The Paranormal Activity franchise is all about sneaking up on, surprising, and scaring the people who watch the movies. That’s what fans love about the series. So, we decided to take a similar approach with launching the latest film, Paranormal Activity 3 (PA3), creating a fake “special news article” for mobile devices that pulled people in, shook them up, and gave suspense lovers a taste of what the latest paranormal experience would be like.

ObjectiveWe needed to create excitement and interest around seeing the third installment of Paranormal Activity. This needed to be created in a compelling way to get the PA3 brand in front of users without being an obvious advertisement.StrategyWe needed to find an idea that snuck up on people and surprised them in the way that the movie does. Thus, we worked to create a fake news experience with Yahoo Mobile that made people feel like there was a major event happening right now. Once users went into the experience, they would be surprised by PA3. The fake news article was about the interruption of cell phone service throughout the country. Users were teased with a small alert that came up over regular Yahoo content and they were taken to a full screen page (after clicking) with the full news story. Yet, after a few seconds, the screen started to fill with static. Within seconds, PA3 brand messaging was displayed. This breaking news article ran across Yahoo's Frontpage, Sports, and Messenger. It ran on 10/20/11, 10/21/11, and 10/27/11 with over 12MM impressions served.

With this campaign, we took users out of their comfort zone. It was completely unexpected, which is exactly how the movie horrifies its fans.

ResultsThe engagement was exceptional. We saw between a 4.4% and 8.1% CTR. This was 47% to 170% higher than the industry average CTRs, which was great. In addition, the campaign over delivered by 3.1MM impressions making it very cost efficient. The movie opened #1 in the box office. Without action by the consumers, this campaign would have been meaningless. The high CTRs prove out engagement within our target audience.