May 31, 2025 • 23 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the episode Cut.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
The Human Torch was approved for a bank loan.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Welcome to this episode of the NerdBrand Podcast
.
It's number 250.
Wee, we're going to be talkingabout the Nerd Brand Podcast.
We are talking about viralmarketing, and I'm joined today
with Michaela and Mitch.
Welcome to this episode of theNerd Brand Podcast.
(00:45):
We are talking about viralmarketing and I'm joined today
with Michaela.
Hello, and Mitch, hello, andit's been a while and we've been
out of the studio for a bit.
Nope, I've been sitting herethe whole time.
Yeah Well, the jokes aside, I'mfeeling the out of practice, at
least on my end.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Usually, when you do a show by yourself, it's pretty
straightforward.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
You're like blah, blah blah blah, blah, cut, step,
edit, publish.
But do you ever feel crazy justtalking to yourself?
That's a good question, no, butit does.
After a while I feel like.
Is anyone listening?
Speaker 3 (01:17):
is anybody out there?
Speaker 2 (01:20):
as long as you're not answering yourself yeah, you
know I'll come down, it's a verygood question, Jason.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
Okay, Jason yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Jason, what do you think?
I don't know, jason, what doyou think?
Speaker 1 (01:28):
You know I do less voices and everything and maybe
that's better for the audience,because they're like, yeah,
you're terrible at it and I'mlike, yeah, I've never been good
at impressions, anyway, I don,so I can't do them I mean I?
Speaker 2 (01:46):
I mean, I'm not claiming to be the best
impressionist but I don't havetonsils either.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
You can't do them.
That's what I was told is thata science?
Speaker 3 (01:49):
is that a fact?
I never knew?
Speaker 1 (01:50):
I was told that.
I was told like your tonsilsallow you to kind of modulate
your well.
I was also told that I wasmicrochipped after I got my
tonsillectomy microchip.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
Yes, and I believed that for quite some time like a
pet.
Yeah, my mom told me like ohyeah, while you were under, I
told them to to chip you so whenyou go through airport or you
know kroger checkout, do you godude?
no, it was all a fabrication.
I had dinner with my aunt onetime we were visiting in new
(02:19):
jersey and I think I was likethis was an ongoing thing for
like several years I wasprobably 16 before that that
damn broke and she, my aunt,who's like very smart, very much
like kind of dry humor, not nottoo much into sense of humor,
but like she's like michaela,you know she's just joshing you
I'm like oh, yanking your chainis yes but I I guess it works
(02:41):
because I wasn't the type ofchild to sneak out and get into
mischief because I was under theimpression that I was
microchipped.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Yeah, you didn't really tease your daughters at
all when they were growing up,oh yeah, but I didn't tell them
they were microchipped.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Yeah well, I used to tell my little brothers that
they were adopted.
That's normal.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
Yeah, that one's a normal.
I feel like I had that one too.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
That they were left on our doorstep in a basket.
Yeah, that's pretty Likepuppies.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
That's creative.
Do you have a whole narrative,because it sounds like you did.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Oh yeah, I won't go into it here, but yeah.
I had a whole and of course,they were like three at the time
, yeah, and they believed it Huhokay, did you find us in a
basket on the front door?
Speaker 3 (03:26):
And then mom and dad's gotta find the birth
certificate.
Have some corroboratingevidence.
Why didn't you tell them?
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Yeah, well, you know, siblings, I suppose, and aunts
and moms and stuff.
I don't think my parents everdid anything like that Because I
was being an only child.
I don't know.
You're an only child, aren'tyou mckayla?
no, I'm the youngest, you're theyoungest okay, I got an older
sister and an older brother well, I think we just answered the
fact about how comfortable I amabout sitting in a basement
(03:53):
talking to myself.
You're just used to it.
Yeah, it's normal day for meanyways.
Viral marketing.
There is this expansiveuniverse that many of us don't
know about called Cloverfield,and the Cloverfield universe was
viral marketing genius.
This is before Marvel.
(04:14):
I probably need to go look atthe dates, but I mean, this is
pretty old.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
The single digit odds .
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Yeah, it was.
I can't really recommend youwatch the movie to our listeners
and, michaela, I can't say thatto you too, because it's one of
those handheld video typethings.
There's a lot of people thatgot sick.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
So I noticed that because when we were watching,
kind of like a little recap,just before we started recording
, it kind of gave me likeparanormal activity vibes.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Like where it's that kind of like a camera operation.
It was very much like BlairWitch.
Do you remember that?
Speaker 3 (04:50):
yeah, kind of that one.
And then, uh, I think this onemovie came out whenever I was in
high school, but it was calledunfriend me and it was all
webcam yeah, yeah, I rememberthat one.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Yeah, I've watched that because I was like huh,
it's a Facebook thing.
That's what I thought kind of.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
But when I see a man's hand in a blender because
it's a dare or else everyoneelse dies, it's just, it gets a
little grim yeah, it was likehostile, hostile meets, you know
I'm getting saw, yeah, yeahflashbacks.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Yeah, yeah.
So anyways, uh, cloverfield isabout a monster that comes out
of the water and wreaks havoc onnew york.
Um, there was, the firstappearance of it was during a
transformers.
Um, I guess it was during whentransformers was playing in the
theater, if you went out to seetransformers, and so, um,
(05:36):
definitely single odds, becausethey released transformers live
action, the first one in 2005, Ithink.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
Um they tried.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
They tried to coincide it with the anniversary
of the animated movie, but theymissed it by like two years.
It might be 2007, actually.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
I think Cloverfield came out in 2008.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
So it was definitely 2007 when you would see the
trailer, because that's whenTransformers came out.
2005 would have been the actualanniversary of Transformers,
the animated movie, but Idigress, I digress, yeah.
So all you?
2005 would have been the actualanniversary of Transformers,
the animated movie, but Idigress, I digress, I digress,
yeah.
So all you got was the Statueof Liberty's head flying past
the screen.
You're like the crap, is this?
And then the roar.
And then you're like okay.
(06:15):
And so everybody was like isthis Godzilla, are we doing?
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Godzilla Is it Godzilla, it's Godzilla.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Godzilla and no, it was not, but it was very much in
the vein of that.
I mean, jj Abrams bad robot.
The director is an I don't wantblanking out here Mitch, but
it's Goddard.
Yes, thank you, drew Goddard,he's amazing.
And then you have one of theother producers.
Jj Abrams friend is the guythat did the Batman and he also
(06:41):
did Planet of the apes, and sothat director is also a part of
this um franchise, if you will.
But I think at the beginningthey didn't think franchise and
so um.
Later on you had um aconnection to the show lost,
which was very interesting,because this thing connected to
lost and lost was a weird showwhere I don't know if y'all ever
(07:05):
saw it or anything.
It's one of those.
If you're able to go back andwatch lost, you're going to be
hooked, for it's like a game ofthrones, but on an island and
everybody keeps their clothes onum and kind of like a lord of
the flies which is ironic,really considering the climate
yeah, um, yeah, it's sort of amystery island, like what's on
(07:26):
it?
what's causing this?
Where are they at, like youknow?
So there's, um, the cloverfieldconspiracy is out there, but
it's like, uh, there's differentproducts.
There's slusho, which is adrink, and, um, there's often
these fake products in films, inquentin, tarantino films,
there's some cigarette brand,orange, something or other.
(07:48):
So they kind of do that.
So that's an actual product,and it appeared in the show Lost
the slusho machines, and sothat's where they were like, oh,
this is in Cloverfield universebecause there's slusho there.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
To me it's more of an Abrams thing than it is a
Cloverfield thing.
Yeah, it is more of an Abramsthing than it is a Cloverfield
thing?
Speaker 1 (08:05):
Yeah, it is.
I would agree Abrams likes todo these little Easter eggs like
that and it may have nothing todo with it, but he's like okay.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
It's misdirection that keeps people interested, it
piques their interest and getspeople to investigate, and hang
on to it and then wait withbated breath for the next
iteration to come out so theycan see where the threads
connect and in the they don't.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Yeah, it didn't really, but it did build up the
momentum to cloverfield uh, 10cloverfield lane, and that's how
everybody was like, oh, this isa sequel, because it's 10
cloverfield right lane right,and john goodman is in it and
he's terrifying and the nuragatucompany is the company that
makes slusho, it's also thecompany that does another
(08:50):
company that's drilling and hischaracter worked there and and
so it's very conspiracy theory.
So you kind of get this vibethat his character and John
Goodman is amazing in the filmand he is terrifying and then
just switches tone immediately.
That's what makes him soterrifying, yeah, and so he has
a daughter.
And so they started puttingtogether all these websites
(09:11):
online where you can go andvisit them.
They're all offline right now.
I checked because for thisepisode I was going to bring
them up, we were going to chatabout them, but they're all
offline right now.
And, uh, but at the end of theday it was like there was this,
like you can go here, and therewas just a picture and you
couldn't tell what the picturewas.
But if you put in this passwordon this other website, the
picture actually has a messagecontained in it and you can
(09:34):
actually get the message.
And it's a weird thing in space, a picture of a thing orbiting
earth, and that's what it was.
So john goodman's character hadthat.
And so in 10 cloverfield lane,yeah, there's aliens and, uh,
you know she fights them andthey float in the air, so it's
not like the Cloverfield monster, but apparently from the same
(09:55):
thing.
And then you fast forward tothere were rumors of what was
called the God Particle, but itactually wasn't.
It was the Call of theCloverfield Paradox, which is on
Netflix.
So you have Matt Reeves.
That was the director I wasthinking of.
Yeah, drew Goddard was thewriter, sorry, right.
Yeah, matt Reeves is the.
That was the director I wasthinking of.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Yeah, Drew Goddard was the writer, sorry.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Right, yeah, yeah.
And so you know you startlooking at the Cloverfield
movies and you have like, well,what other movies?
And see, there's CloverfieldParadox and that was on.
That was a Netflix release andit surprised everybody during
Super Bowl released and itsurprised everybody during super
bowl.
They don't really announce.
These is my point, like theviral marketing.
(10:36):
They throw this stuff out andit's like surprise and it's out
like you don't even know it'scoming.
So the viralness of this is theonline stuff.
If those websites go back upand it's like holy crap, it's
coming, something's up,something's up, you know.
So they kind of market it thatway, which is pretty ingenious.
Um, and it it builds excitement.
So now the rumor is there'sanother one coming anytime.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
What like?
Do we know when?
Speaker 1 (11:00):
this year is the rumor that sometime this year it
could be between now and beforethe end, so they don't even do
like trailer.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
Well, they don't do trailers.
No what?
Yeah because I remember the 10,because I was.
When did 10 Cloverfield Lanecome out?
I remember that one in 2000.
The first one I was like nine2016.
I was a wee lad but I was inhigh school when this one came
out, so I remember this one alittle bit.
I know this is dating me Stop.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
It's also dating me and Mitch.
We're sitting here going like.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
I'm not saying a word Mary Elizabeth Winstead.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
That's who the other co-star was in the film.
I mean, it's a terrifyingthriller.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
I think I like her in just about everything she's
done.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Yeah, but yeah 2016.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Most people don't have the time and attention span
.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
Right.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
Unless you're a hardcore nerd like us.
Yeah, to dig that deep, yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
I wonder if they, if it actually that the concept for
the viral campaign maybe workedagainst them a little bit well,
you know, when you go on toimdb you can kind of see the
popularity of it, the rating,and you kind of get an idea that
it's to your point.
It's a slow burn.
When this came out nobody knewabout it because of the way that
(12:17):
it was marketed.
But as things went along and asthe word of mouth spread, that
changed.
Right.
Well, for the first movieanyway.
Yeah, for the first movie.
And then using that first movieis how they built up.
I was trying to see if they hadany numbers on um production
and marketing or other otherother sites maybe down a little
(12:39):
bit more on the budget boxoffice yeah there it is.
I want to grab that's first timethat that's another um company.
Yeah, good call.
Thank you, michaela.
$25 million is the estimatedbudget for this thing.
Opening weekend it did $40million.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
Oh, wow.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
And so its gross US and Canada was $80, and
worldwide was $172.
Not bad for an hour and 25minute handheld movie.
That was $25 million.
That came out that reallynobody really knew about, other
than that one teaser that we sawthe head with during the
Transformers movie.
Knew about other than that oneteaser that we saw the head with
, uh during the transformersmovie.
However, if you go to uh one ofthe other ones, when they go to
(13:19):
cloverfield 10, cloverfieldlane, which, um, I've got to
fight ads now, pardon, pardon,pardon, we're getting there boop
, there we go.
I want to kind of make sure like, uh yeah, we're not going to
open that website.
Don't open any of the links,people, that you find on these
websites that we're talkingabout by the way, not the droids
you're looking for yeah,seriously, you'll be like I got
(13:40):
a virus, like, yeah, it's okay,you know, don't, don't click on
anything past that.
Um, let's see how 10 chlorophylllane stacked up all right now.
It was made for 15 million.
It opened at 24, so it openedat almost closely what the first
budget was for the first film.
That's wild, ain't it.
And then it grossed worldwide110.
(14:03):
So it did far less, but it wasmade for almost made its money
back for sure yeah, so these arefilms that know we talk about
Marvel films being $200 million,marketing being $150.
These are like their effort toshow that you can make good
films cheaper, right, and Ithink that's just the point, and
(14:26):
, sadly, it cuts out a lot ofthe marketing, but it also
reduces their potential forrevenue, though.
So the theory is, yes, cut backon production costs, not the
marketing, but it also reducestheir potential for revenue,
though.
So the theory is yes, cut backon production costs, not the
marketing, because the marketingis going to drive the revenue.
I don't know if that lesson hasbeen caught.
Let's find out with cloverfieldparadox and go into that.
So, in 2018, this came out.
(14:48):
Hour 42 Surprised everybody atthe Super Bowl during that year,
and then it came out.
Netflix launched it.
It was streaming only and wasgoing to be called the God
Particle and, by the way,paramount Studios was attached
to this, so we all know kind ofwhat's going on with Paramount
right now.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
Right.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
And it doesn't look like they have any of that stuff
listed.
They had the budget, but theydon't have.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
There is no box office, so how do you determine
how much money it made it was?
Speaker 1 (15:17):
streaming only.
Yeah Right, so it was $45million to make this one.
So you have to think about likeokay, well, they did the Super
Bowl ad, so that's expensive.
We all know those are what Like$4 million a pop.
So you know, you got that atleast, but anything else I
couldn't.
There's no record, it's hard,it's very obfuscated.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
So, anyways, now we're going to have another one.
What do?
Speaker 1 (15:41):
you all think Somebody say yeah, yeah, the
rumor which I think we saw, that13-minute one which is the,
whatever it was called, theCloverfield Files, which there
is.
Files mean in the cloverfieldmovie, the spoiler alert, the
guy and the girl die, the maincharacters they're kind of
huddled.
Nuclear bomb goes off, and buthow did we get this record of
this film?
Well, this is government video,right?
(16:03):
so there are files, so it issomething that um kind of keeps
going.
Um is this, uh, is this for youall, even with your like?
Is this anything like you wouldsit and watch through all of
these in sequence?
Is this something you guysbecause I know it sounds like
(16:23):
you guys have not seen them Imean, Mitch, you've seen a
couple.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Well, I've seen 10 Cloverfield.
I've seen Cloverfield but Ididn't watch the Cloverfield
Paradox because the reviews wereso mediocre and there's so much
content to watch.
I have to because of my timeavailability.
I've got to be a little bitsort of picky about when I'm
(16:46):
going to spend time watching.
So I passed on it, but I'llprobably see it eventually.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
I know you have some of your guilty pleasures that
are not necessarily good movies.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
That's a whole other conversation.
I'm a huge B-movie fan, formovies starting all the way back
to the 30s, up into the 80s,even in the early 90s, back when
the video store boom was andthey were churning out, yeah,
direct-to-video movies likeevery five seconds.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Um, yeah, I like some of the best bad movies, yeah I
mean and this is like you know,movies for people listening,
this is a product, this is astudio that's making something.
It's like whatever you do foryour business and you make, you
sell, you got to get your moneyback on.
So these lessons are very theydo correlate to whatever you're
working on.
So if you're making and sellingbeer syrup which is a thing- oh
(17:40):
, I've heard of it yeah.
Yeah, I mean, you've gotdifferent flavors, you got
different things.
It's the on a small scalesmaller scale.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
There's definitely viral lessons here.
I mean, like I said, mythinking is that a lot of this?
If there was an intention withthe Cloverfield brand, if you
will, to really create a brushfire of viral interest, I'm not
sure they succeeded because ofhow thinly attached, how thin
(18:11):
and how granular the attachmentsare from film to film, Because
most people I'm not countingnerds like us, most people
aren't going to spend the timeand the energy to try to connect
these threads.
You can't make it that hard forpeople to go along, yeah I mean
(18:31):
, yeah, it does.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
It becomes very difficult um a lot of the films.
That kind of um cabin in thewoods is good cabin.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
I just saw the image.
Yeah, well, that was.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
that was one of the films that was sort of like why
wasn't this a cloverfield film?
Another one was Life Arrival.
I'm kind of glad they didn'twith those, because Life was not
great.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
It sounds funny to say that.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
It's just not great.
I'm sorry Arrival of Life wasnot great.
Arrival was actually very good.
I liked it.
It was a good film.
Almost said the dirty word andyou know, with Overlord I was
like, if you just put theCloverfield name in it and
that's what I mean by brand andemphasizing that on this
(19:19):
conversation if that had been inthere it would have helped.
It would have helped, becausethen now you're saying yes, it's
a part of it.
When you exclude it and say, no, it's its own standalone thing.
It's sort of like there's justrare moments that happens
Brightburn, for example, withSony.
That's what if Superman was amurderous, psychopathic alien?
Speaker 2 (19:39):
I really need to go back and watch that.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
That's one of those ones I keep thinking to go back
and yeah, but at the end of theday day we got another one
coming up.
So it's going to be interestingto see on the viral marketing
and what they're going to do.
You know, this even includesout-of-home advertisements.
This could be billboards, thiscould be signage at stop signs,
this could be just aboutanything.
I mean, it's something that tokind of watch.
(20:02):
I mean it's not been done in aminute.
Um, deadpool did it.
Amazingly, if Deadpool andChlorophyll were comparison of
each other of viral marketing,deadpool was the one saying hold
my beer For sure, yeah, andthey tried to duplicate that
three more times, or two moretimes at least, and it didn't.
(20:24):
Really, it's hard to capturelightning in a bottle like that.
Again.
But anyways, viral marketing,if that's your approach and
that's something you want to godown, you got to be prepared.
It's very audience specific.
It's very difficult to get thataudience to and then retain
them if you're going to keepthem, if you're going to keep
producing things.
So but anyways, we, I recommendyou watch Cloverfield.
I recommend you kind of diveinto the Cloverfield conspiracy.
(20:45):
Go out and watch overlord andtell us what you think and, um,
yeah, again, you'll definitelyget an experience.
But if you go google thetrailers and everything else.
You can kind of see what we'retalking about and that that
whole world war ii, alternatereality kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Yeah, sci-fi is sort of a sub-genre yeah, it is
enough, there's another onecalled um frankenstein's army,
yeah, which kind of takes asimilar, I mean sort of similar,
semi-similar strategy.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
Yeah, but I you know, this is a way that I wish the
websites were online to gothrough, because they were very
interesting.
One website was John Goodman,his character.
He made a website for hisdaughter so he could communicate
with her and there was apassword you had to figure out
to unlock it so you can actuallyread his letters to her, and
some of the content of theletters would have been neat to
(21:36):
go through on the show.
If I had them I would have.
But again the site's down anduh.
But he's writing to her andhe's kind of letting her know
that while he worked for thecompany, what he saw, what
happened, and so it's sort oflike a very edward snowden type
of thing that went on with whathe did, or wiki leaks, rather,
and um oh yeah, I mean, yeah, itdefinitely played on that theme
yeah, it did, it did, but itdid it really really well.
(21:58):
That's the thing.
If you're going to do viralmarketing, do it well, otherwise
don't do it at all, because ifyou don't do it well, it bombs
bad what's really funny is theMonarch organization in the new.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Godzilla King Kong universe.
It plays a little bit on thatwhole hidden government secrets
and secret governmentorganization.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
It's trying to tie it together.
It's trying to do a MarvelCinematic Universe thing, Like
it's all connected.
They've been pretty successfultoo.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
I think every movie they've made so far has made
decent money.
Yeah, and the TV show on AppleApple plus is actually Apple TV
plus is actually pretty good.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Yeah, I've been noticing that.
I really enjoyed it.
Well, anyways, if you enjoythis episode of the nerd band
podcast, be sure to like,subscribe, do all the things you
know what to do and, uh, wehope you enjoyed this 250th
episode and I'm glad to havesome people back on the show.
Thank you, Michaela, for comingback, yay.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
You're welcome.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
Michaela will be making some more appearances.
We'll maybe be trying out adifferent format and getting
back to video.
We'll see how it goes.
Anyways, yeah, thanks forlistening.
Tune in next week.
Keep your nerd brain strong.
Welcome to the episode Cut.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
The Human Torch was approved for a bank loan.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Welcome to this episode of the NerdBrand Podcast
.
It's number 250.
Wee, we're going to be talkingabout the Nerd Brand Podcast.
We are talking about viralmarketing, and I'm joined today
with Michaela and Mitch.
Welcome to this episode of theNerd Brand Podcast.
(00:45):
We are talking about viralmarketing and I'm joined today
with Michaela.
Hello, and Mitch, hello, andit's been a while and we've been
out of the studio for a bit.
Nope, I've been sitting herethe whole time.
Yeah Well, the jokes aside, I'mfeeling the out of practice, at
least on my end.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Usually, when you do a show by yourself, it's pretty
straightforward.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
You're like blah, blah blah blah, blah, cut, step,
edit, publish.
But do you ever feel crazy justtalking to yourself?
That's a good question, no, butit does.
After a while I feel like.
Is anyone listening?
Speaker 3 (01:17):
is anybody out there?
Speaker 2 (01:20):
as long as you're not answering yourself yeah, you
know I'll come down, it's a verygood question, Jason.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
Okay, Jason yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Jason, what do you think?
I don't know, jason, what doyou think?
Speaker 1 (01:28):
You know I do less voices and everything and maybe
that's better for the audience,because they're like, yeah,
you're terrible at it and I'mlike, yeah, I've never been good
at impressions, anyway, I don,so I can't do them I mean I?
Speaker 2 (01:46):
I mean, I'm not claiming to be the best
impressionist but I don't havetonsils either.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
You can't do them.
That's what I was told is thata science?
Speaker 3 (01:49):
is that a fact?
I never knew?
Speaker 1 (01:50):
I was told that.
I was told like your tonsilsallow you to kind of modulate
your well.
I was also told that I wasmicrochipped after I got my
tonsillectomy microchip.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
Yes, and I believed that for quite some time like a
pet.
Yeah, my mom told me like ohyeah, while you were under, I
told them to to chip you so whenyou go through airport or you
know kroger checkout, do you godude?
no, it was all a fabrication.
I had dinner with my aunt onetime we were visiting in new
(02:19):
jersey and I think I was likethis was an ongoing thing for
like several years I wasprobably 16 before that that
damn broke and she, my aunt,who's like very smart, very much
like kind of dry humor, not nottoo much into sense of humor,
but like she's like michaela,you know she's just joshing you
I'm like oh, yanking your chainis yes but I I guess it works
(02:41):
because I wasn't the type ofchild to sneak out and get into
mischief because I was under theimpression that I was
microchipped.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Yeah, you didn't really tease your daughters at
all when they were growing up,oh yeah, but I didn't tell them
they were microchipped.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Yeah well, I used to tell my little brothers that
they were adopted.
That's normal.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
Yeah, that one's a normal.
I feel like I had that one too.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
That they were left on our doorstep in a basket.
Yeah, that's pretty Likepuppies.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
That's creative.
Do you have a whole narrative,because it sounds like you did.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Oh yeah, I won't go into it here, but yeah.
I had a whole and of course,they were like three at the time
, yeah, and they believed it Huhokay, did you find us in a
basket on the front door?
Speaker 3 (03:26):
And then mom and dad's gotta find the birth
certificate.
Have some corroboratingevidence.
Why didn't you tell them?
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Yeah, well, you know, siblings, I suppose, and aunts
and moms and stuff.
I don't think my parents everdid anything like that Because I
was being an only child.
I don't know.
You're an only child, aren'tyou mckayla?
no, I'm the youngest, you're theyoungest okay, I got an older
sister and an older brother well, I think we just answered the
fact about how comfortable I amabout sitting in a basement
(03:53):
talking to myself.
You're just used to it.
Yeah, it's normal day for meanyways.
Viral marketing.
There is this expansiveuniverse that many of us don't
know about called Cloverfield,and the Cloverfield universe was
viral marketing genius.
This is before Marvel.
(04:14):
I probably need to go look atthe dates, but I mean, this is
pretty old.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
The single digit odds .
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Yeah, it was.
I can't really recommend youwatch the movie to our listeners
and, michaela, I can't say thatto you too, because it's one of
those handheld video typethings.
There's a lot of people thatgot sick.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
So I noticed that because when we were watching,
kind of like a little recap,just before we started recording
, it kind of gave me likeparanormal activity vibes.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Like where it's that kind of like a camera operation.
It was very much like BlairWitch.
Do you remember that?
Speaker 3 (04:50):
yeah, kind of that one.
And then, uh, I think this onemovie came out whenever I was in
high school, but it was calledunfriend me and it was all
webcam yeah, yeah, I rememberthat one.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Yeah, I've watched that because I was like huh,
it's a Facebook thing.
That's what I thought kind of.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
But when I see a man's hand in a blender because
it's a dare or else everyoneelse dies, it's just, it gets a
little grim yeah, it was likehostile, hostile meets, you know
I'm getting saw, yeah, yeahflashbacks.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Yeah, yeah.
So anyways, uh, cloverfield isabout a monster that comes out
of the water and wreaks havoc onnew york.
Um, there was, the firstappearance of it was during a
transformers.
Um, I guess it was during whentransformers was playing in the
theater, if you went out to seetransformers, and so, um,
(05:36):
definitely single odds, becausethey released transformers live
action, the first one in 2005, Ithink.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
Um they tried.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
They tried to coincide it with the anniversary
of the animated movie, but theymissed it by like two years.
It might be 2007, actually.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
I think Cloverfield came out in 2008.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
So it was definitely 2007 when you would see the
trailer, because that's whenTransformers came out.
2005 would have been the actualanniversary of Transformers,
the animated movie, but Idigress, I digress, yeah.
So all you?
2005 would have been the actualanniversary of Transformers,
the animated movie, but Idigress, I digress, I digress,
yeah.
So all you got was the Statueof Liberty's head flying past
the screen.
You're like the crap, is this?
And then the roar.
And then you're like okay.
(06:15):
And so everybody was like isthis Godzilla, are we doing?
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Godzilla Is it Godzilla, it's Godzilla.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Godzilla and no, it was not, but it was very much in
the vein of that.
I mean, jj Abrams bad robot.
The director is an I don't wantblanking out here Mitch, but
it's Goddard.
Yes, thank you, drew Goddard,he's amazing.
And then you have one of theother producers.
Jj Abrams friend is the guythat did the Batman and he also
(06:41):
did Planet of the apes, and sothat director is also a part of
this um franchise, if you will.
But I think at the beginningthey didn't think franchise and
so um.
Later on you had um aconnection to the show lost,
which was very interesting,because this thing connected to
lost and lost was a weird showwhere I don't know if y'all ever
(07:05):
saw it or anything.
It's one of those.
If you're able to go back andwatch lost, you're going to be
hooked, for it's like a game ofthrones, but on an island and
everybody keeps their clothes onum and kind of like a lord of
the flies which is ironic,really considering the climate
yeah, um, yeah, it's sort of amystery island, like what's on
(07:26):
it?
what's causing this?
Where are they at, like youknow?
So there's, um, the cloverfieldconspiracy is out there, but
it's like, uh, there's differentproducts.
There's slusho, which is adrink, and, um, there's often
these fake products in films, inquentin, tarantino films,
there's some cigarette brand,orange, something or other.
(07:48):
So they kind of do that.
So that's an actual product,and it appeared in the show Lost
the slusho machines, and sothat's where they were like, oh,
this is in Cloverfield universebecause there's slusho there.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
To me it's more of an Abrams thing than it is a
Cloverfield thing.
Yeah, it is more of an Abramsthing than it is a Cloverfield
thing?
Speaker 1 (08:05):
Yeah, it is.
I would agree Abrams likes todo these little Easter eggs like
that and it may have nothing todo with it, but he's like okay.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
It's misdirection that keeps people interested, it
piques their interest and getspeople to investigate, and hang
on to it and then wait withbated breath for the next
iteration to come out so theycan see where the threads
connect and in the they don't.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Yeah, it didn't really, but it did build up the
momentum to cloverfield uh, 10cloverfield lane, and that's how
everybody was like, oh, this isa sequel, because it's 10
cloverfield right lane right,and john goodman is in it and
he's terrifying and the nuragatucompany is the company that
makes slusho, it's also thecompany that does another
(08:50):
company that's drilling and hischaracter worked there and and
so it's very conspiracy theory.
So you kind of get this vibethat his character and John
Goodman is amazing in the filmand he is terrifying and then
just switches tone immediately.
That's what makes him soterrifying, yeah, and so he has
a daughter.
And so they started puttingtogether all these websites
(09:11):
online where you can go andvisit them.
They're all offline right now.
I checked because for thisepisode I was going to bring
them up, we were going to chatabout them, but they're all
offline right now.
And, uh, but at the end of theday it was like there was this,
like you can go here, and therewas just a picture and you
couldn't tell what the picturewas.
But if you put in this passwordon this other website, the
picture actually has a messagecontained in it and you can
(09:34):
actually get the message.
And it's a weird thing in space, a picture of a thing orbiting
earth, and that's what it was.
So john goodman's character hadthat.
And so in 10 cloverfield lane,yeah, there's aliens and, uh,
you know she fights them andthey float in the air, so it's
not like the Cloverfield monster, but apparently from the same
(09:55):
thing.
And then you fast forward tothere were rumors of what was
called the God Particle, but itactually wasn't.
It was the Call of theCloverfield Paradox, which is on
Netflix.
So you have Matt Reeves.
That was the director I wasthinking of.
Yeah, drew Goddard was thewriter, sorry, right.
Yeah, matt Reeves is the.
That was the director I wasthinking of.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Yeah, Drew Goddard was the writer, sorry.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Right, yeah, yeah.
And so you know you startlooking at the Cloverfield
movies and you have like, well,what other movies?
And see, there's CloverfieldParadox and that was on.
That was a Netflix release andit surprised everybody during
Super Bowl released and itsurprised everybody during super
bowl.
They don't really announce.
These is my point, like theviral marketing.
(10:36):
They throw this stuff out andit's like surprise and it's out
like you don't even know it'scoming.
So the viralness of this is theonline stuff.
If those websites go back upand it's like holy crap, it's
coming, something's up,something's up, you know.
So they kind of market it thatway, which is pretty ingenious.
Um, and it it builds excitement.
So now the rumor is there'sanother one coming anytime.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
What like?
Do we know when?
Speaker 1 (11:00):
this year is the rumor that sometime this year it
could be between now and beforethe end, so they don't even do
like trailer.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
Well, they don't do trailers.
No what?
Yeah because I remember the 10,because I was.
When did 10 Cloverfield Lanecome out?
I remember that one in 2000.
The first one I was like nine2016.
I was a wee lad but I was inhigh school when this one came
out, so I remember this one alittle bit.
I know this is dating me Stop.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
It's also dating me and Mitch.
We're sitting here going like.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
I'm not saying a word Mary Elizabeth Winstead.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
That's who the other co-star was in the film.
I mean, it's a terrifyingthriller.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
I think I like her in just about everything she's
done.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Yeah, but yeah 2016.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Most people don't have the time and attention span
.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
Right.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
Unless you're a hardcore nerd like us.
Yeah, to dig that deep, yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
I wonder if they, if it actually that the concept for
the viral campaign maybe workedagainst them a little bit well,
you know, when you go on toimdb you can kind of see the
popularity of it, the rating,and you kind of get an idea that
it's to your point.
It's a slow burn.
When this came out nobody knewabout it because of the way that
(12:17):
it was marketed.
But as things went along and asthe word of mouth spread, that
changed.
Right.
Well, for the first movieanyway.
Yeah, for the first movie.
And then using that first movieis how they built up.
I was trying to see if they hadany numbers on um production
and marketing or other otherother sites maybe down a little
(12:39):
bit more on the budget boxoffice yeah there it is.
I want to grab that's first timethat that's another um company.
Yeah, good call.
Thank you, michaela.
$25 million is the estimatedbudget for this thing.
Opening weekend it did $40million.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
Oh, wow.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
And so its gross US and Canada was $80, and
worldwide was $172.
Not bad for an hour and 25minute handheld movie.
That was $25 million.
That came out that reallynobody really knew about, other
than that one teaser that we sawthe head with during the
Transformers movie.
Knew about other than that oneteaser that we saw the head with
, uh during the transformersmovie.
However, if you go to uh one ofthe other ones, when they go to
(13:19):
cloverfield 10, cloverfieldlane, which, um, I've got to
fight ads now, pardon, pardon,pardon, we're getting there boop
, there we go.
I want to kind of make sure like, uh yeah, we're not going to
open that website.
Don't open any of the links,people, that you find on these
websites that we're talkingabout by the way, not the droids
you're looking for yeah,seriously, you'll be like I got
(13:40):
a virus, like, yeah, it's okay,you know, don't, don't click on
anything past that.
Um, let's see how 10 chlorophylllane stacked up all right now.
It was made for 15 million.
It opened at 24, so it openedat almost closely what the first
budget was for the first film.
That's wild, ain't it.
And then it grossed worldwide110.
(14:03):
So it did far less, but it wasmade for almost made its money
back for sure yeah, so these arefilms that know we talk about
Marvel films being $200 million,marketing being $150.
These are like their effort toshow that you can make good
films cheaper, right, and Ithink that's just the point, and
(14:26):
, sadly, it cuts out a lot ofthe marketing, but it also
reduces their potential forrevenue, though.
So the theory is, yes, cut backon production costs, not the
marketing, but it also reducestheir potential for revenue,
though.
So the theory is yes, cut backon production costs, not the
marketing, because the marketingis going to drive the revenue.
I don't know if that lesson hasbeen caught.
Let's find out with cloverfieldparadox and go into that.
So, in 2018, this came out.
(14:48):
Hour 42 Surprised everybody atthe Super Bowl during that year,
and then it came out.
Netflix launched it.
It was streaming only and wasgoing to be called the God
Particle and, by the way,paramount Studios was attached
to this, so we all know kind ofwhat's going on with Paramount
right now.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
Right.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
And it doesn't look like they have any of that stuff
listed.
They had the budget, but theydon't have.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
There is no box office, so how do you determine
how much money it made it was?
Speaker 1 (15:17):
streaming only.
Yeah Right, so it was $45million to make this one.
So you have to think about likeokay, well, they did the Super
Bowl ad, so that's expensive.
We all know those are what Like$4 million a pop.
So you know, you got that atleast, but anything else I
couldn't.
There's no record, it's hard,it's very obfuscated.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
So, anyways, now we're going to have another one.
What do?
Speaker 1 (15:41):
you all think Somebody say yeah, yeah, the
rumor which I think we saw, that13-minute one which is the,
whatever it was called, theCloverfield Files, which there
is.
Files mean in the cloverfieldmovie, the spoiler alert, the
guy and the girl die, the maincharacters they're kind of
huddled.
Nuclear bomb goes off, and buthow did we get this record of
this film?
Well, this is government video,right?
(16:03):
so there are files, so it issomething that um kind of keeps
going.
Um is this, uh, is this for youall, even with your like?
Is this anything like you wouldsit and watch through all of
these in sequence?
Is this something you guysbecause I know it sounds like
(16:23):
you guys have not seen them Imean, Mitch, you've seen a
couple.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Well, I've seen 10 Cloverfield.
I've seen Cloverfield but Ididn't watch the Cloverfield
Paradox because the reviews wereso mediocre and there's so much
content to watch.
I have to because of my timeavailability.
I've got to be a little bitsort of picky about when I'm
(16:46):
going to spend time watching.
So I passed on it, but I'llprobably see it eventually.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
I know you have some of your guilty pleasures that
are not necessarily good movies.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
That's a whole other conversation.
I'm a huge B-movie fan, formovies starting all the way back
to the 30s, up into the 80s,even in the early 90s, back when
the video store boom was andthey were churning out, yeah,
direct-to-video movies likeevery five seconds.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Um, yeah, I like some of the best bad movies, yeah I
mean and this is like you know,movies for people listening,
this is a product, this is astudio that's making something.
It's like whatever you do foryour business and you make, you
sell, you got to get your moneyback on.
So these lessons are very theydo correlate to whatever you're
working on.
So if you're making and sellingbeer syrup which is a thing- oh
(17:40):
, I've heard of it yeah.
Yeah, I mean, you've gotdifferent flavors, you got
different things.
It's the on a small scalesmaller scale.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
There's definitely viral lessons here.
I mean, like I said, mythinking is that a lot of this?
If there was an intention withthe Cloverfield brand, if you
will, to really create a brushfire of viral interest, I'm not
sure they succeeded because ofhow thinly attached, how thin
(18:11):
and how granular the attachmentsare from film to film, Because
most people I'm not countingnerds like us, most people
aren't going to spend the timeand the energy to try to connect
these threads.
You can't make it that hard forpeople to go along, yeah I mean
(18:31):
, yeah, it does.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
It becomes very difficult um a lot of the films.
That kind of um cabin in thewoods is good cabin.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
I just saw the image.
Yeah, well, that was.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
that was one of the films that was sort of like why
wasn't this a cloverfield film?
Another one was Life Arrival.
I'm kind of glad they didn'twith those, because Life was not
great.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
It sounds funny to say that.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
It's just not great.
I'm sorry Arrival of Life wasnot great.
Arrival was actually very good.
I liked it.
It was a good film.
Almost said the dirty word andyou know, with Overlord I was
like, if you just put theCloverfield name in it and
that's what I mean by brand andemphasizing that on this
(19:19):
conversation if that had been inthere it would have helped.
It would have helped, becausethen now you're saying yes, it's
a part of it.
When you exclude it and say, no, it's its own standalone thing.
It's sort of like there's justrare moments that happens
Brightburn, for example, withSony.
That's what if Superman was amurderous, psychopathic alien?
Speaker 2 (19:39):
I really need to go back and watch that.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
That's one of those ones I keep thinking to go back
and yeah, but at the end of theday day we got another one
coming up.
So it's going to be interestingto see on the viral marketing
and what they're going to do.
You know, this even includesout-of-home advertisements.
This could be billboards, thiscould be signage at stop signs,
this could be just aboutanything.
I mean, it's something that tokind of watch.
(20:02):
I mean it's not been done in aminute.
Um, deadpool did it.
Amazingly, if Deadpool andChlorophyll were comparison of
each other of viral marketing,deadpool was the one saying hold
my beer For sure, yeah, andthey tried to duplicate that
three more times, or two moretimes at least, and it didn't.
(20:24):
Really, it's hard to capturelightning in a bottle like that.
Again.
But anyways, viral marketing,if that's your approach and
that's something you want to godown, you got to be prepared.
It's very audience specific.
It's very difficult to get thataudience to and then retain
them if you're going to keepthem, if you're going to keep
producing things.
So but anyways, we, I recommendyou watch Cloverfield.
I recommend you kind of diveinto the Cloverfield conspiracy.
(20:45):
Go out and watch overlord andtell us what you think and, um,
yeah, again, you'll definitelyget an experience.
But if you go google thetrailers and everything else.
You can kind of see what we'retalking about and that that
whole world war ii, alternatereality kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Yeah, sci-fi is sort of a sub-genre yeah, it is
enough, there's another onecalled um frankenstein's army,
yeah, which kind of takes asimilar, I mean sort of similar,
semi-similar strategy.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
Yeah, but I you know, this is a way that I wish the
websites were online to gothrough, because they were very
interesting.
One website was John Goodman,his character.
He made a website for hisdaughter so he could communicate
with her and there was apassword you had to figure out
to unlock it so you can actuallyread his letters to her, and
some of the content of theletters would have been neat to
(21:36):
go through on the show.
If I had them I would have.
But again the site's down anduh.
But he's writing to her andhe's kind of letting her know
that while he worked for thecompany, what he saw, what
happened, and so it's sort oflike a very edward snowden type
of thing that went on with whathe did, or wiki leaks, rather,
and um oh yeah, I mean, yeah, itdefinitely played on that theme
yeah, it did, it did, but itdid it really really well.
(21:58):
That's the thing.
If you're going to do viralmarketing, do it well, otherwise
don't do it at all, because ifyou don't do it well, it bombs
bad what's really funny is theMonarch organization in the new.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Godzilla King Kong universe.
It plays a little bit on thatwhole hidden government secrets
and secret governmentorganization.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
It's trying to tie it together.
It's trying to do a MarvelCinematic Universe thing, Like
it's all connected.
They've been pretty successfultoo.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
I think every movie they've made so far has made
decent money.
Yeah, and the TV show on AppleApple plus is actually Apple TV
plus is actually pretty good.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Yeah, I've been noticing that.
I really enjoyed it.
Well, anyways, if you enjoythis episode of the nerd band
podcast, be sure to like,subscribe, do all the things you
know what to do and, uh, wehope you enjoyed this 250th
episode and I'm glad to havesome people back on the show.
Thank you, Michaela, for comingback, yay.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
You're welcome.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
Michaela will be making some more appearances.
We'll maybe be trying out adifferent format and getting
back to video.
We'll see how it goes.
Anyways, yeah, thanks forlistening.
Tune in next week.
Keep your nerd brain strong.
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