Lionsgate’s marketing materials have been playing with the public’s minds in the run up to April Fools’ Day with up to a total of 13 “Easter Egg” items to spot within all marketing materials used to promote the release of Ghost Stories. The “amended” artwork has been appearing on bus sides across the UK as well as on outdoor postings and the digital advertising campaign with one special piece debuting as a surprise today. A social media campaign is running alongside this initiative, encouraging users to spot the “mistakes” and spark conversation around what the eye sees using the hashtag #WhatDidYouSee.
The “tricks” in this campaign have been designed to demonstrate the tricks that our minds play on us every day and to spark conversation about illusions and sleight of hand used in every day advertising.
“We think that we are seeing what is right in front of our eyes, but that really isn’t the case” said Psychologist and Illusion Expert Professor Richard Wiseman, “In fact, these sorts of illusions show that our expectations and past experiences can lead us astray, and that our brain can play tricks on us. It’s the same with a horror film like Ghost Stories – often we manufacture the fear in our minds rather than simply seeing what is on the screen. This is an exciting campaign and it’s great to have so many people trip themselves up and see something that isn’t really there”
Phillip Goodman, professor of psychology, arch-skeptic, the one-man ‘belief buster’ – has his rationality tested to the hilt when he receives a letter apparently from beyond the grave. His mentor Charles Cameron, the ‘original’ TV parapsychologist went missing fifteen years before, presumed dead and yet now he writes to Goodman saying that the pair must meet. Cameron, it seems, is still very much alive. And he needs Goodman to find a rational explanation for three stories that have shaken Cameron to his core. As Goodman investigates, he meets three haunted people, each with a tale more frightening, uncanny and inexplicable than the last.
