Adventures in Movie Marketing: Crack the Code for Martha Marcy May Marlene

Fox Searchlight has launched new one-sheet posters for Sundance favorite Martha Marcy May Marlene that feature a giant QR code. Use your phone to read the code with a QR code scanner and you’ll be treated to one of two enigmatic trailers for the movie. (Want to see? Hold your phone up to the screen and read the code from these pictures with an appropriate app, if you’re so inclined. Or you can see the movie’s traditional trailer via iTunes Movie Trailers.) The posters have apparently already gone up in parts of New York City and Los Angeles.

Is this the future of movie marketing? Well, it’s different. Marketers prize interactivity, and it’s true that anyone who whips out their phone to scan in one of these posters will have a vested interest in watching the video clip that they receive as a reward. However, a sizable proportion of the audience is likely to be baffled by the images — maybe they’re not in the target demographic? The question is whether postering the trailer around town will result in capturing significantly more eyeballs than a traditional online marketing blitz. Anyway, indie film needs every innovation it can find. We’ll see if Searchlight comes up with a strategy that can make MMMM a breakout hit coming out of the New York and Toronto film festivals.