TV Characters posting on Twitter and other viral marketing attempts

Mia Cross has started to Twitter. That’s right. The fictional, plagiarising Lolita from Californication is now also pretending to be a real person in the lead-up to the new series of the show that disappointed everybody with its final episode.

Showtime, the cable network in the US that produces Californication has been using viral marketing on the web quite well for some of their programmes. Most notable is the video/SMS campaign for the second season of Dexter.

The thing is, Mia Cross is totally the kind of character who would start on Twitter because their agent thought it was a good and quick way to get a profile without them even understanding the concept of the community or how it works.

Meanwhile, Lost‘s ?ber-invasive conspiracy body, The Dharma Initiative, has been seeking and testing new recruits. Fans of Lost, me included, are excited to get an insight into the organisation that harnessed the magical island’s magnetic energy and ran tests on humans and animals alike. Actually, some of us, me included, are excited just to get a Dharma Initiative ID card.

The question that comes to mind, though, is what are the marketing people thinking this does for a show? Will it build audience directly? Will it strengthen the brand in a viewer’s mind so that he or she becomes an evangalist for the programme? Or is it just throwing crap at a wall and hoping it sticks?

4 Comments

  1. Well, there is no wrong in trying. Maybe they try this to see if this kind of marketing technique will be effective.

  2. Well, there is no wrong in trying. Maybe they try this to see if this kind of marketing technique will be effective.

  3. Well, there is no wrong in trying. Maybe they try this to see if this kind of marketing technique will be effective.

  4. It’s a timey-wimey detector! It goes bing when there’s stuff.’Last night’s Kath & Kim was awful. Truly awful. It feels like they’ve lost touch with the scaoil class that gave them the idea in the first place.Also, the increased budget means they’re thinking bigger. The show’s strength was always in playing up the small things, like Sharon’s twenny-buck jeans; somehow that’s turned into completely incongruous prosthetic forehead gags that are neither convincing nor funny. It’s wrecking the show.And what’s with awkwardly shoehorning omgfamous people into every episode? What next, Bob Hawke playing the postman?

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