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PR pros and marketing experts weigh in on the cultural cachet of a coked-up bear on a killing spree.
The trailer for the forthcoming comedy-thriller ‘Cocaine Bear’ – which is loosely based on the real-life story of a bear that overdosed after coming upon a duffel bag of cocaine in the woods of Tennessee – has gone viral since it was released last Sunday.
The weird, wacky adaptation, directed by Elizabeth Banks and produced by Universal Pictures, imagines the bear going on a drug-fueled rampage as local law enforcement attempt to figure out what’s going on.
The film’s trailer is making its rounds on Twitter and Instagram to the surprise and delight of users everywhere. A common refrain: it’s so crazy that it’s simply got to equal success.
The trailer (and the film, too, we’d guess), evidences a growing trend in creative industries spanning entertainment, content and advertising: leveraging the absurd and the irreverent to generate buzz. It’s the Liquid Death playbook. It’s the ethos underlying much of what Ryan Reynolds is doing with his production agency Maximum Effort.
“The more outrageous and unique a story, the more it will generate attention,” says Dr. Karen Freberg, a marketing expert and professor of strategic communications at University of Louisville. “Attention is the currency of today, and people are craving new entertainment to distract them from other elements.”
Other experts agree that the viral success of the ‘Cocaine Bear’ trailer comes as little surprise considering the content. “From a sponsorship view – hell, from any marketing point-of-view – everything is about buzz,” says Robert Passikoff, the founder and president of market research firm and consultancy Brand Keys. This trailer in particular, he says has “all the elements a buzz-worthy film requires these days: violence, drugs, blood, gore and a bear.”
In a sector that’s become in many ways obsessed with purpose and values-focused messaging,…
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