Netflix Puts a Man Inside a Hollywood Billboard for The Last House Movie Promotion

In Los Angeles, Netflix has reached new heights of eccentricity in film promotion. The company hired a body double to inhabit a fully stocked billboard to advertise its new sci-fi flick The Last House.

The spectacle turned a drab advertising space near Sunset Boulevard into a tiny house mirroring the creepy story line. The billboard that was built above Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood was a small structure that looked like the house used in the film.

Instead of hanging a poster or videos in the streets, Neflix hid a performer inside that could be seen while going under the structure through a set of glass windows. This stunt has been performed from August 6th to August 8th, 2014 to transform the concept of the film into a reality. The theme is very much linked to The Last House story.

Set in a family house and taking place on Netflix, this horror story presents two unknown dangers; the family who is scrambling for supplies, and the house itself that prevents anyone from escape by her own limits. Netflix actually made that story real by placing a billboard with an outdoor living-roomfilled with furniture and everyday items. Someone sitting inside of it could communicate with pedestrians by writing on a whiteboard.

An odd link between the fabricated story and pedestrians watching from the streets: Even minor detail was incorporated into the presentation to create a sense of reality, intending the venue to appear more as an authentic household than as advertising. Accounts told the story of the act reading books, playing cards, examining binoculars while viewers below observed him. The installation carried the ever-present question to ‘How long can you survive’.

The extraordinary campaign was quickly taken up by the internet. Numerous photographs and video recordings of the billboard found their way onto social media as users attempted to make sense of how someone was potentially living ‘above the world’s busiest street’. The oddity of the stunt meant it was quickly photographed and circulated, providing a further form of free buzz for the film.

That effect is Mainly useful to today’s film marketers. A big sign in a major city will easily blend into a cityscape filled with hundreds of other signs, as pedestrians and motorists pass by. But by doing something surprising, Netflix forced people to glance, then second-glance, then take a photo, then tell people about it online.

This campaign is also a sign of how streaming companies are beginning to test new ways of doing experiential marketing. Instead of just encouraging an audience to watch a movie, they are creating experiences that get people to engage with the story before actually consuming the content. And the billboard was integrated in the fictional universe of The Last House.

The film features Greta Lee and Wagner Moura as a couple who are unknowingly stuck in their house with their children. Also starring are Riley Chung and Noah Alexander Sosnowski. Directed by Louis Leterrier and written by Matthew Robinson, the thriller presents the themes of survival uncertainty family and the illusion of safety that a house gives.