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How Rings Turned a TV Store Into a Horror Scene
The Rings TV Store Prank is a January 2017 experiential campaign created by Thinkmodo for Paramount Pictures in the United States, in which actress Bonnie Morgan, performing as Samara, emerged from a specially rigged television set inside a real electronics store while hidden cameras recorded the unscripted reactions of unsuspecting shoppers.
The campaign launched ahead of the theatrical release of Rings, the third installment in The Ring film series, which opened in the United States on February 3, 2017, according to Shortyawards. Its central objective was to generate viral awareness by translating the franchise's most iconic horror image — Samara crawling out of a television screen — from fiction into a live, public encounter. The activation took place at Prisco Appliance and Electronics in White Plains, New York, a real retail store transformed specifically for the stunt. Real customers browsing the shop floor became the unwitting audience for a scene they had only previously experienced through a cinema or home screen. The campaign earned a Clapboard Score of 73 out of 100, reflecting its strong creative concept and measurable industry recognition, according to Westchestermagazine. Rather than relying on a conventional trailer or digital advertisement, Thinkmodo built the campaign around authentic human shock — an approach designed to travel rapidly across social platforms and generate earned media at a scale traditional paid formats rarely achieve, according to LinkedIn. The finished video captured individual moments of genuine fear and disbelief, giving audiences across the United States and beyond a vicarious encounter with the horror franchise's signature antagonist before the film arrived in cinemas.
Thinkmodo approached the Rings campaign with a strategy rooted in the power of authentic, unscripted reaction. The agency had previously applied the same hidden-camera supernatural prank format to horror film promotions, including the 2014 Telekinetic Coffee Shop Surprise for Carrie and the Devil Baby Attack stunt, establishing a recognisable creative playbook for translating cinematic terror into real-world encounters. For Rings, the strategic logic was identical: place an audience inside the horror rather than merely showing it to them.
The competitive environment for horror film marketing in the United States in 2017 was unusually crowded. The genre performed exceptionally well that year, with It, Split, Get Out, and Happy Death Day all reaching wide release, creating significant pressure on each title to cut through a saturated promotional landscape. Against this backdrop, Rings carried the weight of a franchise with an established fanbase but also the challenge of re-engaging an audience familiar with its central imagery. A standard trailer would struggle to surprise a viewer who already knew what Samara looked like. By staging the television-exit scene as a live event, the campaign converted that familiarity into the prank's very mechanism — real shoppers in White Plains, New York, encountered something they recognised from memory, in a context where they had no reason to expect it, producing a reaction more visceral than any scripted performance could manufacture. The strategic outcome was a piece of content built to be shared not because it advertised the film, but because watching other people be terrified is, in itself, compelling viewing.
Thinkmodo transformed Prisco Appliance and Electronics in White Plains, New York, into a fully operational film production environment while maintaining its function as a working retail store. The build required engineering a custom mechanical rig concealed within the store's display area. According to Westchester Magazine, Thinkmodo co-founder and director Michael Krivicka explained that one television was rigged so that when it moves upward and viewers are distracted to look aside, it reveals the actual character from the film. The screen's upward movement was timed precisely to redirect shoppers' attention at the critical moment, giving Bonnie Morgan — who played Samara in Rings — the space to emerge undetected until she was already in motion.
As confirmed by producer Sam Pezzullo, speaking to Shorty Awards, Thinkmodo conceived the concept, managed the entire production, and handled launch and media seeding to both online and television outlets. Pezzullo noted that the agency transformed what was originally an appliance store into an electronics store environment and built the special rig with the mechanism required to hide the performer and lower the television screen at the right moment. Hidden cameras positioned throughout the space captured the reactions of shoppers who had no prior knowledge of the stunt. On screen, the footage shows ordinary customers browsing the store floor before the rigged television rises, the room darkens, and Morgan emerges in full costume and character, moving directly toward the stunned shoppers. The unscripted responses — running, screaming, stumbling backward — form the emotional core of the finished video, with VFX elements enhancing the visual atmosphere to match the film's aesthetic. The production credit for overall creative direction belongs to Michael Krivicka of Thinkmodo, with Sam Pezzullo serving as producer.
No verified box office performance data attributable specifically to the TV Store Prank campaign is publicly available. However, the video's distribution figures establish its reach with clarity. According to Adweek, the campaign recorded more than 200 million views on Facebook within its first 24 hours of publication, a figure that placed it among the most rapidly distributed branded video content of that period in the United States. The same period saw approximately 1 million views on YouTube, as reported by Adweek.
The campaign's industry standing is confirmed by three major awards. It won the Shorty Award for Best Use of Facebook Video in 2017, as recorded by the Shorty Awards. It also won the Golden Trailer Award for Best Viral Campaign in 2017, and the Clio Entertainment Award for Theatrical Original Content in 2017. These three honours span audience engagement, distribution strategy, and creative production — an unusually broad sweep that reflects the campaign's effectiveness across multiple dimensions of advertising craft. For a film that grossed approximately 83 million dollars worldwide on a 25 million dollar production budget, as noted by multiple entertainment industry sources, the prank represented a highly cost-efficient mechanism for generating awareness at a moment when the horror genre was at peak theatrical competition in the United States. The structural effectiveness of the campaign rests on its use of real, unmanipulated reaction as content, a format that removes the credibility barrier audiences apply to conventional advertising and replaces it with the social currency of shared spectacle.
The Rings TV Store Prank was a January 2017 experiential campaign created by Thinkmodo for Paramount Pictures in the United States. Actress Bonnie Morgan, performing as Samara, emerged from a rigged television set inside Prisco Appliance and Electronics in White Plains, New York, while hidden cameras recorded the genuine reactions of unsuspecting shoppers.
The Rings TV Store Prank was filmed at Prisco Appliance and Electronics in White Plains, New York. Thinkmodo transformed the working retail store into a production environment, engineering a custom mechanical rig inside the display area to conceal actress Bonnie Morgan and allow her to emerge from a rigged television set.
Bonnie Morgan played Samara in the Rings TV Store Prank. Morgan, who performed the role of Samara in the Rings film itself, appeared in full costume and character during the live stunt, emerging from the rigged television set to confront unsuspecting shoppers inside the White Plains, New York electronics store.
According to Adweek, the Rings TV Store Prank recorded more than 200 million views on Facebook and approximately 1 million views on YouTube within its first 24 hours of release in January 2017. These figures made it one of the most rapidly distributed branded video activations of that period in the United States.
The Rings TV Store Prank won three major industry awards in 2017: the Shorty Award for Best Use of Facebook Video, as recorded by the Shorty Awards; the Golden Trailer Award for Best Viral Campaign; and the Clio Entertainment Award for Theatrical Original Content, recognising its creative execution and distribution performance.
Thinkmodo created the Rings TV Store Prank, with co-founder and director Michael Krivicka overseeing creative direction and Sam Pezzullo serving as producer. The agency, as confirmed by Pezzullo via the Shorty Awards, managed concept, full production, and media seeding, applying its established hidden-camera supernatural prank format to Paramount's horror franchise promotion.
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