Baby Fever
April 13th, 2010
In a rebirth of cinematic non-fiction, Director Thomas Balmés and producer Alaim Chabat collaborate with Focus Features to bring you this springs biggest chick flick, Babies. The film, which follows the lives of four babies from around the world, capitalizes on more than cute; it also explores every marketing tool imaginable from facebook giveaways, to widgets and iPhone apps.
Focus Features, a subsidiary of NBC Universal, is working in collaboration with Kodak and Johnson’s in a campaign which directs social media trends of self promotion toward new parents, encouraging them with prizes to upload images and videos of their baby. Marketing strategies include an iPhone app which in addition to advertising the movie and its events, such as “Mommy and Me” movie screenings, includes an alarm feature that reminds you everyday to take a picture of your child, and then upload it for a chance to win prizes.
Between these kinds of ramped up marketing techniques and the movie’s willingness to grab at any franchising opportunity that comes its way, this film could stand to become more of a sensation than Jurassic Park. I don’t mean anything by drawing this comparison, other than that Babies is receiving the kind of buzz among our generation as brontosauri did in the 90′s and both are things I fantasize I will one day have. Don’t take my word for it; visit their site, check out the trailer and start documenting your baby if you have one.