Street Level Marketing Faceplants

I’m walking along Bloor street on Saturday evening, and as I near the bank machine at Bathurst (er, for those who don’t live in Toronto, a major intersection in the student ghetto known as The Annex) I notice a cardboard box filled with what appears to be CDs. I peer into the box, upon which is written, "Free! Take One." Looking more closely, it’s a box full of DVDs labelled with "felt marker" that reads "DVD BOOTLEG." It then proclaims to have a "Sin Eating" scene from the movie The Order.

Like a sucker I grab one, take it home, pop in the player, and sure enough, it turns out to be an example of guerilla marketing. For further details on the attempts to make the DVD clip appear to be a genuine "bootleg," read here.

I’ll give 'em this much, they simply dumped a sack of DVDs into a box and dropped it on a busy intersection. Can’t get more street level than encouraging people to pick up something just shy of abandoned garbage. In honour of this new, anti-hype maneuver designed to create hype, I am coining the term "sidewalk level marketing." I eagerly await the race toward the bottom (i.e. gutter level promo followed by sewer level marketing trickery).

Oh, and by the way, nothing short of nothing is going to save this film -- it looks terrible.