Using an April Fool’s Day movie prank to launch the Lionsgate Horror Instagram account
The internet was taken over on April 1st by April Fools Day. What once was a childish holiday reserved for elementary school kids is now the entertainment industry’s chance to get out a year’s worth of digital and social pranks all within one day. Of course, we had to participate here at Digital Media Management! But we turned the prank day into an innovative social media marketing initiative to launch an Instagram account.
Working with Lionsgate, we crafted a campaign to launch a new @LionsgateHorror on Instagram. The @LionsgateMovie Instagram account is successful at covering all of their titles from The Hunger Games to Expendables to Tyler Perry films, but Lionsgate and horror fans needed an outlet of their own to track the amazing scares and haunts of Lionsgate’s vast library of horror titles. The timing of this Instagram launch is no coincidence. We knew we could draw upon the Lionsgate arsenal of horror villains to craft a truly unique April Fool’s joke. And thus, we present you with FRIGHT CLUB. The first rule of FRIGHT CLUB is…die quickly.
We worked with Lionsgate to launch the April Fools one-sheet across their library of horror film Facebook pages including Texas Chainsaw, SAW, Cabin in the Woods, American Psycho, and more. In less than a day, the April Fool’s post received an impressive 2+ million views, 26,000+ Facebook likes, and thousands of comments. The horror blog Fearnet even included it as one of the best April Fool’s pranks this year. All in all, fans got a kick out of it and the @LionsgateHorror Instagram account amassed a large number of followers on its first day, purely through Lionsgate’s organic reach from the April Fool’s prank. Keep the fear alive and follow @LionsgateHorror on Instagram.
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