The Abrams Tank -- JJ Abrams' secret weapon is an unopened box

And a keen eye to real storytelling.

Cloverfield Viral Marketing

I mentioned the Cloverfield viral marketing campaign in my prior post. In the meantime, I've been doing a lot of research on effective viral marketing and have surprised how few people -- even the experts -- understand how to make such marketing actually work. My analysis is coming together as a new module that I'll be vetting with experts and then teaching in Singapore and Shanghai this quarter.

Part of what makes viral marketing so interesting is the post-modern commenting-on-the-commenting-on-the-thing that brings out the creativity of the fans and of the news media. These comments and creative riffs create another input into the network of opinions so crucial to reinforcing and spreading the "word".

The challenge, of course, is to make sure that the ultimate marketing goals are advanced: to promote a branded product or concept effectively. Snakes on a Plane, that famously used a viral marketing program, created a lot of online chatter, but the product itself was just terrible by most people's comments.

I don't think we're in that situation with JJ Abrams. He is one of the few auteurs in Hollywood who gets it. Case in point: His analysis of why Jaws was a great movie, which he revealed at a recent TED great ideas conference. Hint: it's not the shark scenes.