Is Devil baby attack gorilla marketing gone overboard? Will it work?

Devil baby attack, scares New Yorkers shitless as Devil’s Due premiere nears.

While media sites have been banging up on the latest ‘viral video’ (deemed viral before it even became viral), Devil Baby attack video prank may not be all that it is hyped up to be.

Serving as a clever pre advertisement for Friday’s Hollywood release of Devil’s Due, the prank video although delicious in its content is null and void in what it promises to deliver. In some essence making the advertisement more appealing and suggestive than the actual movie producers are hoping movie goers will actually go and see. Bear in mind the people who made the prank ad, Thinkmodo are not the people who actually made the movie you are being asked to go see.

The video itself focuses on a string of unsuspecting New Yorkers having the crap scared out of them as they go to investigate the errant sounds of an abandoned baby pram only to find a ghoulish baby doll like figure suddenly jutting out at them from under the covers hissing and vomiting in their general direction.

Nevertheless questions are being raised as to the efficacy of the Devil Baby attack video in mustering movie goers as well as to the ethics of such marketing ploys.

Reflects theweek: You can’t really fault Hollywood marketing teams for embracing this kind of “viral video,” even if they have rendered the very concept of a “viral video” sort of meaningless — why don’t we have a better word to describe a “viral video” that hasn’t, you know, had the chance to go viral yet?

What’s more troubling is the fact that so many media outlets are willing to play along with them. Like “Telekinetic Coffee Shop Surprise,” “Devil Baby Attack” doesn’t identify itself as a promotional video for Devil’s Due until the very end. But most of the outlets writing about the “Devil Baby Attack” — including Fast Company and Laughing Squid — don’t make it clear in their headlines that the video is essentially a glorified advertisement.

Yes it’s an advertorial seeking in essence to lure us into a marketing ploy. The content is a byline and an after thought and us bloggers are in it for the ride cause we know if we get in early enough we’ll catch some decent traffic.

The question now remains to be seen whether the video and resulting media outlets writing about it will lead to movie goers marching off to see the movie, even if by the end of the clip no one really has an idea of what to expect say for the fact that we are going to get some horror. Cheap horror that is lured in by the flavor of a cool unsuspecting video begging for our mindless attention as we unsuspectingly click from site to site…