There was a quite scary little horror movie this past year
called: It Follows. It’s about this
supernatural entity thingy that follows people around and kills them if it can,
and it can be transmitted from person to person through sexual intercourse.
Wow, what a whole world of tie-in ad opportunities await
with this premise!
The first, most obvious tie-in ad would be for a condom.
Just show a condensed form of the movie, and say that some STDs will follow you
for the rest of your life (like herpes, for example), and to avoid them,
protect yourself with condoms.
Then this premise could be played with for something fun,
like as an ad for Doritos. Some scared person eating a bag of Doritos is asked
for some by someone else, so that person gives them the bag, saying that if
they have the bag, something evil will follow them, and don’t let them have any
of the Doritos; but all they have to do to get rid of their pursuer is to give
the bag of Doritos to someone else, and then the evil entity will follow them
instead. So the new person who owns the bag is eating from them when some
creepy person starts following and chasing them, and while they’re creeped-out,
they refuse to give away the bag of Doritos, because they want to eat them. Then,
after being pursued for the rest of the ad, they finally eat them all, and the
entity catches them, but it’s too late: all the Doritos are gone. Then the
announcer says: “Doritos: You’ll never want to give them up, no matter what!”
Then, next we could have a tie-in ad featuring a travel
agency, where someone is being followed by the It Follows entity, and the announcer says: “Always being followed
by the same old things? Get away from it all, with a vacation package from
(whatever travel agency)!”
And, of course, there could be a tie-in ad for some fast car
like the Dodge Challenger, where we see someone being chased by the It Follows entity, and we see the
distressed hero climb into a Dodge Challenger and peel off, driving away at
high speed, as the announcer says: “It can’t follow you if you’re in a
Challenger!” (This idea would also work well for some brand of running shoes,
with the person being followed putting on a new pair of the running shoes and
running away, leaving the entity I the dust, and the announcer says: “It will
never keep up with you in (whatever brand of) running shoes!”)
Then there could be a tie-in ad for a home security system
where the scared victim of the following entity calls the company, and they set
up an alarm system, it sets off when the entity arrives at the house, and the
company comes and wrangles the entity Ghostbusters-style.
Then the announcer says: “Whatever the threat that worries you, (whatever home
alarm company) will keep you safe from it!”
