Quantity or Quality: Weighing the Merits of the "Sarah Marshall" Campaign

Over the past few weeks, I have noticed that a number of billboards advertising the new Judd Apatow-produced film, Forgetting Sarah Marshall (see right), have sprung up around my city and, by checking various news sources, I have discovered that this has been occurring in most major American cities. What is notable about these billboards (and the sides of city buses, benches, and other forms of public advertisement) is that, instead of displaying the film's title and cast, they consist of merely "hand-drawn" words on a white background that somehow insult the imaginary Sarah Marshall (although they include a small website URL in the corner). These ambiguous signs, which can be seen using such phrases as, "My mom always hated you Sarah Marshall," and, "You do look fat in those jeans Sarah Marshall," are also accompanied by an internet blog supposedly written by the heartbroken "creator" of the aforementioned anti-Sarah Marshall posters (shown below). With so much exposure of these minimalist advertisements, however, one has to wonder: Are they effectively spreading word of the film or merely spreading confusion and annoyance? To answer this question, I decided to delve into the blogosphere and compare the opinions that I was able to find on two other blogs. The first post I came across, from FirstShowing.net, is titled, "Peter Bretter Defaces San Francisco - Screw You Sarah Marshall!" In it, the author, Alex Billington discusses his appreciation of the pseudo-graffiti posters and the way they connect to the main character, Peter Bretter (played by Jason Segel) and his personal blog. The second source that I visited, Movie Marketing Madness, has a post by Chris Thilk entitled, "Forgetting Sarah Marshall's Lame Cross-media Campaign." Thilk uses the entry to criticize some of the messages on the outdoor ads, but mainly focuses his attention to the inaccurate classification of the promotions as "viral," and the shortcomings of the character's blog, including its failure in suspending the disbelief of those targeted by the campaign. I have responded to each of these posts directly on the authors' respective blogs while also including a copy of these comments below.

"Peter Bretter Defaces San Francisco - Screw You Sarah Marshall!"
Comment:
Thank you for this post, as it lends a nice personal assessment to this ad campaign that has been gaining steam over the past few weeks. While it seems that almost everyone who views these advertisements has an opinion either strongly in favor of or opposed to the harsh words that adorn these understated posters, the question that ultimately matters to the film producers is not necessarily whether they are well liked or not, but will they sell the film to a wide audience? In your post, you state that you, "don't know how specifically effective this sort of viral marketing is," yet your response to the campaign is a strong suggestion that these ads (and their back story via the blog) can potentially create a strong association between the character of Peter Bretter and young males who can relate to his situation. Indeed, your desire to "be out there spraying with Peter [yourself]," seems like the ideal reaction that the studio wanted out of your demographic. Obviously, when the demographic changes, these publicly displayed sentiments will lose their appealing familiarity to which people in similar situations can relate to. I wonder, however, whether you feel that the campaign will still effectively attract audiences who are merely amused by the billboards rather than drawn into their story, as you are. As for the aforementioned blog attached to the campaign, there are many aspects of it that distinguish it as a marketing tool as opposed to a legitimate webpage, such as stills from the film and a timeline of events that do not necessarily mesh with those of the movie itself. Although you obviously can see it for what it is, in your post, you play up the fun of it being written by "Peter." Do you think these details are as important to the campaign as they have proven to be in the marketing of such films as Cloverfield and The Dark Knight or do you think that breaking the illusion of there being a real blog, a real blogger, and real graffiti around the city will not affect the success of the marketing strategy? I feel that the outdoor posters are indeed relatable and clever, but that more effort should have been put into carrying on the illusion rather than giving up on it once a link is clicked and a trailer for the movie pops up. We all know it is for a movie, but if I can suspend my disbelief from the moment I see the advertisement for Forgetting Sarah Marshall, I will be all the more inclined to step into the theater to continue that experience.

"Forgetting Sarah Marshall's Lame Cross-media Campaign"
Comment:
I greatly appreciate your post and find that many of the issues that it addresses are ones that I found particularly interesting when I first came in contact with this marketing campaign. I was entertained by the statements on the print ads themselves, yet I agree that there are many elements keeping this strategy from being considered truly "viral." You mention that "it gets social media completely wrong," and despite having only limited experience in analyzing effective social media, I will concede that it does. However, it must be remembered that the purpose of these promotional tools is not to develop an accurate recreation of a blog for the sake of itself (a la "lonelygirl15") or create a plausible explanation for a couple thousand billboards and bus posters. The purpose is to make people aware that there is a movie soon to be released called, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and to, ultimately, attract people to see that movie. After all, there is no getting around the fact that almost everyone recognizes the fictional "Peter" as actor Jason Segel and knows all about the film by now. Regardless of your opinion on the way the film has so far been marketed, do you feel the amount of exposure its ads have received will result in success at the box-office? Of course this film's ads are not as deep or mysterious as those of Cloverfield (to which you compare them in your post), but for the subject matter of Forgetting Sarah Marshall, I think the campaign has accomplished that which it set out to do: get talked about.