You don’t know what you’ve got ‘till it’s gone
Wednesday, February 27th, 2008 by Mark Himmelsbach
It was sent around the office in a flash. With lines like: “OMG! I love it! Let’s get some cosmos!” it could only mean one thing: an extended trailer for the new Sex in the City movie has hit the web.
HBO (a PHD client) and its sister company, New Line Cinema, both have a history of great promotions: HBO devised a terrific out of home campaign around the Sopranos and New Line incorporated some of the first social media tools on its Austin Powers movie sites. But this one was different.
Sex in the City fans have been waiting for more details on the show’s big screen debut since the abbreviated trailer hit screens in December. By all accounts, the extended trailer was available online on the morning of February 22 and then removed by New Line later that day. What gives? Is this the best way to reward some of HBO and New Line’s most loyal customers?
It turns out that the promotions department delivered again. From a high-brow perspective, they were able to combine the economics model of scarcity and the psychological model of loss aversion to make people feel as if they absolutely must see the trailer immediately!!
From a practical point of view, a handful of Sex in the City fans saw the trailer and those people were happy to pass it along to their friends. As soon as the fervor started to build, the trailer was no longer available. But New Line knew its audience: instead of just giving up, these fans realized that the preview was out there, it just took some hunting.
And that is where the real promotion began. Emails started flying and sites like Jezebel (spoiler alert!) were able to embed the preview and garner a huge uptick in site traffic. And even a few days later, Sex in the City fans were talking about the trailer with a sense of exclusivity, even leading mainstream outlets to provide a second-by-second breakdown for those who missed it (and can’t find it online).
Hats off to New Line and HBO: what a great and simple way to start a viral word of mouth campaign.
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