It's what you make of it.

Still from Rec2

If you like flims, are an amateur film-maker or consider yourself to be quite the film buff, then you’ve probably heard of Ant Timpson, who is pretty big on the NZ scene and the creator of such wonderful things as the 48 Hour Film-making competition and the Incredibly Strange Film Festival.

Ant is currently working with Vendetta Films for promotion of [Rec]2, and inspiration for the promotion came from within the MDS walls.

The promotion for the film currently involves not-a-lot. You see, given the films paltry promotional budget, Ant decided it would be a great idea to instead give the budget out as a prize to the person who creates the most buzz about the movie, being released on Friday November 13.

Still from Rec2

Quite a genius idea really, given that a lot of people will be creating buzz about the movie in an attempt to win – and I’m guessing they’ll be getting a lot more than $5K (the prize’s value) worth of promotion.

On the idea – and how MDS was involved, Ant has to say:

“When REC2 came up for sale Rialto passed on it but Vendetta jumped all over it.  Since I found REC and helped release it into NZ they approached me about helping release the film again in NZ…The only hitch, Vendetta only want a limited release and have a very small marketing budget (approx NZ$7500 all up).

“Awhile back I was inspired by a clever young Auckland media student named Michael Chal, who took an assignment about raising online awareness to dizzying new heights when he pretended to auction sexy photos of his Mother on the online auction site TradeMe.  Chal ended up being covered by every newspaper and tv news show in NZ.  It was perhaps a little deceitful but most kiwis saw the humour in it and as an experiment it was phenomenally successful.

“So the idea came to me, instead of spending the tiny marketing budget on old media..why don’t I just give away nearly all the marketing cash as a prize to someone who creates the most buzz about the films release?”

And so the idea was born.

Still from Rec2

While we haven’t really mentioned Michael’s project on our blog, it was indeed covered by almost every major media outlet in NZ, as well as 80 worldwide.  The auction was part of the school’s Creative Advertising “100 Day Challenge” where students had to create an idea that ‘added to the gaiety of the nation’, an idea that made people smile, and an idea that got people chattering online. The idea had to then be linked to a product – in this case, TV2’s Brat Camp.

Advertising really is all about ideas. And it’s great to see ideas sparking off another in a new and unique way. Good work Michael, and good luck Ant.

Check out the Rec2 website for more information on how you can generate buzz!