Target Audience #1- The Blair Witch Project

   The Blair Witch Project is a 1999 American supernatural horror film, which highlights 3 film students who vanish after leaving into a Maryland forest to a film a documentary to the local Blair Witch legend, leaving only footage behind.

   The target audience for this film was young adults and teenagers, as it is high energy, and exhibits large amounts of horror.

    Overall, the film had a small budget and marketed accordingly. The film used an online website to mimic and gain attention for the film. It started on the internet. hat sites started picking up rumors of three college kids who were lost in the woods while on a school film project investigating stories about a witch. There were three people who created a marketing company called Campfire. What started off as a cheap and easy way of spreading the word about the film became the perfect forum in which to effectively manufacture the hoax story of the Blair Witch and of the missing students. Months before the official release of the film, there were many dedicated websites filtering various pieces of information to an Internet audience intrigued by the rumors about the film, the Witch and the students. Many of these sites had been set up by people who had not seen the film but believed it to be a true story. These websites effectively participated in the creation of a hoax, either unwittingly because they believed the film to be a real documentary about a real disappearance, or through colluding with the filmmakers to manufacture and maintain the hoax’s hype. In June 1998, Haxan Films, the creative team behind The Blair Witch Project created the official website which racked up 75 million hits in the first week. he site presents various “documents” that present information on and evidence about the Witch, the tapes and the (fictional) filmmakers, and thus the site encourages the browser to participate in the hoax, either as a “knowing viewer” or a “believer.” This website overall, allowed their target audience, of young adults, to be reached a feel engaged into the story and promoting the film.

    Once the film release date began to loom closer, back stories of the characters started to surface on the websites. The company, Artisan, developed it into a highly effective marketing platform, separating the more traditional promotional materials from the film’s “back story” by posting them on the company website. Artisan’s creative team posted the following pieces of “evidence” on the original blairwitch.com site, embellishing the myth of the Blair Witch and the vanished students, with invented journal entries written by the characters, police reports, and a legend of the Blair Witch dating back to the 18^th century. Artisan updated the web site weekly, revealing more information and features in order to build suspense and encourage repeat visitors. The web site became immensely popular, averaging 2 million hits a day.

    In order to spread the news about The Blair Witch Project offline by word-of-mouth and increase the effectiveness of the viral spread in its marketing mix, Artisan also deployed street teams of young interns who went to venues frequented by the target market, teens and Young Influentials: dance clubs and coffee houses across the country. Once the interns infiltrated these social network hubs, they asked people what they knew about the “Blair Witch” and distributed Blair Witch “freebies” based on the myth. Real-life advertisements were used, such as Realistic “Missing” posters seeking information about the three vanished students and the Blair Witch wooden stick-figure, which was placed in many forests. These gave life to the story of the film, and allowed curiosity to spark in their target audience, as they wanted their questions ot be answered.