BeReal Is Gen Z’s Fave New Social App That Hollywood Can’t Crack – But Paramount Is Taking a Stab

The hot Gen Z trend this spring was BeReal, the social media app that prompts users to share a daily photo of what they’re doing the moment an alert goes off at an unexpected time — and once again, Hollywood was left standing outside the digital velvet rope.

There are myriad reasons TV and movie publicity departments can’t crack the app that bends over backward to promote “authenticity,” the very antithesis of highly manufactured film and TV campaigns. And while the savvy digital-marketing squad at Paramount found a clever way to get “Scream 6” some traction on its BeReal account, most studios aren’t ready to mess with a platform bent on filtering out staged social media.

According to the Financial Times, BeReal has grown from 10,000 daily active users to more than 15 million over the last year, and its valuation is $600 million. That growth has prompted TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat to begin copying BeReal features. Yet with all this adoption, Hollywood is wary of jumping in.

Also Read:Will There Be Enough Box Office Hits This Fall to Top Last Year, Let Alone 2019?

“Especially with productions, where there’s a lot happening, you have to make sure that there’s nothing on the wall behind someone, or there’s a costume reveal or a character or talent reveal that needs to be kept under wraps,” said one digital marketing executive from a rival major studio, who spoke on condition of anonymity to candidly assess BeReal.

TheWrap reached out to a wide range of major Hollywood content studios, including all five major film distributors and the big streamers, to determine whether anyone has used BeReal for marketing, as many had done in the early days of emergent platforms like TikTok and SnapChat. Tellingly, only Paramount reported giving the app a try; almost all the rest either declined to comment or told TheWrap that they’d barely given it any thought.

The exec who spoke on background said their team isn’t yet sure how to use BeReal as a marketing tool — and that’s exactly how the French app wants it. The platform is even considering paid features to dissuade advertising, according to the Financial Times.

Story continues

Also Read:Here’s Why Some of the Black Community Is Driving #BoycottWomanKing on Social Media

The photo-sharing app alerts users once a day, at an unknown time, to “be real” and post a photo within two minutes. When users take their BeReal, it captures an image from both the front-facing selfie camera and the back-facing camera, and displays both. That kind of spontaneity — and the short two-minute turnaround time — make it tough for Hollywood.

BeReal users may post outside the allotted two minutes, but the post will be considered “late” and display how long it was delayed. Another catch is that users cannot view their friends’ posts for the day until they post themselves. There are two tabs on the app: “My Friends,” a feed of friends’ posts only, and “Discovery,” which displays posts from users around the globe.

There is no way — yet — to “push” content to more users, or improve rankings; every eyeball on BeReal must be earned. But that didn’t stop Paramount, a leader in innovative digital marketing going back to the mid-2000s.

“We always strive to utilize new platforms and nascent technology in our marketing and executed a series of first-to-market initiatives on the last ‘Scream’ campaign,” Danielle De Palma, EVP of Global Marketing at Paramount Pictures, told TheWrap. “With BeReal being one of the fastest-growing apps, we thought it would be a fantastic way to tap into new fans for the franchise and share authentic, unfiltered behind-the-scenes moments of the cast during production.”

Also Read:Why Facebook’s Q2 Ad Slump Should Make Hollywood Nervous | Analysis

So how did Paramount do it?

Paramount Pictures and Spyglass Media Group are in the very early days of marketing “Scream 6,” the latest sequel to the comedy-horror franchise that’s due in theaters March 31, 2023. Starring “In the Heights” breakout Melissa Barrera, Jenna Ortega, Courteney Cox, Jasmin Savoy Brown and Hayden Panettiere all star in the new film, which wrapped production last week.

As there’s no official trailer or even a title yet, Paramount used fan interest in early details about the film to capture attention for behind-the-scenes content shared via BeReal — which was then extended onto other, more established social platforms.

In the first of three BeReal posts, shared Aug. 6, Savoy Brown appeared in the selfie view with the focus on Panettiere, who returns as Kirby Reed from 2011’s “Scream 4.” Although it appears that pair isn’t on set during this post, “Scream” superfan @jakelubb on TikTok noted that Panettiere’s short haircut from “Scream 4” might return.

From there, Lubb documented the franchise’s posts throughout production and kept an eye out for any other Easter eggs. And though BeReal posts disappear around 24 hours after posting – he found some.

The second known “Scream”-related BeReal post, taken Aug. 8, was a bit more revealing. Cast members Barrera, Ortega, Mason Gooding and Savoy Brown appear to be in a subway station looking at a map of New York City, leading Lubb to believe that the next installment of the horror franchise will bring a chase in a Big Apple subway.

Next, a BeReal post from Aug. 15 gave a peek onto the set as Samara Weaving, Tony Revolori and Savoy Brown gather and Gooding can be seen in the selfie view.

The effort kickstarted speculation about the newest installment, in particular its location, which was long rumored to be New York City and apparently confirmed after the Aug. 8 BeReal.

This exclusive content, however, is only available to BeReal users who are “friends” with the film’s account (@screammovies, in this case). Since there isn’t a function to follow certain accounts on BeReal, if a user wanted to see the posts, he or she would have to “friend” the account, giving the studio access to view their own posts as well.

To boost visibility, the studio also posted screenshots of its BeReal messages on the film’s Instagram and Twitter accounts.

Also Read:Snap Will Compete With TikTok By Sticking to Photos and Augmented Reality, CEO Says

But while the “Scream” experiment generated fan interest, other studios seem reluctant due to the app’s unfiltered nature and untested effectiveness. “You really need someone to be manning this on-set to pull it off,” the social executive said. “It doesn’t make sense for us from a branding perspective to spend ad dollars to be able to be in the Discover setting of the app.”

Still, BeReal’s growing popularity has prompted execs at this studio to test it out personally and observe how other brands are using it before considering making their own play on the platform. “We want to have a strategy behind it,” the insider said. “We don’t want to rush onto the platform. We want to make sure it’s an informed decision.”

While BeReal hasn’t announced any plans to expand its features, the exec hopes that the app might soon have video — noting that vertical and short-form videos have grown prominent on TikTok and on Instagram Reels.

“There’s a lot of earned media potential right now, especially with the app being new,” she said. “I think it’s a really cool, unpolished way to kind of give that behind-the scenes-look, look behind-the-curtain of things, if you can get that access and approval.”

Also Read:‘TikTok Bachelor’ Scores More Viewers Than ABC’s Reality Hit – on a Fraction of the Budget