The Success of Scream 5’s Marketing Campaign: Explained

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The Scream franchise doesn’t just offer us clever meta-commentary on the slasher horror genre, but its ‘Scream 5’ marketing campaign displays an astute awareness of how to really grip an audience.

 

Scream 5’s release on the 14th of January 2022 marks 11 years since the last film, and 25 years since the first Scream movie. Marketers for Scream 5 knew they would have to attract fans old and new, and just how they do this will be discussed here.

 

Scream 5’s Instagram Takeover

 

As a fan of the franchise, I had not even been following Scream’s social media accounts until I saw their targeted advertising with film posters made by ‘Creepyduckdesign’.

90s vintage poster for new Scream film. Ghost face is central, holding a knife covered in blood. There is a moon behind ghost face. Text reads: It's always someone you know. Don't see it alone! Full cast and R rating are listed,

 

These posters hark back to classic 90s movie posters, with a more vintage style appealing to older audiences as well as newer audiences who appreciate the aesthetic.

 

Considering recent criticisms that most recent Hollywood movie posters follow the same structure, with the whole cast photoshopped together – this provided necessary variety as they did release a poster in this style too.

Collaborations, including a popular baker on Instagram, allowed the Scream marketing team to reach wider audiences.

The comedic caption includes an inside joke for those who watched the last Scream (2011) film, a creative idea to keep fans of the franchise engaged.

 

Collaborations are certainly a popular choice in marketing on Instagram, for example, if you use Instagram, you’ve likely seen brands joining together to offer free items if people share the competition on their Instagram story. As Instagram has a billion monthly active users, it is undeniably an important place to market a film currently.

 

Collaborating with Spotify was another clever technique, as it is a common trend amongst many to share their ‘Spotify Wrapped’ at the end of the year, which is a summary of the songs that Spotify users have streamed the most in the year. Scream cleverly marketed the movie by releasing a playlist called ‘Streamed to Death’, which calculates Spotify users’ streams, their most listened-to song, and artist.


The end screen looks like this:

screenshot of spotify and scream collab. Shows what I have streamed to death. Genre: Indie Pop, Song: Flux, Artist: Mitski.

This follows a ‘live’, interactive experience with a voiceover stating Scream is coming for ‘you’ on January 14th. By collaborating with Spotify, they influence their chances of engagement – even in 2020, over 90+ million people engaged with Spotify wrapped. Clearly, audiences love hearing about their own (and their friends’) listening habits, which is harnessed by Scream’s marketers.

 

Using TikTok

 

We’ve said it before: TikTok is quickly becoming vital for marketers. Because of the overarching theme of popular culture that is satirised in the Scream films, I would have been surprised if they had chosen not to market on TikTok because of how relevant it has become in popular culture.

 Scream’s marketing team did not over-use TikTok, but they certainly took part in one trend which gained traction. Courtney Cox, one of the famous cast members is shown taking part in the ‘Wipe It Down’ challenge, which if you are not familiar, is when someone videos themselves (or another person) wiping the mirror, and when the audio says ‘wipe it’ the video cuts to the same mirror, but the person in a different costume or makeup. This video cuts to a cardboard cut-out of her Scream character Gale Winters with a screaming sound effect.

  TikTok’s tools, such as the popular hashtags, sounds and effects, means viewers can watch videos underneath each category, and more popular videos tend to be the first videos you see because of the algorithm. With 546.4K views, this video is by no means one of the most popular (the hashtag itself has over 2.6b views) however it suggests a ‘real’ person behind the account, a close relationship with Courtney herself, and it may also be comedic for fans to see a famous actress taking part in this trend.

 

Additionally, TikTok’s text-to-speech function allows users to utilise different voices – and Ghostface became an option at the end of last year (2021). This is a subtle way of gaining audience interest by reminding them through the voice of the Scream films, a staple of the films, and encouraging others to use the ‘Ghostface’ voice in their own videos, which only drives more audience engagement back to the Scream account.

 

What can we learn from Scream 5’s marketing campaign?

 

In its opening weekend, Scream 5 generated a staggering $30.6 million. This is the franchise’s best opening weekend so far, therefore some credit of course must go to its marketing team for creating a viral stir and keeping audiences excited.

 

It might not always make sense to jump on trends (especially on TikTok) if it does not relate to your business, however it is important to be creative and stay up to date with the latest trends. The Scream marketing team captioned the Wipe It Down video with ‘it’s scary how late I am to this trend’, showing it did not matter that they were late because their idea was simple enough.

 

Online collaborations with other brands seem to be increasingly more effective, especially on Instagram, primarily because of the tools such as Instagram story, which guarantee shares (especially if a competition, or something visually appealing, is involved).

 

The future is social media – which we have certainly seen develop over the last few years. Harnessing this technology will be one of your best tools going forward, in 2022 and beyond.

By Rozz Cottrell