Get Out was also another successful independent film which made domestic total gross of $176,040,665.00 with a budget of $4.5 million. However, the film Get Out in 2017 used different marketing strategy. Unlike the film The Blair Witch Project, the major step of marketing strategy for Get Out was its trailer which included commentaries on a social issue of racism. The trailer starts with a guy asking her girlfriend if she told her family that he is black. The scene after is a police officer asking for the guy’s driver’s license, even though his girlfriend was a driver.
The scene that follows shows that the girlfriend’s family only hired black people as a gardener and housekeeper, and the trailer goes on. After watching the first one minute of the trailer, viewers already got an idea what this horror movie was about. The director, producer, and heads of marketing aimed the trailer to be “a trailer that would convey an honest sense of the tone and themes without giving too much away”. Through the scenes mentioned above, the trailer gives hints to what the protagonist will face, but does not reveal main plot at all. All the viewers can know about the movie through the trailer is that the film is is a horror film with racism. Other than the exclusive trailer, only a website with the trailer, “Get Tickets” button, and little more of the film’s synopsis was the other part of online marketing. With a great trailer, positive response from secret midnight screening, and word-of-mouth, the volume of potential audiences grew exponentially.
The marketing strategy of the two films might seem similar, but they are totally different. Both films created buzz online to draw attentions from potential viewers. However, the “ingredients” they used to draw people’s interests were not the same. The Blair Witch Project used fake evidences to make the local Blair Witch legend sound real to people. By encouraging debate on the whether the evidences are real, more people were interested in this documentary-type film, and viewers voluntarily participated in marketing the film through online communities. On the other hand, Get Out did not manipulate any outer elements to advertise the film. The topic of racism in the horror film is already fresh and interesting enough to draw much attentions from audiences. Both film made tremendous amount of gross profit compared to their small budget, and that is results of utilizing creative and effective marketing strategies.
