Paramount Pictures knew they needed to go big if they wanted to match the marketing success of the original Smile. After the original lit up the internet, the sequel needed something fresh. They turned to Loop to get the whole world smiling about Smile 2.
The goal was to earn media attention and generate buzz about the film, but still stay true to the content and tone of the franchise. It’s sadistic, unrelenting, and deeply discomforting. We asked ourselves: How can we make the film not just watched, but experienced?
The answer: bring the movie to life in such a ridiculous way that you can’t help but try it out. This is how we ended up demanding grins from what turned into a tidal wave of curious participants.
On the internet, everything is free, whenever you want it. For Smile 2, we flipped the script.
Our in-house engineers built a site – Smile2Watch.com – that hosts a surprise early release of the first seven minutes of the movie. But if you want to watch it, there’s a nightmarish catch:
You have to smile the entire time.
With webcams enabled, those who were able to sustain a smile got to participate in history: the world's first smile-activated movie preview.
Those who stopped, didn’t. No smile? No sneak peek. Diabolical!
By tapping into the scarcity of an exclusive first-look and absurdity of smiling for seven minutes, we created a recipe for buzz. The fomo was real, and people gladly posted their attempts for others to see. Instead of feeling like a top-down marketing pitch, Smile2Watch was a communal dare that fans spread on their own. It turned passive viewing into an unforgettable, interactive moment.
We didn’t just preview the movie, we invited the audience to participate in the film’s central motif: creepy smiles. It was playful, eerie, and oddly on-brand—perfectly capturing the franchise’s vibe.
It made headlines overnight, garnering coverage from mainstream outlets, morning shows, film blogs, and marketing press: Good Morning New York, People, Indiewire, Deadline, Total Film, Forbes, Hypebeast
In total, the Smile2Watch.com campaign had a total reach of over 786 Million, with over 16 Million completed streams. That’s a lot of smiles :-)
It was clear we’d tapped into something primal: the nervous thrill of holding a fake smile to unlock forbidden content. This wasn’t just a trailer, but a communal experience that millions of fans smiled through together.
