Cloverfield… Monstrous… 1-18-08… Slusho…

After writing a blog entry about the transformers DVD release last week, it jolted my memory about a mysterious trailer I saw when I watched the movie in theaters. The trailer started out as a homemade video being filmed during a party when an alarming event occurs. No film title was attached to the trailer and the only details included were what people are assuming are the release date '1-18-08' and that it involves Lost creator, JJ Abrams. After watching the trailer, it had me asking people if they knew what it was. I never did find out too much about the movie. The only thing I later found out was that it came to be codenamed Cloverfield.

The trailer did a really good job at creating a lot of hype around this movie and caused many people to become curious about it. The information about the film is kept under tight wraps. Even its actual title is unknown. Websites resembling Japanese companies and other viral sites popped up and started to promote the film by gradually adding updates with little bits of vague information as we slowly draw closer to the release date of 1-18-08.

This is a very effective and interactive campaign and it will be interesting to see where it goes and how successful the film will be. However, since the codename ‘Cloverfield’ has been used to identify the film for the past few months and the name may have been burned into the audience’s minds, I wonder if changing the name later can have the potential to cause some people to be let down or reduce the effectiveness of the campaign.