A Specialisation Project 360o Ad Campaign For An

Transcription

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A Specialisation Project
360o Ad Campaign For An Indie Movie
Submitted by
Rachit Agarwal
BJMC III C
Enrolment no: A2004708053
Under the supervision of
Mr. Amit Kumar Dutta
Amity School of communication
Amity University
Date of final submission
22nd March 2011
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Preface
What I’ve researched was based purely on the drive to finish what I started. How I came to
choose this topic is an older story. The topic is something that has always intrigued me to
learn more about and let other people know about it.
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Acknowledgement
Though I’d like to thank many people in helping me complete this project which includes
many of my teachers and casual acquaintances, I’d like to thank in this acknowledgement a
few of my friends and peers without whose assistance this project could not have come into
being. It is my belief that no project or work is completely individual even if it’s someone’s
brainchild. I’d like to personally thank Mr. Ankit Arya, Mr. Siddharth Behl, Mr. Ankur
Banerjee, Mr. Vivek Nair, Mr. Punya Vats, Ms. Nivriti Gupta, Ms. Agnetha Ayson and Mr.
Harshvardhan Kumar.
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Certificate of completion
This certificate is to authorize and authenticate my completion of my final project for
bachelors in journalism and mass communication. The topic titled ‘360-degree ad campaign
for an indie movie’ under the ‘Advertising’ elective under the guidance of Mr. Amit Kumar
Dutta was completed and duly submitted in time well before or on the final date of
submission.
22nd March 2011
Mr. Amit Kumar Dutta
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Abstract
My topic looks to take a look at the prevailing trends in advertising a film effectively and
efficiently. This will be achieved by taking one film of each size (big budget Hollywood,
medium budget, and independent) and studying the tactics used to make people aware about
them. The movies have been chosen so that they showcase some innovation in advertising.
The key was to highlight not the mundane, but the eye popping.
The topic looks to study the campaigns for these movies, study the similarities between them,
note the innovations, and then finally to generalize them and create an ad campaign
(hopefully) as intriguing as the ones cited.
The research was majorly qualitative in nature, and not quantitative. Case studies and other
researches have been quoted and taken as examples. It also includes a lot of self study and
research.
My research findings are mostly illustrative, and open to interpretation. The research isn’t out
to prove a point, just understand the trends and methods. In a poetic sense ‘I learnt what I set
out to learn’.
The observations correspond with the objective. As a recommendation to other researchers
tackling a similar topic, I’d say that this topic, based on the zeitgeist as it is, needs to be
revisited constantly. No one research would ever be complete or current.
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Table of contents
Chapter
Page no
Introduction to the research study
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A brief introduction
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Kick Ass
 Plot Synopsis
 Marketing Kick Ass
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Cloverfield
 Plot Synopsis
 Marketing Cloverfield
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The Dark Knight
 Plot Synopsis
 Marketing The Dark Knight
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Limitations of the Research
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Findings and Analysis: My Conclusions
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Summary, conclusion and recommendations
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Appendix
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Introduction to the research Study
To study one film of from each of the three budget slabs (big, medium and independent) that
somehow broke away from the clutter by virtue of their inventive ad campaigns. These films
opened new vistas, and new avenues for advertising. They showed that in this day and age,
where the studios are criticized for releasing by-the-numbers movies advertised in
conventional ways, or where the prohibitive media costs spells doom for indie films, the
audience still wants to experience something fresh. In other words, the audience appreciates it
when a film respects their intelligence.
The films provided hooks for the audience to latch on to by having their campaigns create
unique, immersive experiences.
Films chosen:
Big budget: The Dark Knight
Medium Budget: Cloverfield
Independent: Kick Ass
Hypothesis
Getting the audience interested about a film does not depend on the budget of the ad
campaign.
Objective
To understand how movies can be marketed, and apply the findings to market a hypothetical
movie.
Review of literature
 Marketing overviews published by Chris on Movie Marketing Madness
(moviemarketingmadness.com)
 Box office stats from Box Office Mojo
 Blog posts from /Film
 Blog posts from The Movie Blog
 Blog posts from Cinematical
 Marketing to Moviegoers: A Handbook of Strategies and Tactics by Robert Marich
 Marketing material for The Dark Knight (by Warner Bros.)
 Marketing material for Cloverfield (by Paramount Pictures)
 Marketing material for Kick Ass (by Legendary Pictures)
 Kick-Ass – The Harsh Reality Of Virtual Marketing by Barry Steele (from
heyyouguys.co.uk)
 Marketing Movies Online by Gunjan Bagla (from imediaconnection.com)
 Guardian.co.uk
 Traileraddict.com
 Wikipedia
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A Brief Introduction
With my final project I hope to achieve an insight into the how best to advertise a movie. To
set a challenge for myself, and to mirror circumstances I could face in the future, I would
apply my observations to device a hypothetical ad campaign for a hypothetical independent
film. By its very nature, an independent movie would offer a very limited budget for
advertising, hence stretching me and making me utilize all mediums to their fullest.
For the purpose of the study, three films were chosen as case studies. These films were
chosen keeping in mind their target demographic. At the same time, care was also taken to
include only films which had made a significant impact on the way movies are advertised (or
grabbed eyeballs). One film from each budget size (big, medium and independent) was
chosen, to subliminally drive home the point that the budget has little to no bearing on the
impact of the advertising (only if the advertising is done well). The movies hence chosen are:
Big: The Dark Knight
Medium: Cloverfield
Indie: Kick Ass
All three films were able to generate a considerable amount of buzz prior to their release,
even though their budgets ranged from the rather lofty $185 million to a measly $25 million.
This buzz was seen specially in their opening weekend box office hauls (for the sake of
levelling the playing field out a bit more, we will consider both the overall opening weekend
BO hauls, and the opening weekend per-screen-average).
As Gunjan Bagla puts it:
In most industries, brands are built over years, sometimes decades. The theatrical
release of movies is unique, because its current formula for success relies on building
a brand in a few weeks. While press and buzz are important, heavy advertising is a
requirement to drive awareness, favourability and to finally get “butts in seats” as
Hollywood likes to put it. Box office revenue on the first weekend is used as a
predictor of the lifetime value of each movie title, including future revenue from payper-view, DVD releases, international rights, etc. Careers are made and unmade in
Monday morning meetings at many studios, and there is seldom a second chance if
your advertising did not resonate prior to that crucial opening weekend.
Apart from the film case studies, I also poured over promotional material for other movies,
observing the patterns and monitoring the reactions of fanboys on the internet. Being an
ardent movie geek, I have in a way been preparing for this report my whole life. While the
other campaigns aren’t explicitly cited, relevant reactions are included in the Observations
section. Some of the reactions overflow with praise, while a lot of them just go on to
demonstrate the various clichés adopted by Hollywood, especially in poster design.
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Kick Ass
Director: Matthew Vaughn
Starring
Aaron Johnson
Christopher Mintz-Plasse
Chloë Moretz
Nicolas Cage
Mark Strong
Budget: $28 million
Opening Weekend: $19,828,687 ($6,469 per-screen-average)
Gross Revenue: $96,188,903
Plot Synopsis (from Wikipedia)
Dave Lizewski, an ordinary teenager, becomes a real-life superhero in New York City,
despite having no superpowers. After his first crime-fighting encounter leaves him with
permanent nerve damage, he gains an enhanced capacity to endure pain, and surgical implants
required to repair multiple skeletal fractures give him resistance to further bone-crushing
injuries. His effort to conceal the truth, claiming he had had his clothes thrown off after being
mugged, leads to rumours that he is gay. His long-time crush, Katie Deauxma immediately
attempts to become his friend, having always wanted a "gay BFF." Dave hesitantly goes along
with it. After intervening in a gang attack, Dave's actions are recorded by a bystander and put
on the internet. Calling himself "Kick-Ass," he sets up a MySpace account so he can be
contacted for help. After responding to a request from Katie, he goes to deal with a drug
dealer, Rasul, who has been harassing her. Rasul and his thugs quickly overpower him, but he
is rescued by 11-year old vigilante Hit-Girl, who kills his attackers and then leaves with her
father, Big Daddy. They believe he has potential, but warn him to be more careful, and give
him a way to contact them if needed.
Big Daddy is Damon Macready, a former cop who has a long-standing grudge with crime
boss Frank D'Amico for framing him as a drug dealer, leading to the suicide of his wife. His
former partner at the New York Police Department, Marcus Williams, became guardian to his
daughter, Mindy. Big Daddy, however, has reclaimed Mindy and is training her to be a skilled
crime-fighter, against Marcus' wishes, hoping to take down D'Amico, starting by sabotaging
his organisation. D'Amico, however, is led to believe that it is Kick-Ass who is responsible
for Big Daddy's actions, and embarks on a campaign to eliminate him. His son, Chris,
suggests a different approach. He assumes the role of vigilante "Red Mist," in order to
befriend Kick-Ass and lure him into a trap. But the trap is undone by Big Daddy, who
independently kills D'Amico's men and sets the building on fire. Following his escape from
the warehouse fire, Dave determines to quit being Kick-Ass. He confesses the truth to Katie,
and she forgives him and becomes his girlfriend. A week later, Dave finds a series of urgent
messages from Red Mist, requesting they meet. Saying he must do one more thing as KickAss, he meets Red Mist, who is actually using him as a ruse to lead the D'Amico thugs to Big
Daddy. Upon arriving at an intended meeting place, D'Amico's men storm the place and
capture Big Daddy, taking Kick-Ass with them. D'Amico intends to have his thugs torture and
execute his captives in a live Internet broadcast viewed by millions, including Katie and
Marcus, who are both powerless to intervene. Hit-Girl, who survived the shooting, arrives and
kills all the gangsters; during the struggle one thug sets Big Daddy on fire. He and Hit-Girl
say a tearful farewell before he succumbs to his injuries. Kick-Ass tries to convince Hit-Girl
to quit her dangerous lifestyle, but she plans to finish what her father started, and Kick-Ass
reluctantly agrees to help.
In the assault on D'Amico's headquarters, Hit-Girl kills most of the henchmen but runs out of
ammunition and is pinned in the penthouse kitchen under fire. Kick-Ass arrives in the nick of
time on a jet pack fitted with Gatling guns, and kills the remaining thugs. Kick-Ass and Hit-
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Girl then take on D'Amico and his son. Kick-Ass fights Red Mist but they manage to knock
each other out. Hit-Girl fights D'Amico, but she is eventually overpowered. As D'Amico is
about to finish off Hit-Girl, Kick-Ass comes to the rescue armed with the rocket launcher,
blasting D'Amico out of the window where he explodes in mid-air. Red Mist revives in time
to see Kick-Ass and Hit-Girl leaving on the jet pack, and is powerless to stop them. Mindy
and Dave retire from crime fighting to live a more normal life. Mindy returns to live with
Marcus, and enrols at Dave's school. Dave explains that although he is done with crime
fighting, a new "generation" of superheroes have been inspired by his endeavour, and the city
is safer as a result. Red Mist is shown donning a new mask as he quotes Jack Nicholson as the
Joker, "As a great man once said, 'Wait till they get a load of me'.”
Marketing Kick Ass
The source book (which I’ll admit to not having read) is reportedly crass and violent and,
based on the marketing we’re about to take a look at, the movie doesn’t seem to deviate from
that too wildly.
The Posters
With such a colourful cast of characters there were bound to be a plethora of posters created
and the marketing team has certainly delivered on that front.
The first batch of teasers placed each of the main characters – Red Mist, Kick-Ass himself,
Hit Girl and Big Daddy – in that most clichéd of super-hero poses, that of standing atop a
building and looking over the city they’ve sworn to protect triumphantly and with a sense of
entitlement and ownership. When you put the four posters together in the order outlined
above the title of the movie is spelled out in the sky, which is a nice touch and certainly an
incentive for collectors excited about the movie to seek out the one-sheets and webmasters to
reprint this group excitedly.
A second batch of teaser one-sheets again featured each individual character, but in different
poses and with more colour-coded backgrounds. Each one also got its own little saying that
deflated the idea they were actually had any powers but did emphasize what they could do,
which is kick your ass. So Kick Ass’ poster says “I can’t fly. But I can kick your ass.” and so
on. Each also contained a URL to what appeared to be a character-specific website but those
addresses, when entered, just redirected to the movie’s official site.
Not content with two bites at the apple there was a third set created and released that toned
down the clever and just presented the four characters bursting through the title treatment
with a burst of color in their wake.
While three series of character-centric posters for a movie with only four main characters it’s
showing off might seem…excessive…it did serve the purpose of creating a steady stream of
publicity on movie blogs and elsewhere. That kept the movie in the audience’s mind and kept
them talking about it in the interim between filming and release.
A theatrical poster took the same visual style as the last of the teaser series, with the bold,
block letter title treatment in the background and the four characters standing in the front and
above the little bit of non-credit block copy on the poster that states definitively “Shut up.
Kick ass.” It certainly looks like the kind of image that might be created for a comic trade
paperback and is pretty cool, finishing off the poster component of the campaign nicely, even
if I think it was developed and released before series three of the teasers.
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Character Poster Series #1
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Character Teaser #1
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Character Teaser #2
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Character Teaser #3
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Character Teaser #4
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Character Teaser #5
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Character Teaser #6
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Character Teaser #7
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Character Teaser #8
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Theatrical Poster
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The Trailers
The first all ages trailer starts off with a shot of a winged hero standing atop a building ready
to take flight. As he prepares we get voiceover asking why no one has thought of being a
super-hero before since their lives can’t be so interesting as to not need a little adventure
mixed in. When the winged figure takes off he plummets straight down, eventually landing
with a deadly thud on top of a taxi as the voiceover informs us that’s not him, that’s some
dude with mental problems.
After a brief shot of the main character and his friends discussing whether or not becoming a
hero is possible we get a “putting on the costume” scene we’re then shown quickly the other
everyday heroes before we finally get the “I’m Kick Ass” scene.
The second trailer starts off with the friends discussing how probable it is that anyone who
tried to be a super hero would wind up seriously injured very shortly but then provides a little
more background into the guy who would be Kick Ass before showing him suiting up. That
initial appearance, we’re told via news footage, inspires others to take up similar mantles and
so we’re introduced more fully to Big Daddy, Hit Girl and Red Mist as they seek to fight
crime on their own terms. We also get a better idea of what they’re going up against as we see
a crime leader of some sort (played by Mark Strong) and what his reaction to the rise of
costumed vigilantes is and what sort of havoc they’re playing with his operations.
A third and much shorter trailer really served as a greatest hits compilation of the ones that
had come before. I don’t think there’s any new footage in there but it does introduce all four
characters once again and get to the idea that these are just ordinary people who have decided
to take the law into their own hands. Or at least that they’ve decided to stop allowing innocent
people to take a beating without doing anything.
Because the movie was rated R and it was doing so well in establishing its hard core cred, a
red-band trailer was also introduced that included more language and mentions of the primary
hero’s masturbatory tendencies. It also contained a few more graphic shots of the backs of
people’s heads being blown off. Some of that language would come out of the mouth of the
young girl who plays Hit Girl, which would result in some hand-wringing by media and other
critics that we’ll talk more about later on.
Online
When you load the official website the primary menu shows briefly before giving way to the
trailer, which you can also share on a variety of social networks or embed on your own blog.
Closing that you’ll see the main page has prompts to Buy Tickets Now as well as a list of
theatres showing sneak peeks which seems to be generated based on the location of your
computer’s IP address. There are also links to read reviews on IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes,
which is somewhat unusual and shows what faith the marketers are putting in word of mouth
peer reviews.
When you enter the site the first thing you’re prompted to do is play some light games, which
if you register will get you points you can redeem later on. Each character icon brings you to
a different game that’s associated with that character’s skills in the story.
Moving to the site’s content menu, “About” has a decent paragraph write-up of the film’s
story and characters. The “Cast and Crew” section is one of the best-designed such executions
seen in recent times with its big icons for each actor that leads you to information on their
background and biography.
There are 12 stills from the movie in “Photos” and “Videos” contains the Teaser and
Theatrical Trailers as well as a handful of clips from the movie that extend scenes that are
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teased in the trailers. “Downloads” has four character-centric Wallpapers and Icons that use
the same images from one of the teaser poster series.
The “Restricted” section contains direct links to things like Watch Hardcore Videos (the
restricted trailer) and an Adults Only Soundboard as well as more that prompts you to take
various actions with foul-mouthed language, including a call to grab an embeddable widget,
something I haven’t seen in a while.
“Partners” has links to the content hubs at sites like IGN and UGO as well as information on
buying movie-branded goods by French Connection and Vans. There are also links to the
Lionsgate YouTube channel and information on the film’s soundtrack.
The “News” section has photos from the movie’s screening at SXSW, a music video from
Mika and photos from the UK premiere. There are also embedded updates from the studio’s
Twitter feed and when you click “See All Updates” you’re taken to that profile.
Finally the “Store” lets you buy movie t-shirts and other goodies from Gold Label.
Each character also got their own Facebook page, something that must have cost the studio a
healthy sum considering Facebook’s policies on making sure you are who you say you are on
the network. When you visited the pages for Kick Ass, Red Mist, Big Daddy or Hit Girl you
were prompted to both enter a sweepstakes to win a trip to the premiere or enter a contest by
uploading video of you in your super-hero costume and showing off your moves. Each
character’s page also had plenty of information about that particular character as well as links
ot the other’s profiles, the official site, links to the Demand It campaign and a Wall’s worth of
links to coverage of new marketing materials and more about the movie.
The movie’s MySpace page had the trailers, some clips and links to the same contests and
sweepstakes mentioned before.
There was a sited called Real Life Superheroes that was kind of…weird. It’s obviously part of
the campaign for the movie – banner ads for the flick are all over the place – but it also seems
to exist in a world of such characters, encouraging people to create profiles for their own
heroes.
The Lionsgate YouTube channel was retro-fitted to be a hub for people to submit their own
video review after seeing the movie. The main channel page also contained a stream of
commentary about the movie from Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, a stream powered by a
service called @ThisMoment, integration it and the movie got a bit of press out of. Likewise
the studio’s Twitter channel contained steady updates on the movie’s publicity and links to
what it felt was important commentary.
Advertising and Cross-Promotions
A ton of advertising has been done, including the creation of quite a few TV spots, many of
which took the form of trimmed trailers and featured little new material. Still, they’re
effective at conveying the overall attitude of the movie to an audience, though there’s the
concern that without the additional time that can be used for more explanation there’s going
to be the belief that this is a straight super-hero movie. The expanded trailers make it clearer
that it’s taking a drastically different approach to the genre but that doesn’t come through as
loudly in 30-second spots.
There has been a good amount of outdoor advertising as well as well as some online and, one
would assume, in print. Most of that as would be expected has repurposed any of the poster
campaign’s art.
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Media and Publicity
After an early appearance at Butt-Numb-a-Thon, the movie had its official coming out party
with a screening on opening night of SXSW 2010. In fact the movie’s presence there included
a number of vans to shuttle people around that were decorated with key art elements, which is
kind of cool since transportation at festivals is always an issue.
In terms of media coverage a good amount came after the release of some restricted clips that
featured foul language, some of which came out of the mouth of young Chloe Grace Moretz,
the girl who plays Hit Girl. That led to a lot of commentary about not only whether red-band
trailers are appropriate given their propensity to appear on non-age restricted sites (New York
Times, 2/24/10) but also on the fact that an 11 year old girl was saying such things, including
lots of references to sexual themes. That focus on Moretz and her role in such a graphic, both
verbally and physically, movie continued to be covered in the press (New York Times,
4/11/10) and actually became a central component of a lot of stories (Los Angeles Times,
4/14/10) even those stories that were just about how offensive and incendiary the movie is in
general, as well as leading to discussions of gender politics and related issues.
Regardless of what traditional mainstream or trade press coverage the movie has gotten, the
real thing going for Kick Ass is the word of mouth that has been building up for well on a year
now. Fans have been absolutely salivating for this movie and have eaten up every new clip,
every new trailer, and every new preview at a festival or convention. And that campaign has
fed that hunger with a steady release of material that has kept the movie never far from topof-mind and so fuelled the conversations about it and therefore the anticipation for it. Indeed
it seemed to be pegged by some as the pinnacle (Los Angeles Times, 4/15/10) of the
comic/movie geek’s world.
Overall
For as sprawling as it can sometimes seem, Lionsgate has actually put together a tight and
amazingly consistent campaign here. All the components come back to the same four or five
themes and hit the same notes, even if they take different paths to get there, leading to an
overall campaign that feels familiar wherever you encounter it while also seeming fresh and
new in each venue.
What it does is play to its strengths – and presumably the strengths of the movie – time and
time again. So there’s violence, language and a “Hey you know what, let’s just go for broke
and let the chips fall where they may” attitude that pervades the entire campaign. It knows
fans are expecting the outrageous and so, whenever possible, delivers on that expectation.
It also works really hard to get the audience’s approval. That’s why there are three waves of
teaser posters and so many released clips and other elements to get people talking. It really
wants people to like it and so will deliver just what it needs to in order to achieve that, which
is actually different from most marketing. The marketers don’t just want the movie to be
chosen, they want it to be chosen above all else because people are excited and have devised a
campaign to create that level of appreciation and excitement, which is where it succeeds as a
whole aside from any of the individual
elements.
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Cloverfield
Director: Matt Reeves
Starring
Michael Stahl-David
T. J. Miller
Jessica Lucas
Odette Yustman
Lizzy Caplan
Mike Vogel
Budget: $25 million
Gross Revenue: $170,764,026
The film is presented as if it were a video segment recovered from a personal video camera by
the United States Department of Defense. The film begins with a disclaimer stating that the
footage is of a case designated "Cloverfield" and was found in the area "formerly known as
Central Park".
The video consists chiefly of segments taped the night of May 22 and the morning of May 23.
However, those newer segments were inadvertently taped over older video that was filmed on
April 27, of a romantic day shared by the characters Rob and Beth. So, as the newer, horrific
video stops and starts, the viewer sees glimpses of the earlier, happier day.
The first video segment opens when Rob wakes up on the morning of April 27 having slept
with Beth, a previously platonic friend. They make plans to go to Coney Island that day. The
footage suddenly cuts to May 22, when Rob's brother Jason and his girlfriend Lily prepare a
farewell party for Rob who will be moving to Japan. At the party, their friend Hud uses the
camera to film testimonials for Rob. While recording, Hud flirts unsuccessfully with Marlena,
another party guest. After Beth leaves the party following an argument with Rob, an apparent
earthquake strikes, and the city suffers a brief power outage.
The local news reports that an oil tanker has capsized near Liberty Island. After going upstairs
to investigate the disaster, a devastating explosion that destroys much of Lower
Manhattan causes the party-goers to evacuate the building and witness the head of the Statue
of Liberty crashing nearby in the street, with several stunning scratch and bite marks. Hud
records what appears to be a giant hand of a creature several blocks away. Many take shelter
in a convenience store as the Woolworth Building collapses. Rob, Jason, Lily, Hud and
Marlena attempt to escape Manhattan on the Brooklyn Bridge. A gigantic tail destroys the
centre span of the bridge, killing Jason and hundreds of others. The survivors are forced to
flee back to Manhattan.
Rob listens to Beth's message saying she is trapped in her apartment and unable to move. The
news shows the United States Army's 42nd Infantry Division attacking the monster and
smaller, vicious creatures that are falling off its body. Several creatures are seen attacking
soldiers and civilians on the ground.
As hundreds attempt to flee, Rob, Hud, Lily, and Marlena venture out to rescue Beth. They
are soon caught in a crossfire between the monster and the military, and escape into a subway
station. They decide to go through the subway tunnels to reach Beth's apartment, but are
attacked by several of the smaller creatures that dropped from the monster earlier. One of
them wounds Marlena. The group escapes into the Bloomingdale's department store where
they are met by a squad of soldiers, who have set up a field hospital and command centre in
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the store. As Rob tries to garner assistance for Beth, Marlena's eyes start bleeding and she is
taken away behind a curtain by men wearing hazmat suits where she inflates, then explodes.
One of the military leaders allows the others to leave but warns them to report to a military
evacuation site before 6:00 am, which is when the last helicopter will evacuate Manhattan
before the military enacts its so-called "Hammer Down Protocol," which involves a massive
aerial bombardment of the city, in an effort to destroy the monster.
The group finds Beth's apartment tower at the Time Warner Centre has collapsed against the
centre’s other tower. They climb the standing tower and cross onto the roof of Beth's building
and work their way down to her apartment. Beth is found, but trapped, and the group is able
to free her. After her rescue, the four make their way to the evacuation site where they
encounter the monster once more over Grand Central Station. Ignoring the firepower from the
military, the creature now gives chase to the group toward the evacuation centre. Lily is raced
into a departing helicopter without her friends.
Moments later, Rob, Beth and Hud are taken away in a second helicopter and witness a U.S.
Air Force B-2 Spirit bomb the monster. Just as Hud begins hailing victory over the monster, it
lunges out of the wreckage and attacks the helicopter, causing it to crash into a grassy clearing
in Central Park.
The film restarts later in the morning, with a voice on the crashed helicopter's radio warning
that the Hammer Down Protocol will begin in 15 minutes and states that anyone able to hear
the sirens is within the blast zone.
The three friends are all alive and have regained consciousness. Hud and Beth pull Rob, who
is injured, from the helicopter wreckage, but Hud returns to recover the camera. The monster
is then seen standing over him, and Hud is oblivious to Rob and Beth pleading for him to run.
Hud only watches the monster in terror, recording it with the camera. After regarding him for
a moment, the monster lunges at Hud and kills him in its mandibles, dropping his corpse and
the camera on the ground. Rob and Beth grab the still-recording camera and take shelter
under Greyshot Arch in Central Park as air raid sirens begin to blare and bombers are heard in
the distance, indicating that the Hammer Down Protocol is about to begin. Rob and Beth take
turns leaving their last testimonies of the day, which Rob mentions as Saturday, May 23, on
camera.
Numerous explosions occur outside as the massive bombing sortie takes place, and the
creature is heard roaring in pain. As the bridge crumbles and debris covers the camera, Rob
and Beth can be heard professing their love to one another as another bomb destroys the
bridge, stopping the camera's recording. The film then cuts to the footage of Rob and Beth's
Coney Island date before the disaster. In the distance, unnoticed by Rob and Beth, a large
object falls into the ocean.
Marketing Cloverfield
To understand just how fervent the buzz had been about the movie, one needs to look at how
Paramount sold the movie in two completely different ways to two completely different
audiences.
1. Campaign The First (Or, We Are Selling You A Movie Which You May Like to See)
This campaign was, for the most part, made up of the traditional elements of a movie
marketing push. The intent was clearly to sell the movie to a particular audience using, as
most campaigns do, clips and other material from the movie in order to build interest and
enthusiasm.
The first trailer debuted in front of summer 2007’s blockbuster Transformers. Aside from
a few reports on AICN, ComingSoon and a handful of other sites the trailer mostly took
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the audience by surprise. And even those members of the audience who knew a trailer for
a new, mysterious J.J. Abrams would be appearing didn’t know what they were about to
see.
Certainly a big enough chunk of the audience was shocked and awed and the ensuing
wave of online commentary was massive. Everyone, it seemed, came out of seeing
Transformers and searched for this movie, untitled in the trailer, that seemed to chronicle
(via digital video camera) first a going-away party for someone named Rob and then the
invasion of New York by something capable of decapitating the Statue of Liberty.
When those people – and others – did go and search for the one clue that was readily
available, the movie’s release date, they were taken to what for a long while was the
movie’s official website, 1-08-08.com. There they saw a photo from Rob’s going-away
party.
This site would occasionally have photos added to it, sometimes of things that were
obviously related to the movie like two women staring up at something horrific or people
evacuating the scene of a disaster. Other times photos would be more cryptic and
mysterious, like the one showing a chef holding up his creation.
Each one was time-stamped, allowing the visitor to see when it was taken. This was
especially helpful on the ones that were obviously movie-related since you could arrange
them in such a way to build a chronology of the night’s events, moving from party to
terror. It was later revealed that you could shake them with your computer mouse and
have them flip over. A couple of them then had something written on the back.
Specifically, the one of the chef had the recipe for whatever it is he’s holding, and the one
with a couple of party-goers had a note from the girl in the picture, Jamie, wishing Rob
well on his trip. (Note: Remember that name for later)
Eventually a teaser poster appeared for the still-unnamed movie. While still not divulging
the name, it did show the Statue of Liberty, now sans head, standing watch (now harder
because of the lack of said head) over New York City. There’s also, if you look closely, a
wake in the water between Liberty Island and the Manhattan shore. That was one of the
first clues in this mainstream campaign that the monster that will invoke such havoc on
the city springs from the depths of the sea.
The mainstream campaign then largely died down somewhere around in the early fall.
Pictures continued to be added to the 1-18-08 site, but that was about it. This seemed to
be a direct result of the fact that the movie was still unnamed. After all, it’s hard to run a
mass-awareness campaign for a movie whose name is still being held as a secret.
That’s just one of the reasons that releasing an un-branded trailer was such a big risk. Not
only do you miss out on the chance to tell the audience for that trailer what the name of
the movie is, a name they can then plan with and add to their list of movies to see, but you
kind of lose the ability to run an extensible campaign. While you can get away with such
a move with a trailer you certainly can’t run un-branded TV spots. That’s not going to
create mystery and intrigue; it’s going to create mass confusion and turn people away
from that movie where the studio can’t even be bothered to tell us what it is they’re
advertising.
But the gamble of the unnamed trailer certainly did pay off for Abrams and Paramount
here. That likely had as much to do with the fact that it came from Abrams, whose core
audience is certainly used to trying to decipher his stuff from Alias and Lost as it did that
the trailer dropped in front of Transformers. That audience is, in large part, going to be
pre-disposed to sci-fi type movies that make a big splash in order to get their attention.
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Teaser Poster #1
33
That latter audience is also of an age and a disposition to be online, where they can post
their reactions to the trailer to their blogs, their social network profiles or in some other
fashion spread the word online, even if it’s just through one-to-one communications like
email or text message.
But then around mid-December the official campaign started back up in earnest.
The first salvo was a new trailer that, instead of seeming like it was pulled from the
opening of the movie (which it kind of was) this one looked and felt more like a
traditional trailer. The scenes presented were pulled from throughout the movie and
presented a better look at the core group of characters that we’d be following in the
movie.
This new trailer also opened with a few shots of Rob’s going away party. But preceding
that was a title card designating, in military-type speak, the footage as being part of “Case
Designate: Cloverfield” that was recovered at the site “formerly known as Central Park.”
More importantly, it finally gave the movie a name, the same one most of the online
world had been using as shorthand most of the time: Cloverfield. Branding it as anything
other than Cloverfield would have, in all likelihood, created an unnecessary speed bump
in the word-of-mouth momentum the movie had built up.
The release of this trailer followed the same rough pattern as that of the first. It debuted in
theatres in front of screenings of Beowulf. That was followed by cell phone videos people
had shot at those screenings, followed by the official release online the following
Monday.
Now, though, the game had changed. The movie now had an official, publicly known
name. The mainstream audience that might be wary of viral techniques or movies they
don’t even know the name of could now fully be appealed to.
The release of the trailer online brought with it the launch of Cloverfieldmovie.com, the
movie’s new official site. At first the site was incredibly sparse, just sporting the poster
artwork as a background and the new trailer as content. More was added to the site later,
including a very vague plot synopsis. The teaser trailer was also added, as well as links to
the movie’s Facebook and MySpace brand pages.
Also on the site was a widget people could grab. That widget contained a video clip of the
first five minutes of Cloverfield complete with introduction by producer Abrams himself.
The widget could be embedded anywhere – blog, social network profile, personalized
home page and more – and also came with a contest attached to it. You could either just
snag the widget or, if you wanted to try and win a screening of the movie for you and
your friends or other swag you could register and grab a personalized (at least on a code
level) version.
The contest was structured so that the person who had the widget with their personalized
identifier grabbed by others the most won the screening, with subsequent lower prizes for
those coming in on down the food chain. Not only did it provide fans with a much lustedafter look at the opening sequence from the movie but it also incentivized the spreading
of word-of-mouth, giving widget grabbers something tangible for their participation in
spreading the reach of the clip.
Around this same time the advertising for the movie began. The poster finally got
branded. Ads showed up online to some extent, but especially on TV. At first the TV
spots seemed to be limited to outlets like Sci-Fi Channel and such, but in the final weeks
the reach expanded to just about everything.
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Full Poster #1
35
Paramount even began using MSN’s new mobile ad format to reach users of smart phones
and other advanced devices under the thinking that technophiles greatly overlap with the
movie’s target audience. It followed the same sort of thought process as placing the teaser
trailer in front of Transformers (discounting the fortunate corporate studio synergy
available there).
In all just over 15 TV spots seem to have been produced a mix of 30- and 15-second
spots. Some showed a new shot here or there (including one that featured a new shot of
the attacking monster, though of course it was obscured nicely) but mostly the footage
was pulled from what we had already seen in one or both of the existing trailers.
The spots sold the movie primarily as a monster movie and not as anything all that
special. There were little hints and hat-tips to the trailers and such but for the most part
the advertising campaign was selling a movie about a beast that attacks New York and the
people who are scrambling for survival.
That actually may well be an accurate description of the movie. But for those of us paying
attention online the campaign had a second, more engaging level to it.
2. Campaign the Second (Or, Why Did Jamie Eat That When Teddy Told Her Not
To?)
This branch of the campaign happened parallel to the mainstream campaign, occasionally
coming close to but never quite joining that other push. This one was designed to be more
interactive, engaging and interesting to the online audience.
The main conceit driving the online campaign has been that the events of the movie take
place on January 18th, 2008, the film’s release date. We are following the character’s
lives, though, through MySpace pages, online video and more in real time as they all
careen toward that date. So when it’s 12/15, for instance, in our world, it’s 12/15 in the
movie’s world as well.
There are two main components to this online ARG (alternate reality game) that need to
be explored.
The first is Slusho. Slusho is a frozen drink concoction – kind of like a Slurpee – that
apparently is so addictive and enjoyable that the marketing copy point for it is “You can’t
drink just six!” Slusho started out as a throw-away reference on Abrams’ Alias TV show
but now is playing a key role in the movie.
In fact the Slusho product home page was one of the first sites found that was confirmed
to be part of the Cloverfield campaign. The page features all sorts of cartoon characters
and a bit of information on the drink and the company that makes it, Tagruato
Corporation. You could even buy Slusho t-shirts and hats and download buddy icons and
other stuff for your use.
The animation and images on the site provided a rich vein for those seeking clues as to
the movie’s plot. Some of these are probably intentional red herrings, but that hasn’t
stopped people online from wondering just what role Slusho plays in the movie.
About a month or so before the release date the fictional Tagruato ran a contest asking
people to create their own commercials for Slusho, spots that needed, the rules said, to
emphasize just what a non-stop happy experience Slusho was. The contest was very real
and solicited a good number of entries, a statement to just how much people wanted to
have some fun and – and this is the important part – how much they wanted to participate
in the build-up to a movie they were obviously looking forward to.
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Teaser Poster #2
37
Creating a campaign that’s so immersive and engaging that people will spend their day
creating videos for a product they know is fake means the creators have obviously tapped
into something truly special. Most real brands have a hard time doing that. These
consumer creators are, hopefully, being embraced by Paramount for just how much effort
they’ve put into helping the studio out.
That kind of engagement aside, Slusho went from “plays into the movie somehow” to
being directly related to the movie’s events in the weeks just prior to release.
That’s when Rob announced, via his MySpace blog, that he had been hired by Slusho and
would be heading to Japan shortly. With that announcement not only was Slusho brought
directly into the lives of one of the movie’s characters but we now knew just why Rob’s
friends needed to throw him a going-away party.
Around that same time tragedy befell the fictional Tagruato Corp. But let’s back up for a
minute.
The company’s home page had been the subject of much scrutiny and speculation since it
was found online. The site occasionally fell victim to “hacks” that put up mysterious
messages from those obviously displeased with the company, including once when a page
of a book was put there that seemed to hint at some danger Tagruato knew about but was
wilfully ignoring.
Visitors to the site could even sign up for email messages from Tagruato, most of which
were all about how wonderful the company was and how well it was progressing in
getting Slusho’s key ingredient – seabed’s nectar – approved for sale in the United States.
There were also sonar images occasionally that showed something large and unidentified
moving through the waters of the Atlantic Ocean on a westward course, seemingly
heading toward the Eastern shore of the U.S.
That path included a stop at a drilling station owned by Tagruato that lead to the tragedy
alluded to earlier.
Told via news reports from around the world, the Chuai Station owned by Tagruato is
seen falling into the sea. Those news reports are made up of footage shot from helicopter
as well as video that seems to be shot from inside the station as people evacuate and then
try to escape to safety on a motorboat.
As they speed away from the station, though, wreckage begins to be hurled up out of the
sea by some mysterious force, with a large chunk of support beam eventually falling on
the boat containing the survivors. Tagruato issued a statement saying while it couldn’t
explain why huge debris came flying out of the water; the destruction of the station was
almost certainly the work of an eco-terrorism group that had targeted the company.
Accompanying this development were one and then two more pictures that were added to
1-18-08.com, the first time pictures on the site represented something that was happening
in the real-time campaign. The first showed a shot seemingly torn from the news
coverage of the station disaster of the ill-fated boat and its occupants. The second showed
a shot of the station from farther back, with part of the picture pixilated out, like they
were trying to hide something. Say, for instance, part of a huge monster. The final one
was a night-vision shot of some sort of massive bombardment attack on the station.
This was perhaps the only time the ARG campaign and the mainstream push intersected.
While 1-18-08.com was certainly part of the overall online experience, it wasn’t part of
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Teaser Poster #3
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the unfolding real-time events. It existed outside of the progression of the rest of the
movie’s characters, acting as a pictorial hub for those enthusiasts trying to sniff out every
possible clue from the pictures released there. While that’s still true of this last batch of
additions it’s worth noting that this is seemingly the one break in continuity that’s
happened in the campaign.
So if Slusho/Tagruato is the first component of the online alternate reality campaign what
was the second?
The answer was Jamie & Teddy.
Jamie & Teddy was a site set up by, well, Jamie and Teddy. The two characters from the
film’s universe are dating and apparently serious enough that registering a domain
together was a logical step. The site plays host to video messages from Jamie (the girl,
just to be clear) to Teddy, who has gone off to Japan as part of his job. She sits on her bed
and flips open the webcam and records her thoughts to Teddy.
In the first couple episodes that was about it. Jamie would tell Teddy how amazing he
was, how she enjoyed their last night together or their last text conversation or something
like that. But then at some point Teddy stopped communicating. At first Jamie appears
concerned that he’s too busy or something but eventually concern turns to frustration.
During this communications breakdown, Jamie receives a package from Teddy
containing a wrapped box that, according to the note, she’s not to open until a date in
December. It’s between the arrival of the package and the “Open on…” date that things
start to go south, with Jamie in full “You slimeball you left me for some skanky whore”
mode when opening the package.
Its contents are a Slusho hat, a small packet of something wrapped in tinfoil and a
message from Teddy telling her he’s been kidnapped by Tagruato and to make sure the
package’s contents get into someone’s hands and, whatever she does, don’t eat what’s in
the packet.
Of course she later eats it.
Whatever it is – most people online believed it was the mysterious “seabed’s nectar” that
goes into Slusho– it had some odd effects on Jamie. Shortly after tasting it (which she
does after making a call to Teddy’s place of employment in Japan, which seems to
produce an ominous reaction) she bolts away from the camera saying suddenly that she’s
going out. That’s followed by a message from an utterly drunk Jamie. That, then, is
followed by her donning what can only be described as a purple ninja suit and doing an
interpretive dance to describe the depths of her loathing for him. That, in turn, is followed
by her dismembering a teddy bear (get it- Teddy = teddy) in a slow and deliberate
manner.
After Jamie ate the nectar or whatever was in the packet, the only acceptable conclusion
for her character would have been for her to die. The character seemed to be getting
dumber episode-to-episode, and the idea that this ingredient in its pure form is fatal would
have added some real depth to the online aspect of the campaign. Alas we already knew
that was not to be since she shows up in one of the pictures on 1-18-08 that were taken on
at Rob’s party the night of the attack.
Despite the de-evolution of Jamie, the series was pretty entertaining and interesting to
watch, especially when the connection to the movie’s events became more and more
clear.
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Teaser Poster #4
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That same thing can be said of the entire alternate-reality campaign. Watching the
characters move in their own ways toward their fate – whatever the movie shows that to
be – is intriguing. It helps us view them not just as characters on the screen but people
who we’re invested in emotionally. That sort of investment seems to have been the
primary goal of this branch of the campaign.
So by setting up the campaign so that we got to know and even care about these
characters the emotions we view the movie through have been changed. We’re not just
rooting for the good guy because he’s the good guy, we’re hoping our friends Rob and
Beth and the others make it to safety. Our emotional connections to the characters, and
subsequently to the movie, have been deepened, probably resulting in a better experience
as an audience. It’s the difference between watching a YouTube video of a roller coaster
ride and taking the ride yourself.
Conclusion
It’s hard to call any campaign that inspires this much amount of fan scrutiny anything but a
resounding success. It’s hard to call any campaign that inspires such a cottage industry of
blogs devoted to just this movie anything other than a success. Obviously people were drawn
in to the campaign by the mysterious, unnamed trailer and the unusual take on a disaster
movie.
The two-pronged campaign certainly was a great decision by Abrams and the studio. Even if
things had kicked off as they did with that initial trailer, potential fans online would not have
been as engaged and enthused if there had just been a poster, trailer and website just like
every other movie out there, no matter how cool the movie looked. It would have been subject
to the same level of “insider” reports and spy leaks as every other movie.
But by, essentially, giving the online audience a regular supply of new rawhides to chew on
Abrams and Paramount were able to earn their loyalty and turn them from casual or even
devoted fans into surrogate marketing agents. The bloggers who write about movies in
general or this movie in particular were the ones selling the movie, broadcasting the new
material that was given to them all over the Internet.
The mainstream campaign, too, was a cut above – it’s hard to match those trailers especially.
While it can be bemoaned that Paramount had to advertise the movie in a traditional manner
(remember, advertising is what you do when you don’t have a story to tell, and this one did)
the fact of the matter is that they did have to. At least they did so pretty well.
Especially considering the mainstream campaign was hampered to some extent by the online
execution. The CloverfieldMovie.com site couldn’t exactly be loaded with information since
that would spoil the alternate reality being set up elsewhere. So that site feels kind of
barebones. That doesn’t detract from the campaign, though, since that was born of necessity
and not laziness or lack of commitment.
It’s the enthusiasm of the general audience that most qualifies the marketing as successful.
Twitter was awash with people talking about the commercials, trailers or discussion of when
people will be seeing the movie. Some mainstream writers loved the interactivity and
engagement. Others say the campaign has been far too clever for its own good.
Whatever the opinion might be, the campaign got people talking. The campaign got people
caring. The campaign got people sharing of their own vocation. The campaign got people
involved.
That’s success.
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Final Poster
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The Dark Knight
Director: Christopher Nolan
Starring
Christian Bale
Michael Caine
Heath Ledger
Gary Oldman
Aaron Eckhart
Maggie Gyllenhaal
Morgan Freeman
Gross Revenue: $1,001,921,825
In Gotham City, the Joker and his accomplices rob a Mafia-owned bank. Batman and
Lieutenant James Gordon decide to include new district attorney Harvey Dent, who is dating
Bruce Wayne's childhood sweetheart Rachel Dawes, in their plan to eradicate the mob. Bruce
later meets Dent and offers him a fundraiser after realizing his sincerity. Mob bosses Sal
Maroni, Gambol, and the Chechen meet to discuss the new pressure on their crime operations.
Lau, a Chinese mafia accountant, informs them that he has hidden their money and fled to
Hong Kong in an attempt to pre-empt Gordon's plan to seize their funds and hide from Dent's
jurisdiction. The Joker barges into the meeting, warning that Batman will come after Lau, and
instead offers to kill Batman for half of the funds. They flatly refuse, and Gambol places a
bounty on the Joker's head. Not long after, the Joker kills Gambol and takes control of his
gang.
In Hong Kong, Batman captures Lau and makes his escape with a skyhook and delivers him
to the Gotham City police where Lau agrees to testify, allowing Dent and Gordon arrest the
mob. In retaliation, the Joker issues an ultimatum to Gotham that people will die each day
unless Batman reveals his identity, resulting in the deaths of Commissioner Gillian B.
Loeb and the judge presiding over the mob trials. Gordon foils Joker's assassination attempt
on the mayor, apparently dying in the process. As a result, Bruce Wayne plans to reveal his
identity as Batman, but Dent instead reveals himself as Batman to protect the truth and is
taken into protective custody. Escorted across the city, Dent is pursued by the Joker while
Batman rushes to his aid. Gordon, who faked his death to lure the Joker, arrests him with
Batman's help and is promoted to Commissioner. However, Dent goes missing and the Joker
reveals that both Dent and Rachel have been taken to separate buildings on opposite sides of
town which will explode at the same time. Batman goes after Rachel, while Gordon and the
police go to rescue Dent. At the same time, the Joker escapes custody with Lau using a
smuggled bomb. As the Joker has switched around the hostages' locations, Batman finds Dent
and rescues him, even as Dent begs him to save Rachel instead. The buildings explode;
Rachel is killed, while half of Dent's face is burned in the explosion, leaving him disfigured.
After killing Lau and the Chechen, the Joker threatens to destroy a hospital if Coleman Reese,
an accountant at Wayne Enterprises who has deduced Batman's identity, is not dead within an
hour. Bruce saves Reese, while the Joker visits Dent in the hospital and convinces him to take
revenge against those who played a part in Rachel's death. The Joker blows up the hospital
and leaves with a bus full of hostages, while Dent—now calling himself "Two-Face"—
confronts and kills Maroni and one of the two corrupt cops who gave him and Rachel to the
mob.
That night, as civilians are evacuated from the city, the Joker has two ferries rigged with
explosives, offering both civilian and prisoner passenger groups a chance to live if they
destroy the other boat. Batman asks his confidant Lucius Fox to find the Joker using a signal
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tracking device that will effectively spy on the entire city; Fox reluctantly agrees, but says he
will resign from Wayne Enterprises immediately afterward. After discovering the Joker's
location, Batman stops Gordon's SWAT teams from taking out the Joker, in order to protect
the hostages and to capture the Joker himself. The ferry passengers ultimately refuse to kill
one another, and Batman apprehends the Joker, who nevertheless says that he has won "the
battle for Gotham's soul"; he reveals what he has done to Dent, stating that the citizens of
Gotham will lose its newly found hope once Dent's rampage becomes public knowledge.
At the remains of the building where Rachel died, Batman finds Two-Face holding Gordon
and his family at gunpoint. Two-Face judges the fate of Batman, himself, and Gordon's son
with three flips of his lucky coin. As the result of the first two flips, he shoots Batman in the
abdomen and spares himself. As Two-Face flips the coin to determine the boy's fate, Batman
(who is wearing body armour) tackles him over the side of the building, killing him. Batman
convinces Gordon to hold him publicly responsible for the murders; moments later, the police
swarm the building, and a manhunt for Batman ensues. Batman retreats on the Batpod, now a
fugitive. Gordon later delivers the eulogy at Dent's funeral and smashes the Bat-Signal, while
Fox watches the signal-tracking device self-destruct and Alfred Pennyworth destroys a letter
written by Rachel revealing her plans to marry Dent.
Marketing The Dark Knight
The campaign for The Dark Knight, the second movie in the newest iteration of the Batman
franchise, has a tough act to follow. The push for Batman Begins was amazingly consistent
from one component to the next. From the posters to the trailers to the website, everything
about the campaign was done in that same sepia-toned style, with Batman looming large and
mysterious in the centre of the action. It created a singular public face which was reinforced
time and again in the audience’s mind and created a strong brand identity in every sense of
the phrase.
The Dark Knight picks up just shortly after we left off in Batman Begins. But with Bruce
Wayne feeling like his work as the Caped Crusader is coming to a close thanks to the work of
Harvey Dent and a corruption fighting District Attorney who is committed to bringing order
to Gotham City things seem to be calming down, or at least coming to a point where the
actual system can begin working. Into that mix comes the mysterious Joker, a “better class of
criminal” that is devoted to bringing down Batman – and Dent – in his efforts
to…well…enjoy himself as chaos is set free in the streets again.
And that leads us to the main issue surrounding this campaign. The early stages of the push
by Warner Bros. had focused heavily, as we’ll see as we progress, on the Joker’s
involvement. He was causing mischief online and his markings were seen on the first posters
and other materials. The Joker was, to make it clear, being positioned as the main selling
point for the movie.
But then Heath Ledger, the actor portraying him, died, with reports surrounding his death
speculating either on an accidental overdose of medication or a purposeful suicide. Gone was
not only a son and father of a little girl, but also the person who was going to be at the
forefront of the campaign. His death threw into question just about everything. Does Warner
Bros. continue to use the Joker in the campaign? Do they continue on with plans to create
Joker toys and other items? Or will this all just be too ghoulish?
But now, before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s look at the way The Dark Knight was – and
in some cases wasn’t sold to the movie-going public.
1) Part I: Why So Serious? (Or, He Believes in Harvey Dent Two)
45
Not content with creating a handful of “viral” sites to promote the movie, Warner Bros.
instead engaged on what might just be the most ambitious and far-reaching online
alternate reality game ever. Compared to this effort, online campaigns for Cloverfield,
Snakes on a Plane and The Blair Witch Project pale by comparison. They can’t even hold
a candle to The Dark Knight.
As we’ll see, the campaign weaves in and out of the mainstream campaign, working to
make sure that fans are not only engaged and interested but active as well. It has achieved
what few others have been able to – making the audience willing participants in seeking
out marketing and then talking about it – and has been able to sustain that over the course
of a year, with anticipation and buzz increasing as time goes on and not waning as it by
all rights should have.
Warner Bros. launched the official website for The Dark Knight in May of 2007 as little
more than a placeholder, showing off the new movie’s branding but not much else. But
shortly after launch it linked, via the Bat-symbol that dominated the site, to
IBelieveInHarveyDent, the campaign website for the candidate for District Attorney.
Adorning the site was the face of Aaron Eckhart, the actor portraying Dent, giving us our
first good look at him, though that amounted to just a shot of him in a suit.
And we’re off and running.
A few days after the Dent campaign site was launched, comic shop owners began
reporting – and in some cases complaining – about the appearance of Joker cards that
were being strewn around their stores. These cards contained a cryptic message that “I
believe in Harvey Dent too!,” a message that led to the discovery of
IBelieveInHarveyDentToo, which featured the same picture of Dent as before, though
this time vandalized with horrific clown make-up. After enough people registered for
updates on the site the image of Dent was taken down and replaced with a picture of The
Joker, the first official shot of the character as he appears in the movie that fans were
given. This stayed on the site for just a few days, though, and was soon taken down,
leaving visitors with the message that someone will “See you in December.”
I Believe in Harvey Dent
I Believe in Harvey Dent Too
So already we see the pattern that will be used throughout the ARG: Put up mysterious
site, promise something in return for enough participation, deliver on promise and then
shut things down with the message that there’s more to come. Across this online effort the
reward is, more often than not, a piece of the movie’s traditional marketing campaign, be
it a poster or a trailer or something like that. This puts the audience in a position of power
– getting a look at a new trailer or whatever becomes dependent on their activity or at
least their alertness. They *need* to participate or the goodies will go away. At least
that’s the perception that’s created through such efforts.
46
Moving back to the story line, the next move by the Joker was to distribute $1 bills
directing people to WhySoSerious.com – a site that would become the hub of the online
campaign and which is taken directly, we’d later see, from the movie itself. The bills were
distributed at the San Diego Comic-Con in July of 2007, pretty much ensuring the
participation of the legions of geeks in attendance there. The site told recipients to be at a
certain place at a certain time and then sent them on a scavenger hunt of sorts, with those
participating getting Joker masks and, once the clues had all been assembled, the site
debuted the teaser trailer.
WhySoSerious was briefly taken down, with the URL forwarding to Rent-A-Clown,
which listed the names of those that had participated in the San Diego game as
employees.
The ARG then entered a bit of a dark period between the end of July and the beginning of
October, when WhySoSerious was re-launched, this time showing a pumpkin with a batshaped mouth, a direct homage to the Loeb/Lee Batman graphic novel, a book that
prominently featured a pre-Two Face Harvey Dent. That focus on Two Face is important
here since, over the course of October, half and only half the pumpkin would slowly rot,
resulting in a disfigurement that immediately evoked the long-time Batman villain. The
connection was only strengthened by the fact that, as was widely believed, something
would happen on Halloween, when the candle would be burnt out completely and the
rotting process complete.
That’s exactly what happened, too. On November 1st the site changed yet again, this time
containing a hidden message that, once deciphered, led to RorysDeathKiss.
That site – whose name is notable since that’s the false name the movie was shot under
while in Chicago – challenged people to gather in groups and take pictures of themselves
in Joker-esque makeup in front of national monuments and other recognizable locations.
Those who did so – a process that involved offering a mailing address – later got physical
copies of The Gotham Times while the rest of us got the paper’s website. In the paper
were various stories of crimes committed, news on the mysterious Batman and other
items of interest to the Gotham citizenry.
Not one to leave anything alone, though, the Joker created his own version called the
TheHaHaHaTimes, featuring the same stories, though in this case versions that had been
given a makeover by the lunatic.
It’s at this point that what had been a fun little diversion explodes into a fully realized
alternate universe. Sites called WeAreTheAnswer, GothamPolice, GothamNationalBank,
RememberingRegina,
GothamCab,
GothamCityRail,
GVAFoundation,
AcmeSecuritySystems, SaintSwithunsChurch and GothamUSD all pop up as a result of
the stories in the paper. GothamCab’s site eventually then led to BettysHouseofPies.
WeAreTheAnswer, a site for community participation in fighting crime, eventually led to
a new page on the GothamPolice site, and the BettysHouseofPies site led to GDPIAD,
which featured an audio clip of two corrupt cops who had previously been mentioned in
the Gotham Times being arrested. This side of the campaign would take a brief break,
with the last thing offered being another audio clip, this time of one of a confession by
one of the arrested officers.
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Teaser Poster #1
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All this while the Joker was leading people down a path from the Ha Ha Ha Times to
Whysoserious.com/Personalityprofile, Whysoserious.com/mausoleum,
Whysoserious.com/theperfectgetaway and eventually to Whysoserious.com/outoftime
and then Whysoserious.com/Steprightup.
It’s the last one that would have the most immediate pay-off since it contained
instructions to pick up packages at 22 locations nationwide at a certain time on December
4th. Inside that package was a birthday cake with a cell phone baked into it.
There was also a new page branching off of the Step Right Up section of WhySoSerious,
a section that featured a countdown clock to December 4th, which revealed the first teaser
poster for the movie. At that time in the mainstream campaign, the first five minutes for
the movie were being shown in front of IMAX prints of I Am Legend.
The release of the poster, and the end of this particular story arc in the campaign, came
just a few days before Heath Ledger’s passing.
Whether motivated by his death or part of the plan all along, the ARG then took a shift
from pranks being committed by the joker and his band of ne’er-do-wells toward the
campaign of crusading district attorney candidate Harvey Dent.
The IBelieveinHarveyDent site, the first of these microsites to appear, received an
upgrade to act as the hub of his campaign for office. Materials like downloadable posters
and campaign signs were added there, with his “supporters” being encouraged to then
take a picture of themselves with the signage and then submit it to the site.
The campaign even came off the Internet in the form of the Dentmobile, a van that went
around the country to various locations where the campaign had organized rallies. In
some cases the rallies were met with less than enthusiasm by the actual police of some
cities. Materials like Gotham City voter registration cards and other campaign materials
were handed out and mailed to some of those who had registered on various sites so far, a
new issue of the Gotham Times among the swag mailed. Of course the Joker responded
with an updated version of the HaHaHaTimes, showing a consistency from the previous
effort as well as signalling clearly that despite Ledger’s death, the character was living on
in the campaign.
The battle for the District Attorney slot game heated as sites like one for Dana
Worthington, another contender in the race, and one for incumbent DA Roger Garcetti
popping up. At the same time supporters of justice in Gotham launched sites for the
Maiden Avenue Report and the action group Citizens for Batman. Gotham Cable News
also came on the online scene, profiling the candidates and providing more depth to our
understanding of the political battles in the city.
Concerned Citizens for a Better Gotham, a front group for those solely interested in
maintaining the corrupt status quo, sent out half-burned Dent campaign buttons at the end
of March, just before players in the Joker-centric part of the game would get a message
that, after visiting a page on Acme Security Systems’ site, would turn out to be from Lt.
James Gordon informing them he knew who they were and they worked for him now.
This came after those who had previously received Joker cell phones were told to go to
various locations via the Clown Travel Agency, where they now received Joker-coloured
bowling balls and a new phone. It was on that phone that Gordon contacted them.
That coincided with the launch of the site for the Gotham Police Major Crimes Unit, a
division headed by Gordon and committed to rooting out corrupt officials and tackling
other, well, major crimes. More police officers would then be implicated in dirty dealings,
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with many of these cops and other officials trying to turn the debate against Dent and
portray him as the crooked one, an assertion vehemently denied by ADA Rachel Dawes
in a press conference that was distributed on the Maiden Avenue Report’s site.
Dent himself was then scheduled for a press conference but that had to be bumped when
two of the cops accused of corruption tried to prove their innocence by taking hostages, a
situation that Dent himself was able to negotiate an end to.
The investigation being run by Jim Gordon continued through text messages and more
incriminating documents being added to various sites, culminating in Operation Slipknot,
an effort to keep corrupt officials and cops from leaving the city. This involved having
participants call the Intercontinental Hotel and having packages re-routed to them instead
of their intended recipients. This led to the fall of Concerned Citizens for a Better
Gotham, the sham advocacy group.
The Joker came back on the scene again by updating the It’s All Part of the Plan portion
of WhySoSerious with information on coordinating local meetings at certain places. Upon
meeting, the players were tasked first with finding numeric clues and then entering them
on the site. That led to a carnival-esque duck shooting game at Sitting Ducks and then,
after a countdown of a day or less, to a new Happy Trails page that contained the new
theatrical trailer for the movie.
Harvey Dent’s campaign continued on through all of this, with his election soon being
announced on the newly launched Gotham Cable News site, featuring the news program
“Gotham Tonight.” The Gotham Times also made Dent’s win news and pointed to
Gotham City Pizzeria’s site, a site that gave away a handful of free pizzas around the
country. That pizza place’s site would later be hit by the Joker and point to
WhySoSerious.com/MyHero, where people got their first glimpse of footage of TwoFace, footage that was shortly taken down.
The Joker then sent phone-owners a puzzle that leads to LaughTillItHurts page on
WhySoSerious, a page that would eventually feature security camera footage of a Gotham
bank.
Gordon’s Operation Slipknot would continue on, as would the Joker’s campaign of chaos,
with the addition of a RedBalloons page, featuring another carnival midway-type game,
to WhySoSerious. Gotham Cable News also continued adding Batman sightings and other
news to its site. The Joker would take credit in a message sent to supporters that he was
responsible for killing a mobster, a murder Gordon was investigating.
Eventually two more games were added to WhySoSerious, Operator (which involved all
the cell phone owners) and PunkDrop. When the latter was completed a new poster was
revealed.
Messages left on a variety of sites coupled with software keys that were decoded by
participants led to the discovery of events being organized July 8th in Chicago and New
York, an event that turned out to be the displaying of the Bat-symbol on the Sears Tower
and Woolworth Building, respectively, events that were live-streamed on the web for
those not able to make it.
WhySoSerious updated one more time with a new Overture page that counted down to
10PM on July 10th. At that time an email was sent to the Joker’s army that lead to a list
of times and locations for free IMAX screenings of the movie, events that quickly sold
out.
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Teaser Poster #2
Just days before the movie, those with Joker phones got a call from a person supposedly
being held hostage within Gotham National Bank, a call that ended with what appeared to
be the Joker’s laugh before ending abruptly.
Just a couple of days before the end of the campaign all of ARG’s sites were defaced by
the Joker, with the odd eyes and faces being pasted over all the pictures and his signature
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“hahahahaha” scrawled all over the screen, marking what appears to be his last laugh at
the people of Gotham.
2) Part II: The Dark Knight Returns (Or, We’re Hoping This Title Gets Everyone
Thinking About Frank Miller’s Work)
As we’ve seen, a good portion of the ARG campaign has included aspects of the
mainstream, traditional marketing push, with posters and trailers being included as the
rewards for playing along, sometimes over the course of months. But since that’s not
universally true and since these traditional elements deserve their own analysis, let’s look
at how they work in and of themselves.
This separation is important since the two components are appealing to, if not drastically,
at least partially different audiences. Online Warner Bros. has been able to activate a
serious core of fans and Batman/comic enthusiasts who have revelled in being part of
Joker’s army or in finding out what they need to do as part of the Gotham PD’s task
force. But offline there is the larger movie-going audience that needs to be appealed to.
So the elements that are crossing media need to not just be geared for audience that has
“found” them through unlocking clues, but which sees them as part of the larger media
landscape they live in.
The difference is huge. Through the ARG, the participants have sought out the
advertising and embraced it, revelling in a new poster or trailer because they were excited
about it. But offline advertising is generally something folks try to avoid, either passively
by just ignoring billboards or print ads or actively by fast-forwarding their DVRs or using
pop-up blockers as they surf the Internet.
The Posters
The first teaser poster (featured earlier) that was revealed began the process of setting up
the Joker as a source of instability in the world, specifically Batman’s world. It shows a
simple brick wall like what you’d find in an alley. But on this wall is graffiti in the form
of a clown’s face, with the mouth taking on the shape of a bat. This not only hints at the
mayhem to come but also begins on the print side the focal point of the movie’s branding,
which combines the continued usage of the very sleek and clean Bat-symbol with the
insane scrawled artwork of the Joker. It also brought the Why So Serious? line into the
campaign fully.
The next two emphasized the slick more than the chaos. One featured Batman, shot from
behind, staring out his penthouse window, a location we had briefly seen in the first full
trailer that had debuted prior to this. The other shot the Joker from behind too, only he’s
standing in the middle of a city street, a shot also similar to that found in the recent full
trailer. Both were very shiny and emphasized the sort of blue-ish light that is found
throughout the movie’s campaign, a colour theme that replaces the rusty brown of the
Batman Begins marketing.
Why So Serious? would be revisited with a solo Joker poster that featured him writing
that phrase – seemingly in blood – on the other side of a window. It’s certainly the most
disturbing one-sheet of the campaign to date and possibly the most disturbing one of the
campaign in total. That’s because its main goal is to set this version of the Joker apart
from others. He’s not a prankster. He’s not just a slightly kooky grandfather. He’s a
murderer with blood literally on his hands who thinks that what he’s doing is really really
funny. This Joker is taking lives and he’s having a blast doing it. It’s that rawness that
makes this poster so legitimately chilling to see.
Next up is a series of three posters, one for Batman one for the Joker and one for Harvey
Dent, marking his first appearance in the print campaign, something that happened right
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around the time the “Harvey Dent for DA” campaign was heating up online. Each one
holds up an object he’s associated with. So Joker holds up a joker playing card, Batman a
throwing knife and Dent a campaign button. Each has half his face obscured by the
darkness they’re in, something that means something different for each character, or at
least it can mean something different for each one. For the Joker it’s as if he’s coming out
of the darkness. For Batman it’s his struggles with duality and for Dent it’s a bit of
foreshadowing of his eventual transformation. All three were not only released
individually but also as part of a single image, which works just a little bit better than the
three do separately.
The next three posters that appeared were also part of a themed set, though not quite in
the same way as those above. One showed Batman flying through the sky on his Batpod,
one had the Joker in much the same pose as on the above teaser, though this time shot
from the front, and the third was a theatrical poster. The theatrical poster especially is
great since it does the best job of conveying the movie’s branding. The overall colour
palette used is the same as we’ve seen on some of the other posters and in the trailers –
slick blue-ish grey – and also includes the Bat symbol being defaced, this time as it forms
a ball of fire coming out of the building Batman is standing in front of.
One additional poster cropped up toward the end of the online ARG. This one featured
Batman, but portrayed his face as being sort of made up of playing cards, most of which
were joker cards. Scrawled on his face was not only the now-familiar red smile over his
very serious scowl but also various lines of the Joker’s, including “It’s all part of the
plan,” Let’s put a smile on that face” and others, all meant to emphasize how messing
with the Batman’s mind is Task #1 on the Joker’s plans for de-stabilizing Gotham.
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Teaser Poster #3
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Teaser Poster #4
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Character Poster #1
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Character Poster #2
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Character Poster #3
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Character Poster #4
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Poster #1
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Poster #2
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Theatrical Poster #1
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The Trailers
The first teaser trailer Warner Bros. released was very much a teaser in every sense of the
word. Featuring absolutely no footage from the movie, it simply set some dialogue from,
respectively, the Joker, Bruce Wayne and the Alfred. Most of the dialogue focused on
how things had changed, how the emergence of the Joker has once again disrupted the
balance of power in Gotham City and how the villain just can’t seem to be reasoned with.
While the dialogue might not have sat comfortably in the trailer, what it does very well is
establish the visual branding of the movie, as the blue-ish light in back of the familiar
Bat-symbol builds in intensity until it actually begins to chip away at the symbol. That
works to not only introduce the dominant colour of the campaign to the audience but also
hint at the movie’s plot, which will see Batman having his core self being broken apart.
The first theatrical trailer was, quite frankly, all about introducing The Joker to the
audience. He’s the one providing the narration at the beginning, he’s the one addressing
the assembled room of thugs and toughs and he’s the one threatening people left and
right. All the characters are reacting, either emotionally or physically, to the actions of the
Joker, showing him to be such a force of nature that he changes not only the larger
equation but all the little ones as well. It’s enormously effective and does a fantastic job
of introducing the audience to what would soon become so many classic lines that would
show up throughout the rest of the campaign.
If the first theatrical trailer was primarily interested in introducing the Joker, the second
theatrical trailer worked to introduce everyone else. Harvey Dent, Alfred, James Gordon
and Lucius Fox all get some screen time here as the trailer tries to set the stage for the
epic story the movie will be trying to convey. It maybe works a little less well than the
previous one simply because the focus isn’t quite as tight. But it’s not by any means a bad
trailer, just one that is trying to accomplish different things. It still clips along very well
and keeps the tension high for the audience.
In late May USA Today announced the results of its first ever Golden Trailer Awards
polling, with the spot for The Dark Knight taking the top spot by a margin of 44 percent,
signalling this was a highly anticipated movie among members of a decidedly mainstream
audience.
All three trailers, especially the latter two, display an amazing amount of brand
consistency, with a bit of similar footage but more importantly a single look and feel. It’s
the same sort of consistency that we saw in the posters and which contributes to one more
aspect of a great branding campaign.
Online
You know what the biggest problem with the movie’s official website is? Since so much
of this campaign has been online and has been so interactive, the relatively standard site
here kind of pales in comparison.
A brief overview of the site:
 Synopsis: A decent recap of the movie, though like so many of such sections it
eventually turns into a credit block and not an actual description of the movie’s story.
 About the Film: Bios and backgrounds on the Cast and Filmmakers. You can also
Download Production Notes, which make up in large part for the underwhelming
Synopsis.
 Video: All three trailers are all you’ll find here. Disappointing that the TV spots or
any of the other video assets aren’t here. On the upside, though, you can embed any
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





of the trailers on your own site or choose from a variety of other formats to watch the
trailers in.
Photo Gallery: Just 14 stills, almost all of which were seen elsewhere previously.
Downloads: Screensavers, Posters, Wallpapers and Buddy Icons are what you’ll find
here. All the posters are here, something that’s usually overlooked on sites, and are in
reverse chronological order.
Friends of Gotham: This is where you’ll find links to the movie’s promotional
partners as well as to other sites that have run promotions or contests relating to the
movie.
The Dark Knight on Comcast: A stand-alone link to Comcast’s mini-site. They
must have paid a whole lot of cash to get their own link off the main page in addition
to being linked in the Friends of Gotham section.
Tickets & Showtimes: Pretty self-explanatory.
Music: Links to a stand-alone site for the movie’s soundtrack, which features a few
music clips and some news headlines relating to the score and its composers.
There’s not all that much on the movie’s MySpace page, just one of the trailers, a handful
of photos and a sweepstakes you can enter.
Again, not that these sites were “bad,” but the online campaign that was part of the ARG
was just *so good* that these relatively standard efforts just feel uninspired.
Eventually, about three weeks before the movie’s release date, Warner Bros. released the
first five minutes of the movie – the same clip that was shown in-front of IMAX
showings of I Am Legend – online.
Advertising and Cross-Promotions
Part of the online advertising effort had Warner Bros. taking over the front-page of social
network MySpace on the day that site received a much-hyped makeover of its design and
functionality. The flaming Bat-symbol from the theatrical poster was featured at the top
of the page as the trailer played next to it. The buy was a coup for Warner since this was a
day when a lot of people – not just MySpace’s regular user base but also a lot of online
geeks who wanted to see if the Most Hated User Experience on the Internet had improved
any. That sort of anticipation and sure-fire media coverage was bound to include tons of
screen-grabs of the new design, screen-grabs that would likely include the Dark Knight ad
at the top. That’s of course exactly what happened, extending the reach of the ad buy
exponentially as everyone shared those grabs on Flickr and elsewhere.
One of the biggest partners signing on for this second entry in the Batman 2.0 franchise is
Hershey. The chocolate company redesigned its Peanut Butter Cups and other products to
resemble or feature the Bat-symbol and created branded packaging with Batman on the
product. “Special Editions” of the peanut butter bars came with the Joker’s face scrawled
on the top of the candy in the same manner as he’s defaced posters and other materials,
which I think is very cool. The packaging also featured an instant-win game offering an
array of prizes, from a Batman-themed MV Agusta F4 motorcycle to Joker masks to
home theatre systems and more.
The microsite from Hershey also featured photos from the movie and all three trailers, as
well as a call to submit videos that featured some destruction of the Bat-shaped products
by the Joker, with a Reese’s prize pack going to the best one.
Nokia and Verizon Wireless partnered on a limited Dark Knight Edition Nokia 6205
phone that featured the Bat emblem on the outside of the phone and exclusive content like
wallpapers, voice tones, screensavers and the movie’s trailer already loaded on the
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device. The phone also came packaged with an exclusive Joker playing card and pointed
people to FightForGothamCity.com where they could see if they instantly won $10,000
with that card and also download more Dark Knight content to their phones via Verizon’s
V Cast.
The three-way partnership also featured a co-branded widget that could be added to sites
and social networks. When viewing the “Movie Counter” tab on the widget it counted
down to the film’s release and the “Phone Counter” release counted down to that of the
phone. There was also a site where you could upload a picture of yourself or a friend and
place them in Arkham Asylum.
Comcast was a big partner, acting as the creator – or at least distributor – of the Gotham
Cable News station and its “Gotham Tonight” news show. The episodes, which
chronicled the campaign of Harvey Dent, sightings of Batman and other local interest
items, were available not only online but were actually broadcast to Comcast subscribers,
with short versions showing up on TV and full versions available on-demand.
The cable company’s site, the real one not the ARG one, featured a bunch of movie
material, enough to give the official site a run for its money. There were all three trailers
and a handful of TV spots in “Video” along with exclusive featurettes on the IMAX
production, the making of the Joker’s henchmen masks and more facets of the making of
the movie. “Downloads” had IM icons, Wallpaper and a Screensaver. Finally there was a
Synopsis and a handful of Photos under “Images.” There was also a co-branded
commercial that was created that took place in Gotham City.
Along with Comcast, Domino’s Pizza was one of the promotional partners that crossed
over from the mainstream campaign to the ARG effort as well. As we’ve seen, they were
the presenters of Gotham City Pizzeria. For the real-world citizens, the chain introduced a
new pizza that was delivered in one or four specially-designed boxes, each of which
features a different component of Batman’s costume. The section of the Domino’s site
devoted to the movie featured trailers and other movie footage as well as downloads like
wallpapers and a “The Cards Tell the Tale” interactive game. Finally, Domino’s
announced it will deliver $10,000 daily via Gotham City armoured truck to a lucky
customer.
Domino’s even debuted a new full-length trailer on the site that is, well, awesome. It
contains a lot of footage we’ve already seen, but also some new stuff, particularly in the
form of reactions to lines we’ve seen throughout the campaign. It strikes a very dark tone
and has a lot of violence and plays into the idea that the Joker is just screwing with people
A LOT in this movie.
Batman became the latest fictional celebrity to be featured in the “Got Milk?” campaign,
appearing with the famous milk moustache in a series of print ads. Batman’s portion of
the site was nicely tricked out though, and not just a toss-off effort. The site contained a
trailer, a widget promoting a contest to have your likeness inserted into an upcoming
comic and a downloadable Fan Kit. That Fan Kit contained a good number of stills from
the movie, some of the posters and images of the character from the “Got Milk” ad. I love
this kind of thing since it makes the collection and distribution of official images so much
easier.
Kmart got in on the action in a big way, partnering with Warner Bros. to become the
“Official Batman Headquarters.” That includes the creation of in-store boutiques devoted
to Dark Knight merchandise. It also offered $5 off coupons for select toys with the
purchase of five boxes of cereal or other specific items from promotional partner General
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Mills, who slapped Batman’s visage on a bunch of their boxes. A free movie ticket was
also available to those who bought three bags of Reese’s Batman-themed products.
Warner Bros. helped its own cause by creating a new version of the Batman roller coaster
at Six Flags theme parks across the country. The rides, which have been around since
about 1992, were redone with new Dark Knight-specific decorations, turning those
waiting in line into citizens of Gotham City, moving around a city street while hearing
campaign messages for Harvey Dent over the PA system.
The movie also got a boost in the form of Batman: Gotham Knight, a direct-to-DVD
anthology of short animated stories that, based on reports, takes place in the same
universe as the new movies, kind of in-between the two films. This movie even had its
own MySpace and Facebook pages, showing just how much an effort WB was putting
into this movie.
There was also a widget that you could add to either your blog or social network profile
that made the Bat-signal stronger for everyone that added the widget and played the
trailer.
In addition to all these cross-promotional efforts, the movie has also received an
extraordinary advertising campaign. Something around 15 TV spots have been created,
each one taking a slightly different tone than the others, with some focusing on Batman,
some on the Joker and many featuring the tiniest slivers of new footage. There’s also been
heavy online and out-of-home advertising that’s been done.
Toyota worked with Warner Bros. to bring the Batmobile – aka the Tumbler – to the
Silverstone Formula One race a couple of weeks ago. All the Toyota cars also got Dark
Knight makeovers and some of the teams sported Batsuit-esque overalls.
Media
The Dark Knight was sure to be a heavily covered release under any circumstances since
it was going to be such a huge release and was so anticipated. But Ledger’s death became
the hook on which many of these stories wound up being hung, dominating the stories
and skewing everything.
The other major focus of the media coverage in the last couple weeks before the movie hit
theatres was the inevitable “Can the movie live up to the hype? ” stories that, again,
allowed writers to do a little naval-gazing as they attempted to look prescient should the
movie disappoint at the box-office.
Aside from those two angles, the talent involved in the movie got the majority of the
focus as the press attempted to get something good from Aaron Eckhart or Christopher
Nolan or Christian Bale. Sometimes a new detail would leak out, resulting in a firestorm
of blog coverage that invariably led to assumptions that were unfounded and untrue, but
who the hell cares about that?
The History Channel used the movie’s release as an opportunity to gain some viewership,
running a special on the history of Batman that explored the psychology of the character
with an emphasis on his vigilante tendencies.
HBO ran one of their “First Look” specials on the movie’s making. It’s typically fluffy in
nature but has some good stuff as well. And the movie got some more publicity when
Warner Bros. announced it would put a number of highly-anticipated trailers in front of it.
It also earned some street-cred by sponsoring a web-show that was popular with the
online geek crowd, attaching the movie’s trailer to the videos.
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One of the biggest components of the media campaign was the movie’s IMAX release,
which did a lot of good to boost IMAX awareness and interest in general. There was a lot
of coverage of how Nolan shot so much of the movie in IMAX format, leading to a
situation where many of the IMAX screenings of opening weekend were sold out.
Overall
As stated at the outset, this is a campaign that’s literally unlike anything that’s come
before. It blows away Iron Man, Cloverfield, Transformers and just about everything else
not because it’s bigger than everything else but because it’s so much more interactive and
engaging than anything else. There’s never been a marketing push that so clearly called
for the audience to participate in the marketing and get the audience so excited about
being marketed to. Oh sure, everyone was talking about Jamie & Teddy videos as part of
the Cloverfield campaign, but there was nothing that the audience could do once the
videos were found aside from speculate on what some photo frame in the background
meant for the movie’s plot.
This effort from Warner Bros., though, had people looking into source code on sites to
find clues and hidden messages. That’s a level of engagement that’s above and beyond
what we’ve seen before and something that takes this marketing to a whole new level.
More than that, the ARG is impressive from the point of view of creativity. This whole
story arc had to have been mapped out and designed well in advance, meaning someone –
or a group of someones – sat in a room and thought about what sort of havoc the Joker
could reap as all the characters spread toward the movie’s story. And that’s exactly what
all this is: lead in to the movie. The last part of the story line had hostages being taken in
the Gotham Bank and that’s right where the movie begins, with the Joker and his men
staging that robbery.
But even moving beyond the completely immersive ARG that went on, the mainstream
campaign was pretty impressive. Everything works very well, both on their own and with
each other. It maybe doesn’t hit the same heights of unified branding as the campaign for
Batman Begins, but the The Dark Knight marketing is much more spread out, so some
loss is unfortunately to be expected.
Warner Bros., to their credit, addressed the death of one of the movie’s stars, whose
character is a focal point of the story, in the best way it possibly could: By not addressing
it. Instead of making a big deal of it either by overplaying it or removing him from the
campaign they just kept on target, and the campaign is the stronger for it.
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Limitations of the research

The research has only representative film from each genre and hence doesn’t wholly
represent the movie industry, rather just a part of it.

The hypothetical ad campaign at the end of the research is based entirely on speculation.
Even though an attempt was made to understand the target demographic (mostly by
studying other existing genre campaigns), the hypothetical campaign was not market
tested.

The research assumes that the behaviour of the target demographic remains constant
across regions, countries and continents. Cultural differences have not been accounted
for.

The research is based on self study and other researches, reviews and case studies and not
the public perception. However, an attempt was made to cite researches and studies which
measured public perception.
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Findings and Analysis: My Conclusions
After studying the aforementioned case studies, and other literature (attached in the
Appendix), I was able to glean the following about movie advertising:
1. Campaigns should be cohesive. As displayed particularly by the Kick Ass and The Dark
Knight campaigns, there should be unifying themes and or visual baits throughout the
campaign.
2. Make it an immersive experience for the audience. The audience loves to feel a part of the
action. Which is probably why the ARG models adopted by Cloverfield and The Dark
Knight generated so much buzz. Not only helping spread the word, an immersive
experience also means that the audience is emotionally invested in the characters.
3. Know your audience, and cater to their needs. Something which the Kick Ass campaign
failed to do was to respect the general mainstream movie audience. In its quest to project
Kick Ass as a quirky and different superhero movie, the campaign forgot all about the
mainstream (non-geeky) audience which doesn’t troll the net for movie tid-bits. End
result? A weaker than expected opening weekend haul.
4. The internet is a powerful ally. Inexpensive and almost limitless in its reach, the internet
can be used to not only augment ongoing campaigns, but to also kick start new ones.
However, care must again be taken about reaching out to all the influential target groups.
5. The budget for a campaign has little to no bearing on the impact it has. While the
campaigns for The Dark Knight and Cloverfield differed wildly in terms of budgets, what
they did for their respective movies was comparable.
6. Campaigns are generally divided into waves/parts, with each wave having its own
objective and goal.
Keeping all these in mind, I will now attempt to draw up a 360o ad campaign for a
hypothetical indie superhero film, David & Goliath.
About the film
Taking place in contemporary times in an unnamed corrupt town, David & Goliath chronicles
the life of an eccentric and egoistical stage actor named David Schneider. An illegitimate
child, he’d seen his mother gunned down by the mafia when he was very young.
Alone and angry, David turned to theatre and soon became a much lauded actor, writer and
director. Years later, the woman he loved, someone he only refers to as the Woman With
Auburn Curls, was also gunned down by the same mafia lords right in front of him. The
striking thing that David noticed was that both, his mother and the Woman With Auburn
Curls, was smiling in death. This convinced David that there was something beautiful and
pure about death and that he would actually be helping people if he killed them and relieved
them from their sorry lives. Around this time, his eccentric behaviour also peeks with him
refusing to perform at night or travel out of the town. Also, he slowly turns into a serial killer,
killing anyone who doesn’t like his play.
Now a washed-up has been, David hits upon a great new play to re-launch himself with. He
starts performing the story of his tumultuous life. A lot of people are appalled by the
numerous Jesus analogies David makes. Infuriated, David slowly but surely starts killing all
of them.
This catches the eye of the police, who enlist the help of a masked vigilante, dubbed Goliath,
to hunt down the serial killer. As Goliath goes about investigating, it becomes apparent to him
that David is in fact the killer. But, lacking any evidence, Goliath can’t do much.
This sudden, unexpected rise of and influence exerted by Goliath rattles the cage of the mob
bosses who put a price on his head.
69
Meanwhile, realizing that murder is easy, and still harbouring some resentment about the
murders of his mother and love, David vows to avenge them. He also starts getting
increasingly paranoid about Goliath, and actively seeks to kill him too. But, owing to his self
imposed rule that he will not leave home at night, and that Goliath only appears at night, he is
unable to do so.
One day, in a scuffle with mob goons, Goliath in seriously injured. Hobbling, he reaches
home and passes out.
Next morning, David wakes up to find his whole body is aching, and that he is in Goliath’s
costume. That is when we realize that David and Goliath are the same person.
From then, the film becomes a cat-and-mouse chase between David/Goliath, the police, and
the mob. In the end, David/Goliath manages to pin the blame for the slew of murders on the
corrupt Police Chief, taking down the mob in the process. David finally retires to an unnamed
tropical country, away from the demons of his past.
Advertising David & Goliath
With a limited budget, advertising the movie would have to rely on unconventional means.
What is to be communicated?
That the movie is a realistic superhero movie with a difference. It’s a character study
as much as a superhero movie.
What is the tone of the movie?
Epic, realistic.
The Big Idea:
Pitch it as mainly David Schneider’s story, underplaying the fantastical superhero
bits.
At the same time, suck the audience into the world of the unnamed town, and recreate
some of the chaos and fear for them.
The Plan:
1. Setting up a site for David Schneider at www.davidschneider.com. Keeping in tune with
the man’s personality, it will be flashy and self important. It will be just like the websites
of actual movie stars, introducing themselves to the readers, having photos and the works.
The site will eventually go on to sell tickets for the play within the movie called The God
Story. People buying these tickets would have the option to trade them in for opening
weekend tickets of David & Goliath.
2. At the same time as the launch of the site, radio spots will also start airing. These short
spots would be like celebrity endorsements for The God Story.
Script:
“Hi! I am David Schneider, and I am in your town performing my newest play, The God
Story. For tickets, log on to www.thegodstory.com. Hope to see you there.”
thegodstory.com would redirect to the tickets page of davidschneider.com.
3. In a tie-up with bookmyshow.com, tickets for The God Story would also be available
through the site.
4. Posters will come up virally across town, asking people “Who is David Schneider?”. The
aim will be to run two conflicting campaigns (the radio campaign urging people to trust
Schneider, and the poster campaign asking people to reconsider their stance) to get people
curious about David Schneider and get them to visit davidschneider.com.
70
Teaser Poster #1
71
5. Around the same time, a viral youtube video would go live on social networking sites.
Script:
Video
Audio
Duration/Transition
David Schneider struggling with Ambient sounds.
an unnamed man.
10 seconds
The video is as though shot
sneakily using a cell phone Recorder (scared): Oh shit, oh
camera. The recorder is shit! I can’t believe Schneider’s
seemingly hiding from David.
doing this! If you see this,
After a tussle, David shoots the please bring this man to justice.
unnamed guy. He then turns (shot fired)
towards the recorder, and onemanmayface.com.
shoots him too.
(another shot fired)
Fade to black.
Title on black:
3 seconds.
onemanmanyfaces.com
Title on black:
2 seconds.
July 8, 2011
6. A contest will run on onemanmanyfaces.com. Users will be urged to come forth with any
incriminating evidence they might have of David Schneider doing any wrong deeds. They
will be urged to go wacky.
7. Another poster will debut virally. This will re-enforce the one-man-many-faces concept.
Teaser Poster #2
8. Another poster campaign will start, seemingly from the Police Department, advertising a
Neighbourhood Watch Week.
9. At around the same time, a new link would pop up on onemanmanyfaces.com. It’ll be to
settingitright.blogspot.com. It’ll be a rather political blog, full of criticism of the police,
and suggested steps to root out corruption from the city. The profile of the primary author
will tell us that it’s the same guy who was shot first in the first viral video. A small
obituary would also pop up.
72
10. Another contributor on the blog would post a fresh viral video. It will simply show
Goliath intercept some common thugs, saving a woman from being raped. Goliath would
be proclaimed as the saviour of the town in the post.
Teaser Poster #3
73
11. People who had submitted evidence onemanmanyfaces.com would be sent a link to the
new trailer. The trailer would highlight the epic, operatic scale of the movie while
keeping the focus firmly on David Schneider.
Script:
Video
Audio
Duration/Transition
B/W studio logo slow zoom in.
5 seconds.
Fade to black.
Slow title zoom in on black:
“Who is David Schneider?”
15 seconds.
Jump cuts of POV shot of
somebody waking up, looking
at his gloved hands, turning
them around as if he can’t
believe that his hands are in
gloves.
Walks up to a dresser with a
mirror. We’re about to focus
on what he sees in the mirror
when we cut abruptly.
Brief fade in/fade out clips
from The God Story showing:
a) A Nativity Scene
b) A man and a woman
arguing
c) A naked child being
tortured by policemen
d) A woman with auburn curls
reassuring a grieving man
e) Some goons raping the
woman with auburn curls
Brief, energetic clips from the
movie showing:
a) A woman being gunned
down in an alley.
b) David slitting a throat.
c) A sedan revving.
d) Cop cars following sedan
through crowded street.
e) Goliath beating up a thug in
a dark alley.
f) Goliath jumping off a ledge.
g) A mass uprising of some
kind.
h) Anxious mob bosses.
i) David shaking hands with a
mob boss.
Opening 20 seconds from Carl
Orff’s O Fortuna.
Smash Cut to Black.
Fade In.
O Fortuna (00:20 to 00:35)
15 seconds.
Fade Out.
Smash Cut.
O Fortuna (01:40 to 02:20)
40 seconds.
74
j)
A dramatic scene from The
God Story.
k) Goliath fighting mob
bosses.
Clips of:
a) David smiling.
b) Goliath looking over the
town.
c) The police clapping
handcuffs on to a man.
d) David Schneider takes a
dramatic bow on a stage.
On black:
David &Goliath.
O Fortuna (2:20 to 2:35)
David: “I am David Schneider,
and this is my story.”
15 seconds.
Fade to black.
O Fortuna (2:35 to 2:39)
5 seconds.
Fade to Black.
Credits and release date.
5 seconds.
This trailer would also be attached to other movies and shown in cinema halls.
12. To round off the campaign, a theatrical poster would also be released. It would feature the
same image from teaser #2, but now with the David & Goliath branding, and the legend
“This is David Schneider, and this is his story”.
75
Summary, Conclusion and Recommendations
To summarise my research project looked to study how to make ad campaigns for movies,
and then build a campaign for a hypothetical movie based on my observations. The idea was
to understand and appreciate the precise art of selling something as perishable as a movie.
My observations taught me much and helped to re-affirm what I had long believed—budget
of an ad campaign has little to no bearing of how much buzz the film creates. Though it has
its limitations like many researches it in my view is sufficient to prove the objective.
A recommendation to other researchers tackling a similar topic is that they should look to
merge their findings with current events and topics.
76
Appendix
Marketing Movies Online (by Gunjan Bagla)
Movie marketing may one day embrace integration in all its glory … but only because it must
in order to survive.
In most industries, brands are built over years, sometimes decades. The theatrical release of
movies is unique, because its current formula for success relies on building a brand in a few
weeks. While press and buzz are important, heavy advertising is a requirement to drive
awareness, favorability and to finally get “butts in seats” as Hollywood likes to put it. Box
office revenue on the first weekend is used as a predictor of the lifetime value of each movie
title, including future revenue from pay-per-view, DVD releases, international rights, etc.
Careers are made and unmade in Monday morning meetings at many studios, and there is
seldom a second chance if your advertising did not resonate prior to that crucial opening
weekend.
As movie-marketing budgets have increased along with the sheer diversity of titles competing
for the viewer’s attention on any given weekend, it is not unusual to see budgets for tentpole
releases in the $40-50 million range. Just a few years ago, $15 million was considered an
enormous sum, according to Dan Rosen, formerly head of Research at Warner Brothers, and
now speaking as a private citizen. “There may be 40 titles competing for a moviegoer’s
attention on a typical summer weekend, if you count new releases, holdovers and home
entertainment titles.”
Let’s take a look at the role of the Internet in movie marketing according to Dynamic Logic
data that compares the responses of people who saw the online advertising (“exposed”) and
with a similar group who was not shown the online media (“control”).
On average, exposed numbers tend to be higher than control numbers across all five core
branding metrics (Figure 1). The five deltas (differences between control and exposed ads)
are consistently higher than averages across all industries, and this indicates that movie
marketers do a great job with the online medium relative to other industries (Figure 2).
77
MarketNorms Movies data through Q2, 2004 based on 39 movie campaigns with 41,301
respondents. Overall data based on 1,378 campaigns and 1,552,168 respondents.
Rosen agrees, saying that the Internet has become a significant force, particularly in the last
two years. But he also adds that its role is still tertiary or secondary at best when compared to
traditional media. Movie marketing is only going to get more expensive and more competitive
in the near future, and marketers will continue to explore creative uses of Internet media since
TV has become somewhat less reliable than it used to be. He expects true convergence
between media types to start becoming a reality in the next few years.
Studios first began their online advertising on fan sites and movie Web sites such as
Fandango, MovieTickets, iFilm, Hollywood.com and AOL’s Moviefone or Yahoo! Movies.
Rosen says that many of the frequent visitors to these sites are so well informed that is hard to
use advertising to change their attitudes. It is making more and more sense for the studios to
buy broader reach online media, such as home page placements on Yahoo! or MSN. Rosen
adds that it also makes sense to advertise broadly on some of the specialized portals that cater
to particular demographics that match the movie title’s core audience.
Recent refinements to Dynamic Logic’s MarketNorms database permit a deeper look at some
metrics that are not so often talked about. Most stories look at movie awareness, the
uppermost metric of the branding funnel, or purchase intent, the lowermost metric in this
funnel. There is another key dimension just above purchase intent: brand favorability. For an
emotional-laden product there are some interesting lessons buried here.
Movie Favorability can be likeability of the cast, the star, the director or even the
theme/genre, depending on the type of advertising. Once consumers are aware of a movie,
social interactions among a group of individuals can be key to which movie is chosen on a
particular night. (I am sure we have all had these conversations, “It’s Jude Law, I gotta see it”
or “I can’t stand another Julia Roberts movie”). What influences movie favorability? Let us
take a look at some metrics for some unexpected results
The conventional wisdom in the movie business is that showing the star in your ad is a good
thing. Focusing attention on the star to the exclusion of other elements is even better, and
more so if your star is a talking animal. Over 78 percent of ads studied by Dynamic Logic
featured a single “life form” (an adult, child or animal in the creative). The graph below
shows that the impact of a single life form (+4.6) is less than including no life form (+11.6) or
78
multiple life forms (+9.3) in the movie advertisement. There may be an opportunity here for
those who design online movie ads. The causes of these differences are not explained in the
research and there may be some hidden logic at work, but the results are worth thinking
about.
Data from Dynamic Logic also seems to bear out Rosen’s comments about marketing via
portal sites. The average impact of online movie advertising on portal sites is greater than
movie and entertainment sites by a slight margin, although scientifically equivalent to
entertainment and movies sites.
Higher income consumers have generally become more resistant to traditional media. It
appears that online media more readily influences their attitudes about movie likeability. The
impact among those in the highest income group is nearly 40 percent higher than those in the
lowest income bracket.
Other normative data about marketing movies online from Dynamic Logic indicates that the
impact of online ads on movie favorability is greatest among consumers living in the Midwest
and West, and lowest among those in the Northeast. This might indicate that media buyers
need to buy higher exposure to get New Englanders to change their mind. Another odd result
is that the most-frequently-used ad formats under-perform compared to the formats that are
used less than 5 percent of the time. This lends credence to the old saw that the fresh and new
is always best in the movie business.
For the record, the best performing (but rarely used) forms in Dynamic Logic movie studies
were Wide Skyscrapers, Towers, and floating ads.
Young people are the most avid moviegoers and the target of much movie advertising both
offline and online, but some studios are looking beyond this fickle audience. Rosen points to
Hispanics as underserved audiences for movies. Approaching Hispanics is not as simple as
buying media on Spanish language properties. Rosen highlights key differences in the way
Hispanics behave: they often see movies as a family and they seem to go to the movies more
often than other ethnic groups. Also there are certain movies that appeal more to this
audience, such as physical comedies, action thrillers and certain religious themes. Having
worked closely with Hispanic Web sites, I can add that about half of American Hispanics
79
consume English language media just as vigorously as Spanish media and a smart marketer
needs to factor this cross-language consumption for a successful media plan.
In many ways movie marketing continues to be one of the most risky and adventurous form
of marketing. With other sorts of marketing, trends are more stable and science is catching up.
The Hollywood studios need to invest more resources in similar science.
80
The Top Movie Poster Trends (by Georgina Lavers)
I'm betting you've looked at some of the film posters adorned on the tube escalators and
thought, what the fraggle rock is this? You think you can do better? Of course you can,
because movie posters are an excuse to dredge up the most tired old formats and situations
they can find. I'm going to gently guide you through the most notorious clichés of the movie
poster. Teal and orange, wacky jostling, quirky indie writing...it's all here.
Just like movie innards, movie posters use a formula according to genre. Red lettering on a
white background means a (usually pretty bad) comedy. If it’s an ensemble comedy there will
be lots of friendly jostling, partial nudity and a random object (a flute, a midget lounging on a
coffin) that promises madcap adventures. Gangster flicks have people standing around
looking menacing, romantic dramas have girl resting head on boy’s shoulder, and romantic
comedies have girl playfully ensnaring boy by lightly choking him. Here are a couple more
tropes for you:
1. Open Legs
As seen in The Comebacks, 3:10 to Yuma, For Your Eyes Only, Naked, Thirst
You would think that this style of postering was a little risqué. Some countries have
certainly thought so; when the poster for Korean drama Thirst was released, the makers
were asked (ok, it’s Korea- they were probably forced) to re-make it in a more delicate
manner. So they chose to just scrap the legs, leaving the poster as a torso straddling a
man. That’s even worse! The tradition of open legs started with Mr Bond and For Your
Eyes Only, and since then has been repeated with surprising alacrity. Even Mike Leigh
has used the cliché, adding fishnets for his film Naked. Mike Leigh, I thought better of
you.
81
2. Why Have Words When You Can Have Number5
As seen in Iron Man 2, X-Men 3, Toy Story 3, Spiderman 3, Scream 3
They think they’re so cool, these number posters. Ooh, the weight of our franchise is so
enormous that we don’t even need to tell people the title of it on the poster! I guess it
saves a bundle on production; just shove a number in according to the sequel, but it feels
a little lazy. The exception to this is Scream 3, because this franchise actually is
recognizable (take note, Iron Man 2), and the end result is striking.
3. Quirky Indie Writing
As seen in Youth in Revolt, Eagle vs Shark, Juno, Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist, The
Wackness
Gah. Bloody quirky indie films, showing us how indie they are with their hand written
titles and colouring in. Michael Cera is the greatest culprit here, appearing in no less than
three – three! – of the titles. If a film poster ever has hand written lettering, rest assured
that it will also have:
a. Cool geeks
b. Ironic wearing of sweatbands
c. A soundtrack that includes Belle & Sebastian
However, I have to let The Wackness off the hook, because when Dr Squires (Ben
Kingsley) asks what gawky weed dealer Luke’s (Josh Peck) favourite music is, he says
De La Soul, The Pharcyde and A Tribe Called Quest, which are definitively the best
groups ever.
82
4. There Will Be Sexytime
As seen in No Strings Attached, Love and Other Drugs, Blue Valentine, 9 Songs, Last
Tango in Paris
This poster promises the viewer that there will be lots of sexytime, no-holds-barred
sexytime. Quotes on the poster should be suitably incendiary (“You’ve never seen
anything this scorching in cinemas before!”) and taglines should be pervily promising; 9
Songs ‘assures viewers of 69 minutes of sex and rock’n’roll.’ Yeah yeah, 9 Songs, we get
it.
5. Oranges and Blueberries
As seen in The Bourne Identity, Australia, G.I. Joe, Jumper, Stardust
There are a couple of theories on this one, simply because the blue/orange colour palette
is used so often, not just in posters but throughout films. One is that the colours are pretty
gender neutral and don’t have any connotations (e.g. green and red = Christmas), another
is that the direct compliment to skin tone (peach/orange) is blue. There’s a fascinating
explanation here, which pretty much concludes that film-makers are lazy bumders.
83
6. This Situation Isn’t Suited to My Stereotype!
As seen in Life As We Know It, Death at a Funeral (not the good one), Knocked Up, Big
Momma’s House, Date Night
Now don’t get me wrong, here at BFF we would gladly let Tina Fey use our bodies as
footstools, but these film posters fall under the crime of announcing themselves as wacky.
They advertise the fact that the film will be based around people finding themselves in
unusual situations directly out of proportion with their normal selves and exploit my
desire to be held hostage by violent gangsters whilst on a date. In these kinds of movies
there is usually a straight edge companion, who shakes their head and looks rueful (but
amused).
7. Back to Back
As seen in Gnomeo and Juliet, Two Weeks Notice, Get Smart, Mr and Mrs Smith, Adam’s
Rib
I can’t think of a single situation which would necessitate me standing back to back with
my boyfriend. However, Valentine’s Day is coming up…should I mock up a poster of us
in this awkward pose? The most ridiculous of the poster tropes, and the most inaccurate.
The next time I pay to see Two Weeks Notice I’m going to demand a refund if Sandra
Bullock and Hugh Grant don’t stand back to back with their arms crossed at some point in
the film. I gather it indicates a love/hate relationship between the pair, where the woman
is whiny/controlling and the man is whiny/childish and gosh darnit, they just have to
work it out!
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Kick Ass-The Harsh Reality of Virtual Marketing (by Barry Steele)
Well, the final weekend numbers came in, and it seems Kick Ass DID win the weekend box
office after all. But only by the slimmest of margins, and over a movie entering its fourth
week of release. So why has one of the first ‘highly anticipated’ movies of the year had such a
weak showing in its first few days of release?
When you write on the internet, it’s easy to get caught up in hype, and internet marketing
becomes the centre of your work. When a trailer is released, and the hits go nuclear, it’s only
natural to assume the movie is going to be big. What we forget is that the internet movie fans
only make up a small corner of cinematic audiences, and in general it tends to be a fairly
specific audience – a geek one.
The kind of people who frequent internet movie sites are the ones that tend to enjoy comic
book movies the most, that look forward to humorous action movies, and that can appreciate
the kind of work and thought that has gone into a project like Kick Ass. The story of Kick Ass
has been heavily documented from the first clips at last year’s Comic-Con. We have followed
the problems that Mathew Vaughn has experienced looking for a distributor, we have read all
about the way the movie has been developed in parallel with the comic, and we have seen
every second of footage of every trailer and TV spot. The problem is, of course, that the
mainstream movie audience have never even heard of it.
The mainstream, or casual audience, or whatever you choose to call it, don’t get too involved
with internet marketing. Yes, the internet is now present in a large percentage of homes, but
the vast majority don’t use it to trawl through movie news, they don’t take films as overseriously as people like me, and the most exposure they have to online promotion is flash
adverts on the Google news page. Most people who go to see movies make their choices
through print and television marketing. Billboards on the street, trailers between tv shows,
and the occasional full page splash in a national tabloid. Then there are those that just turn up
at their local Vue or Odeon and choose which poster looks good.
Look at it from the point of view of this audience. They see a makeshift superhero, in a
shoddy looking costume, and don’t recognise any of the names on the poster. What is going
to draw this audience in to a movie like Kick Ass? The trailer combines the puerile humour
with over the top action sequences, sketching out a movie a million miles away from The
Dark Knight model of comic book adaptations. With big effects movies like Clash of the
Titans and Alice in Wonderland drawing the eye with cutting edge CGI, big star names like
Johnny Depp, and the promise of 3D, Kick Ass looks cheap in comparison, and today’s
popcorn audiences want blockbuster movies.
Compare Kick Ass to Iron Man, and you can see why Iron Man is going to challenge box
office records, and make more money on its opening night than Kick-Ass is likely to do in its
whole run. The huge, big budget special effects sequences, explosive action scenes, the star
power of Robert Downey Jr backed up by Gwyneth Paltrow, Mickey Rourke, Scarlett
Johansson and Don Cheadle. Add to this the recognition that now exists in the mainstream for
the character, and the fact that it is a Marvel property, the most widely known comic
publisher, and there really is no contest.
It is a great shame it has to be like this. More thought will probably have gone into one scene
of Kick Ass than the whole plot of Iron Man 2. And the same problem will probably hold for
the forthcoming Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World. The internet went into meltdown when the
trailer was released online, with millions of hits within minutes. Again, because of this, it
appears the movie will be huge. But it is a virtually unknown property away from the online
crowd, and much like Kick Ass, the ridiculous amount of hits is in part down to the scores of
people that watched the trailer multiple times.
85
You never know, though, business for Kick Ass might pick up, and Vaughn’s film could end
with a respectable run. For the sake of the potential sequel, we have to hope this is the case.
As it stands, the worldwide box office gross will be enough to cover costs and afford the
smallest of profits, but in order to make a sequel a financially viable endeavour, word of
mouth will have to be strong enough to allow a second weekend total similar to the first
weekend.
This isn’t impossible, the run of How To Train Your Dragon is proving this. Many people
have seen it multiple times, and it is increasing its gross by an impressive percentage week on
week right now. There isn’t a great deal of competition at the coming weekend, so we’ll have
to wait and see if Kick Ass can begin to do the same. Here’s hoping. I’d love to see a sequel,
and I think Mathew Vaughn deserves success for the gamble he took on the project, and the
hard work he put into securing it a theatrical run in the first place.

A Specialisation Project 360o Ad Campaign For An

Transcription

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