This 18-minute Zoom call is marketing genius

Best thing I've seen this week.

Timothée Chalamet dropped an 18-minute Zoom call promoting his new film Marty Supreme.

It's brilliant imo.

The whole thing is poised to look like a leaked internal marketing meeting with A24.

Chalamet's pitching increasingly ridiculous ideas to a deadpan team who are clearly just trying to get through the call.

Paint the Statue of Liberty orange.

Drop thousands of orange ping pong balls from a blimp over Tyler, The Creator's festival.

An orange blimp with his face on it.

The works.

It's shot and acted so straight that if you've ever sat through a corporate brainstorm, you'll feel the accuracy.

The awkward pauses.

The yes-people.

The one guy who keeps suggesting increasingly unhinged ideas.

That's why it hits.

The file is even labelled "video93884728.mp4" like it was accidentally uploaded.

The screensaver kicks in at one point.

Someone's connection drops.

The production value is deliberately rough.

It feels real even though it's obviously parody.

And that's the whole point.

Trailers are expected.

They're meant to be shared, so sharing them doesn't feel special.

But a Zoom meeting?

Everyone knows that format.

We've all been trapped in those calls.

Instant recognition. Instant circulation. Instant group chat material.

More than 10 million views on Instagram from something that clearly didn't cost much to make.

What's clever is that they’re not just targeting film fans.

He's inviting marketers, creators, and internet-savvy audiences to join the joke.

The piece lampoons both celebrity self-importance and typical entertainment marketing excess.

It's become commentary across creative industries because it's so accurate.

We've all been in versions of this meeting.

Some critics are calling it "confusing" or "painful" - which honestly just proves it's working.

High-risk, high-reward.

That's the whole game.

There are three reasons this works so well:

(1) Authenticity through satire

By leaning into the absurdity of modern film marketing and acknowledging how over-the-top it can be, the campaign feels fresher than formulaic ads.

Chalamet unveils a childlike blimp illustration as his "six months in the making" creative vision.

The actors struggle to maintain composure during his pitches.

It's performance art disguised as marketing.

(2) Built for virality

It's engineered for shareability - audiences recognise the tropes being mocked, making it perfect for social commentary and remixing.

The format itself is the distribution strategy.

(3) Brand extension

This is really an extension of Chalamet's personal brand - artistic, self-aware, and unafraid to toy with celebrity image.

He's blurring the line between character, actor, and campaign, generating buzz for both the movie and himself.

Smart.

The Takeaway:

You don't need a massive budget to create something that captures attention.

You need to understand the platforms and the formats people actually engage with.

A Zoom call is more shareable than a trailer because everyone has been on a terrible Zoom call.

Everyone has sat through a brainstorm where someone pitched something completely mental.

That's the cultural insight that makes it work.

The lesson isn't "make a fake Zoom call."

The lesson is: understand what formats your audience actually engages with, then use those formats to tell your story in a way that feels native, not forced.

That's thinking like a creator.

Remember, the creator mindset is all you need to grow 🌱

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