Sex and the City understands (mostly) the fourth wall
As preparation for the release of the new Sex and the City movie, the studio has launched a pretty cool Fourth Wall campaign. Carrie’s Mac laptops have played a healthy role in every season of the show, and now the movie. This web app is very cool, and (mostly) recreates the Mac OSX desktop in a way that’s pretty compelling.
I’ve been pretty hard on the TV studios that have tried to create Fourth Wall campaigns [1] [2] , mainly due to their unrelenting corporate branding and ad placements.
Based on the revenue models of movies and television, I’m beginning to wonder if Fourth Wall campaigns are only possible with movies. Movie marketing is about driving interest, which leads to ticket sales and merchandise sales. Movie development tends to place great value on the “universe” the story creates. This universe creates a certain “soul” that is easy to connect with.
Perhaps part of the reason television has lost such huge ground in our minds is that the soul has largely disappeared.
