The boxes generated such hysteria that some fans made their own. Websites sprung up just to track the campaign and the boxes as they surfaced. One week prior to launch, two of the five sites driving the most traffic to Coraline.com were talking about the influencer boxes and estimated online impressions directly linked to the boxes were 1,898,000.

Of all the estimated online impressions over the course of the campaign, approximately 30,000,000 occurred before Coraline’s theatrical release and can be attributed to the campaign.

Coraline.com visitors reached 845,000 before the movie’s release, more hits than three comparable movies opening during that same time period, combined.The best news came during opening weekend. Projected to make $9 million, it made $16.8 million and within its first month became Focus Features’ second highest grossing film ever, pulling in a much larger contingent of the moviegoing public than eight-year-old girls.

To start with, we hand-made 50 one-of-a-kind boxes, filled with desirable relics from the set of the movie and sent them to our influencers. Each box was designed with that of a single influencer in mind and included secret passwords that unlocked exclusive short films about the movie on Coraline.com.

To create intrigue about the film we made thousands of skeleton keys that said “coraline.com” and mysteriously placed them in major metropolitan cities throughout the U.S. Other phase two elements included interactive storefronts, subway zoetropes, a creepy inflatable character that haunted a NY sidewalk at midnight, a fully explorable website and limited-edition Nike Coraline Dunks.We finished where traditional movie marketing begins: with trailers, online banners, cinema, out of home, newspaper and lenticulars, as well as original content for the web and cable networks (IFC and HBO), and a blog “written” by one of the characters from the film.