation when there is lots of money involved. And that’s got to change. That might mean minimizing the costs of making a film in favor of using dollars to explore new ways of marketing films.

What’s interesting is that while Hollywood continues to not put enough money on the web, the industry that I’m starting to pay attention to the web the most, is the one that’s Hollywood’s favorite ad dollar receptacle: television.

The television industry sees the writing on the wall. Will Hollywood step up?

Hollywood’s online budgets are bigger than they ever have been. But it’s still not enough. And when they do get the money (they will — it’s inevitable), will they know what to do with it? Will they be able to strike the right balance between paid advertising (without too high of a frequency), content distribution, promotions, and buzz-generating/word-of-mouth-driving/zeitgeist-entering ideas?

I sure hope so. If not, I know someone that can help.

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I’ve been called a lot of things in my life. “Professional Viral Marketer” is not nearly the worst. But I also just got called “herring slinger” — which may very well be the best thing I’ve ever been called. Heck, I may even put it on my business card.

Anyway, New York Magazine recently interviewed me for thoughts on the campaign for J.J. Abrams’ 1-18-08/Cloverfield/Title TBD.

With only six short months to go until the premiere of J.J. Abrams’s secret monster movie (a.k.a. Cloverfield, a.k.a. Monstrous, a.k.a. 1-18-08), nerds on the Internet think they’ve finally solved the mystery of its plot (see above). Apparently it may have something to do with a fake Japanese beverage called Slusho, which is evidently made of people.

But Ian Schafer, CEO of Deep Focus, who markets movies like this for a living, isn’t convinced: “In my opinion, this Slusho thing is not that integral to the plot. People are throwing red herrings out there.” A professional herring slinger himself, Schafer weighed in on some of the more popular Cloverfield theories making the rounds.

Full story here.

I can’t wait to find out whether I’m right, wrong, or somewhere in between. Either way, I’m captivated by mystery surrounding this film.

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I don’t know about you, but I believe that the majority of TV spots are just not good. And the ones that seem to be the worst (the automotive industry) are the ones I see at the highest frequency.

Even spots for movies have gotten pretty lame and formulaic.

So the thought of combining an ad for a car with an ad for a movie would normally make me cringe by forcing me to notice the blatant product placement in the film (i.e. Transformers).

But leave it to Crispin, Porter + Bogusky to do it right. Just when you think they’ve done all they could with Volkswagen, they do this:

Take a note. This might be the best acknowledgment of product placement in a film, in an ad, you’ve ever seen.

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This gallery is amazing…filled with images of Polish interpretations of movie posters, many of them American.

It would be nice to see some of these in the U.S.

This is one of my favorites:

Thanks Drawn.

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You know, as a marketer, sometimes the best part of a viral campaign is watching the efforts people go through to debunk it, alerting even more people to the viral.

While I can’t confirm that these photos are actually part of a coordinated viral attempt from Paramount to support The Transformers, but if it is, I like it.

The highly influential blog BoingBoing is conducting a debunking attempt on these photos, where the collective consciousness of its readers is putting forth an investigative effort. While there is a lot of speculation, my favorite conspiracy theory has to do with the markings on the UFO’s similarities to the markings on this picture of Megatron from the new Transformers movie.

I hope that’s true. If so, great, heady viral. If not, it still benefits the film.

Sometimes, its the smaller, less mainstream and more precise efforts that work best. They are appreciated by fewer, yet more influential people than those obtuse viral videos that get viewed by millions, but have no brand association whatsoever.

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Congrats to Picturehouse and Deep Focus on scoring a Key Art Award Nomination for Pan’s Labyrinth: Journals of Imagination! Congrats to the other nominees as well!

SPECIAL-RECOGNITION INTERNET
Snakes on a Plane: Personalized Viral Campaign — Varitalk, New Line Cinema
Eragon: Community — 65 Media, 20th Century Fox
Pan’s Labyrinth: Journals of Imagination — Deep Focus, Picturehouse
The Black Dahlia: Dark LA Viral Video — Exopolis, Universal Pictures
A Scanner Darkly: Banner Campaign — the Aura Group, Warner Independent Films

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