As the marketing machines at Paramount went into warp speed this morning free Spock haircuts were offered to the public at a Soho salon this morning to coincide with the films DVD and Bluray release. Marketing stunts have always been common place but with the increase in online and web marketing the trend for real time big gestures seems to have died down in favour of cheap viral and online film marketing. Kids films still seem to get the treatment – when Up was released marketing agency Beatwax sent a 150kg hot air balloon around Europe to promote the films opening and the Christmas Carol premiere coincided with the Oxford Street annual Christmas lights turn on, with the premiere build up and film being shown live in screens all across the country.

2012 is just one of a number of recent films that has instigated a website to go along with its fake premise  http://www.instituteforhumancontinuity.org/ although it clearly states it is ‘part of the movie experience’ whilst other films often try to trick people into believing promotional  sites pretexts are real. The Blair Witch project was the original film to start this trend in 1999 and major blockbusters often now have a promotional info website alongside this sort of teaser content site. The Sherlock Holmes film even has a complex game site for people to work out puzzles and mysteries at http://www.221b.sh/ . While these campaigns are much cheaper and get to a global audience I will always prefer to see the outlandish costly stunts in real life on the streets – I’ll always choose an exciting trip out to glimpse a blue Dr Manhattan projection rise out of the Thames river than spend my time sitting in staring at some ambiguous promotional website.

Paramount have uploaded some of the Spock haircut volunteers here for us to mock http://tweetphoto.com/upasasxl but what lengths would you go to to promote a film if you were a marketing exec? I certainly wouldn’t let them near my hair!