The Nun - YouTube Ads
The Nun is a 2018 gothic supernatural horror film directed by Corin Hardy and written by Gary Dauberman, from a story by Dauberman and James Wan. It is a spin-off of 2016's The Conjuring 2 and The Conjuring Universe, It was released in September 2018.
In August 2018, an advertising campaign for the film began on YouTube. However, instead of using the film's trailer, users were instead tricked by a 5-second unskippable ad by The Nun (Valak).
The ads would lure the user into a false sense of security, by doing one of the following:
- A few seconds of a volume icon going up and down (much like macOS/iOS) for a few seconds, to trick the user into thinking it's an advert by Apple before The Nun appears with an incredibly loud scream. (This was the only one found, meaning the others are lost.)
- A fake buffering logo, to trick the user into thinking the ad is struggling to load, then The Nun (Valak) appears with a loud scream.
- Nothing about 5 seconds, then The Nun pops up along with a loud scream.
- A spinning ball, much like the "Beach ball of death" found on Apple Macs.
- Fades into a hall, then slowly moves down the room, a bell tolls, then The Nun appears.
After many users' complaints, YouTube pulled the ads from their site for containing "shocking content".
Other users claim a very similar ad is on Instagram & Snapchat, but rather than being one of the aforementioned ads, it's a flashing warning sign.
Trivia
- Brad Johnson, the actor who portrayed the zombie in various K-fee commercials, mentioned The Nun ad in an interview with Rhys Productions 11 when he was asked if he had a favorite jumpscare from a movie/piece of media. He mentioned that he saw a trailer for The Nun in the cinema, which jump scared him and caused him to throw his popcorn.
Links
NOTE: The following links contains a screamer!
- youtube.com/watch?v=N436v51QBkk
- YouTube's official statement regarding the ad: twitter.com/TeamYouTube/status/1029185298524123137
