The Godzilla 2014 Trailer leaked trailer is being removed from YouTube by Warner Bros., which (as i predicted) was filing copyright claims against any and all versions on the giant video-sharing platform.
However, it’s still up on Vimeo, at least right now (update, Warner Bros finally got to it):
Godzilla 2014 Teaser Trailer from Joey Shabadoo on Vimeo.
In taking the action, Warner Bros. is making a huge social media mistake, losing a valuable chance to gather data and analyze audience Internet response to the Godzilla 2014 Trailer leak before their marketing campaign officially starts.
Anticipating that Warner Bros would take such a move, I set about the task of looking at the performance of the search term “Godzilla 2014” and “Godzilla.” What I found was news, both good and bad, but mostly good.
First, the Friday leak failed to cause an organic development of Twitter tweets such that “Godzilla 2014” or “Godzilla” hit Twitter Trends levels. Achieving such an objective is vitally important in determining the demand for the movie product.
The trouble is there were not enough tweets or blog posts or articles from major media outlets to cause the mark of Twitter Trend to be hit. There was nothing written about the leak on Deadline, the famous Hollywood blog by Nikke Finke, for example. Nor was it picked up by The Wrap, which did show the leaked trailer for MARVEL’s Avengers: Age of Ultron Comic-Con Teaser:
And which was not taken down by MARVEL since it was placed on September 25th, 2013, and proving MARVEL gets it.
In short, there was not enough production of content from the leaked Godzilla Trailer to cause either a Twitter Trend reach or the achievement of Google Trend searches.
A Look At The Impact Of 2,000 #Godzilla2014 Twitter Tweets
The chart shows that out of an analysis of 2,000 tweets, the majority of them were issued Saturday, October 5th. The peak number of them were released between Friday October 4th at 11:59 and climb to a rate of about 40 per 10 minutes at its highest point, before falling to 9 per 10 minutes for Saturday, and then five per 10 minutes today, Sunday.
According to my experience in engineering Twitter conversations, at some point, #Godzilla2014 would have to be a part of 100 tweets and retweets over a one-minute period at the minimum to achieve Twitter Trend levels.
That did not happen.
But here’s the good news: it could have come somewhat close to doing that with just a little involvement by Warner Bros, and other Twitter accounts with large follower bases. The average Twitter account in this analysis had just over 1,900 followers.
The SocialMention.com Report
SocialMention.com is one of my favorite social media analysis tools because I can immediately determine who the top influencers are for a term regardless of whether the platform is Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube or a blog (as an aside, if you’re paying for platforms to analyze social media impact, you need to have your head examined).
In the case of “Godzilla 2014,” the SocialMention.com analysis period goes back as far as 14 months to present day (Monday, October 7th at 12 midnight). There was a 35 percent chance that the term was talked about in social media. What you want is a 66 percent chance because, if you recall your statistics training, 66 percent is a sure thing. The “sentiment ratio” was three positives for every one negative mention, which is excellent. The passion rating is 30 percent, and that reflects the diverse number of people commenting on “Godzilla 2014.”
There were 162 unique authors of content, and from them 20 recorded direct re-tweets.
Other stats: Top keywords: Godzilla, trailer, teaser, movie, leaked, video, comic, photo, godzillamovies, monster.
Top Users: Godzilla Movie Stills, AlexValdez1992, Kanaka Menehune, ET (Entertainment Talk), Kaiju115, Julie Thurston, Beyond The Trailer, WoGzilla, zennie62 (me), GojiFan1993.
Top Sources: Twitter, Answers Wiki, YouTube, Flickr, Facebook, Photobucket, Ask.
If you want to see the full results for yourself, click on this link:
http://socialmention.com/search?q=godzilla+2014&t=all&btnG=Search
Google Insight For Search Analysis
NOTE: THE CHARTS MAY BE DIFFERENT FROM THE ORIGINAL TEXT, BECAUSE THEY UPDATE AUTOMATICALLY OVER A ROLLING “PAST SEVEN DAY” REVIEW PERIOD.
This Google Insight For Search chart shows that on the day the trailer was leaked “Godzilla” hit 100 in search intensity and Godzilla 2014 reached 36:
“100” is equal to A-list celebrity levels, even though when compared to an A-lister’s volume, the term falls off. But even when its compared to the term “Avengers” “Godzilla” ranks less by about 70 percent.
This is clearly not just because of interest in The Avengers, but MARVEL’s constant campaign to keep it in the public eye, with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D and the Age of Ultron trailer leak.
And the Avengers: Age of Ultron is not due for release until 2015, versus Summer of 2014 for Godzilla.
In the case of Godzilla, when compared to the movie Gravity, Catching Fire, which is not released yet, and Miley Cyrus, its expectantly far and away less than the iconic pop star but equal to Catching Fire, which has nothing out about it, and hasn’t since Comic Con 2013. (But for Catching Fire to maintain levels comparable to Godzilla, which has been around for decades, is remarkable.)
But the good news is the volume was not far off that for the released movie Gravity, and does imply that a comprehensive marketing campaign, combined with what we all believe is going to be a kick-ass Godzilla movie, will achieve the objectives I’ve pointed to.
But I emphasize that Warner Bros should not get in the habit of spending money stupidly.
The leak saved marketing money, and Warner Bros running around taking down Godzilla Trailers is a waste of staff time and effort.
What all of this indicates is that Warner Bros needs to stop hiding its Godzilla content and engineer social media distribution partnerships with A-listers on social media to bridge the massive awareness gap. It needs to leave the teasers up, encourage viral distribution, and make sure that it’s out in Japanese, Spanish, French, Russian, and Mandarin.
Godzilla’s fan base is not quite large enough alone to do this and if Warner Bros is making a bet that’s the case, it’s a VERY BAD one. Warner Bros focus on just the Godzilla fan base could cause the movie to run the risk of being the “Scott Pilgrim” of 2014, what counter’s my take is that it has major acting stars like Bryan Cranston in it.
And “Godzilla” itself is a frequently tweeted and used term, which is something to build from.
Warner Bros should call or text Miley Cyrus.
Stay tuned.