Campaign Stats:
- 21 Pieces of coverage
- Audience Reach: 3.49 Million
- Air Time: 101 Minutes
- Coverage Views: 4.74K
- Circulation: 563K
4media group were approached by Universal Parks and Resorts to conduct a PR survey to find out the things that scare Brits the most. The PR survey of 2000 Brits found that while we love a scary film, there are a few things that terrify us more than most. The research formed the basis of a 4media group broadcast day fronted by Michael Aiello, the Senior Director of Entertainment Creative Development for Universal’s Entertainment Division. The story was also sold in to publications via our news generation team.
The research was commissioned after figures revealed that horror fiction sales are at a four-year high after a year of successful horror TV series’ and films that have proved a success amongst fans of the genres. Industry figures showed horror and ghost books were extremely popular, totalling £4.2m in value. Many film critics are even suggesting that horror films are having a renaissance like never before.
Many of the main elements in these films form Britain’s biggest phobias. Forget ghosts and psychotic clowns, its serial killers (31%) that terrify Brits the most, followed by creepy dolls (28%) and zombies (24%).
In fact a third put their fears specifically down to movies (33%), while a quarter put it down to childhood (25%) and 23% blame scary TV programmes. These fears mean that only a third of Brits would watch a scary film alone- leaving the rest of the nation running for the comfort of someone else to watch it with.
Just in case you were wondering, the Exorcist was voted the scariest film by our panel.
The campaign was a huge success generating 21 pieces of Broadcast, Online and Print coverage. Highlights included four BBC Radio interviews, as well as a snippet in the Daily Mirror. View the full coverage from the campaign here.