The Transmedia Opportunities of Sharknado 2

We are just two weeks away of the explosion of Sharknado phenomenon and Syfy is working on the sequel. The social media impact of Sharknado has been so strong with only $ 800.000-1 million production budget. Syfy has already announced a contest among the fans for the best tagline for the sequel.

Sharknado 2 could really become a great transmedia project if Syfy will be able to develop a strategy around the movie.

But what are the real opportunity of Syfy?

Let's suppose for a while to be the executive producer of Sharknado and to have run the contest among the viewers.

• The winning tagline is “Sharknado. Will you survive?” (according to Syfy the movie will be about sharks raining on NY).
• The winner wearing a “Sharknado Survivor” T-shirt will be pictured and filmed close to a dead shark. The picture and the video will be shared at first on a FB “Sharknado Survivors” page with a story about the first Shark found in New York and how he survived.
• The picture and the video will be shared then on Twitter for the launch of the hashtag #WillUsurvive and on Youtube starting the recruiting campaign “Sharknado Survivors”
• On a customized web site the fans could sign in to be official “Sharknado Survivors”.
• A “Sharknado Survivor” pin will be studied and 1000 of them will be drawn among the survivors.
• At 10.000 Survivors a video will be revealed with one of the protagonists telling that 7 days before the air date some sharks will be “dropped” in New York and fans will be asked to picture or film them with Instagram with hashtag #WillUsurvive. Video and pictures of survivors will be featured on the official website.
• 7 days before the air date will be released on social media a trailer of the movie in the shape of a fake weather forecast “Tornado in NY in one week”.
• In the meanwhile the production has involved brands (for the first movie lots of brands posted on their FB page pictures linked to Sharknado http://lostremote.com/how-a-sharknado-of-buzz-of-helped-syfy-connect-with-brands-on-social_b38233 )  for the countdown. Brands would buy real size sharks to put in front of their company or shops in New York and other cities.
• The NYPD (in the same way Red Cross involved itself for the first movie http://www.business2community.com/twitter/from-slizzard-to-sharknado-how-the-red-cross-rocked-twitter-0561156 ) would distribute pins with written on “Sharknado Strike Force”
• An umbrella producer (could also be Samsonite) could sell the days before the premiere in the streets “Sharknado proof” limited edition umbrellas
• (If Apple had enough irony – even if Sharknado positioning it's far from the company based in Cuppertino – could put a big logo 3d logo in Time Square with the bite of a shark)
• The production will organize an event in Time Square for the screening of Sharknado 2 (after Sharknado) for the people registered on the website.
• The hashtag #WillUSurvive will invade social media asking fans to make pictures of themselves with written on the face “Sharknado Survivor”.
• Between all the Survivors who have sent a picture the evening before will be drawn 1 fake big size shark.
• The remaining sharks of the campaign will be part of a charity auction for the Red Cross.

The sequel of Sharknado with a strong awareness earned with the first movie and with a creative transmedia strategy can leverage the power of the impact of a brand born in a few weeks.