How Much Buzz Did ‘The Internship” Movie Trailer Get During Google+ Hangout?

In a nutshell… not that much. You’d think that a big promotional event like this would get a little more attention in social media channels right off the bat. But as with most online marketing and viral campaigns, it seems like it’s going to be a slow roll to get people talking about the movie. […]

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In a nutshell… not that much. You’d think that a big promotional event like this would get a little more attention in social media channels right off the bat.

But as with most online marketing and viral campaigns, it seems like it’s going to be a slow roll to get people talking about the movie. With a nationwide opening date of June 7th, there’s still time.

As was announced last weekend (we first discovered it via Facebook), ‘The Internship’ held a special Hangout On Air earlier today to debut the official movie trailer, featuring host Conan O’Brien and actors Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson live from the Team Coco studios in LA.

Google+ Hangout For ‘The Internship’ Movie

Here’s the complete recording of the Google hangout:

In what lasted nearly one hour, the three comedians joked and engaged with 10 participants in the hangout, including @iJustine, college students (and former Google interns) from UPenn and Harvard, and Ned, a digital advertising rep from NYC. (I personally was about 5-10 minutes late to the event, and it appeared they were just getting underway when I logged onto the live feed; based on Google +TheInternship comments, it seemed as though there was a technical problem that delayed the start and other users were having trouble viewing the feed initially.)

One of the most comical parts (for all the search marketers out there) of the hangout is the discussion about “Ask Jeeves” and the demise/retirement of Jeeves the butler.

Official Movie Trailer for “The Internship”

The hangout was livestreamed on the movie’s official YouTube channel, where the official “The Internship” movie trailer was also posted. (Note, video view counts will not update for at least 12-24 hours following upload time.)

Best cameo in trailer: Google Driverless Car

Best line: “We’re looking at some sort of mental Hunger Games against a handful of genius kids” – Owen Wilson

Google+ Obvious Platform Of Choice

Of course the film’s deep ties with Google means that Google+ and YouTube are likely to be the main areas of focus for marketing the movie. Between the Googlers, tech and search geeks on Google+, Google/+TheInternship has amassed a decent early following, outpacing other social network communities by far:

The Internship-Facebook

According to the  Google+ / Google Play invite page, just over 11K Google users were planning to attend the Google+ hangout. (We’re waiting to hear from Google+ to see if they can share any specific live view data with us.)

#TheInternship Movie Trailer Premieres During G+ Hangout

Tweets During Event Relatively Light

During the hangout, viewers were encouraged to follow along and ask questions on Twitter using the hashtag #TheInternship. O’Brien did ask the actors questions from Twitter users during the event.

Using Topsy’s free analytics tool, here’s how the activity looked for the hashtag and actors’ names leading up to and during the hangout:

Note also that the official Twitter page for the movie, @TheInternship only had about 170 followers at the time of the hangout.

Even host @ConanOBrien ‘s tweet prior to the even topped out at 100 retweets:

Conan-OBrien-Tweet-Internship hangout

Google Trends

Searches for the movie did see an obvious pickup, but overall volume still low according to Google Trends:

 Google Trends   Web Search Interest   the internship

‘The Internship’ on Facebook

As of this writing, the official Movie Page only had 1,000 likes and just a few views / shares of the trailer so far.

The Internship-Facebook likes

How do you think the movie’s digital marketing strategy is coming along so far? Now that you’ve seen the trailer, are you looking forward to the movie’s release?


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily MarTech. Staff authors are listed here.


About the author

Elisabeth Osmeloski
Contributor
Elisabeth Osmeloski is VP of Audience Development for Search Engine Land and MarTech. In addition, she assists in programming sessions at Third Door Media's Search Marketing Expo conference and the MarTech Conference series and manages speaking engagements for editorial staff. Follow her on Twitter @elisabethos.

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