In the thick of award season when the media is saturated with talk of Oscar and moviegoers are catching up on the best of the previous year, it can be difficult for non-Oscar bait fare to get noticed. Marketing campaigns for regular new releases need to be distinct and imaginative to not only grab attention but also pull people out of the winter doldrums and into the theaters. So when 20th Century Fox was looking for an out-of-the-box idea to promote their new teen-centered action flick Chronicle, they turned to Thinkmodo, a marketing company whose specialty is extraordinarily creative viral marketing.
If you live in the New York area, you may have witnessed their Limitless marketing ploy, in which a common man seemed to have taken control of the massive monitors that surround Times Square, or the girl with an iPad for a head who appeared to be chilling in Bryant Park, all as marketing for Cosmopolitan magazine. Of course, even if you don't traipse around Midtown, you've still probably seen Thinkmodo's work, as these inventive stunts have made it onto countless television news programs and blogs.
So what did Thinkmodo's founders James Percelay and Michael Krivicka have in mind for Chronicle? Well, inspired by the film's promo posters, which show the three teen protagonists flying high over a city's skyline, Percelay and Krivicka decided to manufacture flying teens of their own, to soar above the skyscrapers of Lower Manhattan. Check out the behind-the-scenes video below, courtesy of Yahoo:
Thinkmodo contracted model airplane builders in Oregon, Pennsylvania, and New York to construct 5 teen-shaped model airplanes—two were backups—for the flight that occurred January 27th. The finished models were six feet long, and weighed only four pounds. Their flight—maneuvered by mysterious remote-control pilots—lasted only five minutes, but in that time, the three imagination-inspiring figures flew over The Hudson River and around the Statue of Liberty.
The curious sight amazed the notoriously hard to impress New Yorkers, an accomplishment that Percelay is particularly proud of, admitting:
"We loved that nobody felt threatened by them since their movements were so life-like and graceful... A number of people said it looked like an 'aerial ballet.'"
Chronicle opens this Friday.
