 | mystery movie as marketing tool? |
Would you go to the cinema if you didn’t know what film they were going to show? Well this is the premise behind Secret Cinema, a fantastic piece of experience marketing from Windows Phone. Now officially one of London’s worst kept secrets Secret Cinema started as a word of mouth network of like-minded film fanatics with a fight club-esque ‘tell no one’ philosophy.
Once signed up, members are given details of where to buy tickets and performance dates, clues about theme, but not location or the name of the film. The key to the events success is that attendees are asked to dress accordingly and become participants in the performance. Each production employs over 200 actors and extras to construct and inhabit an accompanying real-time film world for people to explore prior to the screening.
This months instructions included: “Different tribes become one. It is nearly time. No one will ever have attempted to cross these paths before. You shall be the first...Secret Dress, Bedouin Attire”. The organisers are clever enough to give you just enough information to plan an outfit together but no enough to necessarily guess the name of the film, which al adds to the excitement of the build up. Last weekend’s production was revealed to be Lawrence of Arabia. Upon arriving at the meeting point, participants were lead through parks in Alexander Park in North London where they were met by Arabian warriors on horseback and into Alexander Palace which had been transformed into post colonial mess hall, recreation room, Bedouin market and even a room transformed into in a desert with sand and palm trees.
 | Outside of the Lawrence of Arabia Secret Screening |
At last months Blade Runner screening, participants were met by futuristic stewardesses and guided through and abandoned container park and industrial waste ground complete with post-apocalyptic characters looting burned out cars and haranguing you to buy ‘black market goods.’ Once inside they has recreated all the key scenes from the film, including the dry ice filled eye workshop, animal market and even had desks set to give people the Voight-Kampff test.
Secret Cinema succeeds in creating a kind of surreal reality, which provides endless source material for content to be recorded and shared on modern portable communication devices such as sponsors Window Media phones. Creating the element of surprise and discovery enhances the experience and the attention to detail of the production is such that participants quickly become online evangelists. After attending several events I can only say that I am impressed and look forward to the next production. Expect the format being exported around the world, look out for it, but don’t tell too many people.