Ready to do a little indiscriminate rodent killing on Facebook Live today? Then Tomcat pest control has a campaign for you.
Barton F. Graf created a fake trailer, along with fake posters, for the special Halloween livestream, in which Facebook users will be able to vote on what kind of gruesome deaths will befall a bunch of rodents (actually, already-dead rodent puppets), who are just trying to enjoy life as clueless teenagers on a summer cabin getaway.
It's a cleverly timed stunt, but most winsome as a sendup of circa-'90s slasher films, and the astonishing inability of their supporting characters—the ones scripted to be exterminated—to sense and avoid danger (in this case, Tomcat mousetraps).
"Spoiler: They All Die," reads one of the print ads. In the video, there's the obligatory nod to The Shining, with a warning scrawled in red on a mirror. And try not to laugh when the supers declare, with absurd melodrama, "A weekend of fun becomes a weekend of death, and the killer is … you."
That's not to mention the name itself. "Facebook Not Live," reads the trailer's tagline. "On account of all the dead mice."
Tune in at 2 p.m. ET:
CREDITS
Client: Tomcat
VP, General Manager: Tim Martin
Marketing Director: Katherine Schoessel
VP, Chief Digital & Marketing Services Officer: Patricia Ziegler
Digital Content Director: Bill Litfin
Integrated Marketing Manager: Christopher Aaron
Agency: Barton F. Graf
Chief Creative Officer / Founder: Gerry Graf Executive
Executive Creative Director / Partner: Ian Reichenthal
Creative Director: Nick Kaplan
Copywriters: Nicolas Labbe, Mark Bielik, Ross Fletcher, Joey Ianno
Art Director: Jesse Brown
Producer: Zack Grant
Head of Integrated Production: Josh Morse
Designer/Art Department: Christine Allen
Account Director: Yvette Ames
Account Manager: Kirsten Quinn
Strategy Director: Deepa Sen
Social Strategist: Lynn Chu
Production Company: Barton F. Graf Productions
Line Producer / Assistant Director: Zack Grant
Head of Production: Josh Morse
Director of Photography: Nathan Podshadley
Set Design: Nix + Gerber Studio
Editor: Matt Slamowitz
Visual Effects: My Active Driveway
Mix: Heard City
Engineers: Evan Mangianele, Eric Warzecha