CraZy Movie Marketing Campaign that went viral- The Dark Knight!

Things we didn’t know that went behind marketing Dark Knight.

Do you remember going to a movie because of the marketing campaigns that were run to promote them? Have you seen the kind of campaigns that movie makers have made just to get their movies noticed? With a wide plethora of options available for viewers, movie makers are finding it extremely difficult to make their movies noticed. Gone are the days where movies had one trailer with posters around the place to create awareness about it. Gone are the days where viewers used to look into newspapers to know which movie was going to be released during the week. With the shift towards the digital age, the success of a movie is solely dependent on how it is sold to the audience.

There are times when a movie gets noticed on its own, which is mostly because people are already excited about it. And for the other times, a speckle of marketing is needed to position the movie in the market. This splash comes with creating an environment or a campaign for the movie which makes it stand apart from the rest. Movie makers with their marketers are relying highly on the virtual space to create more engagement and creative campaigns. The goal is to get their film heard above all the other noises, entice the viewers and make them feel like it’s worth spending time and money on. Marketers have started adopting methodologies wherein they build anticipation and curiosity by suggesting something and not giving everything away. Here is a movie that created a buzz in the film industry through their viral marketing campaigns.

The Dark Knight:

‘Why So Serious?’ A dialogue which is unknown to none, given by the infamous ‘Joker’ of the Batman series, was impeccably followed by the marketing team of the Dark Knight. These words were a big hit as 42 Entertainment, an American agency that specializes in creating alternate reality games, who were marketing the Dark Knight became extremely serious about it. The company targeted a worldwide event called Comic-Con.

How did the campaign rollout?

A real-time video game was introduced to engage the audience interested in superheroes, comic books, and the movie. 15 months prior to the movie’s release, around 11 Million participants in over 70 countries joined together. The fans were asked to either aid Harvey Dent, who was going to be the District attorney (which was a part of the film), or be the henchmen in the Joker’s army or combine hands with the citizens of Batman. The campaign went on for a year with the fans finding little things that took them to the bigger task. Given below are the things that were introduced during the campaign or rather the step by step strategy that was followed by the team of Dark Knight.

1. The fans found Joker cards that were left in the comic stores leading them to the website for the elections of Harvey Dent, in the city of Gotham. A few fans soon discovered that they could erase the pixels on the website which resulted in the first public image of Joker being released.

2. In the city of San Diego, a similar kind of thing was happening where ‘Jokerized’ dollars were found. On finding the clues, the dollar bill led the fans to gather at a point to watch an airplane skywrite a phone number, dialing which, would lure them into Joker’s conspiracy.

3. The main motive was to bring people into the world of Gotham city. A newspaper called ‘The Gotham Times’ was published with info, clues and hidden messages.

4. The campaign got people out on the streets running a fictional election for a fictional candidate with a microsite called, IBelieveinHarveyDent, as their hub for the campaign. Vote cards were sent out to people in the mail and a city news website was created. This website served as a place where various versions of stories were told and information was exchanged.

5. A clown travel agency was opened and the first ones to reach there were given a cell phone, a bowling ball and a joker card. The joker cake was also a huge hit, wherein on a cake was a phone number and inside was a phone with more clues. A group dedicating batman was also created.

6. All these clues eventually led the people to gather in Chicago and New York City where they watched the Bat Signal being lit up on the city skyline. On the very wings of Batman came another signal which read ‘HA HA HA’, the main words of the Joker. Immediately, all the online portals were hacked by the same red words which read ‘HA HA HA’ depicting the Joker’s presence in the Gotham city.

Other than this a lot of microsites were rolled out, people started generating content in the form of videos and audios through the clues they were receiving, and the whole experience of bringing people together, that too live, was the masterstroke.

Takeaways:

• While targeting an audience through more than one medium, they were able to have cross-media convergence. From London to the Middle East, to Pennsylvania to India, all the countries participated, thus gaining a global presence for the movie.

• Their campaign had an integrated approach i.e. there was a perfect blend of traditional and digital marketing that went viral.

• The character of the Joker that was played by Heath Ledger, who passed away in 2008, disheartened a lot of fans. But, 42 Entertainment managed to tackle the stress that was building up because of this, and completely avoided the term death every time the Joker was portrayed.

• It’s the audience that helped the marketing agency create a worldwide buzz for the movie. Let’s not forget the fact that the whole concept and sole focus was to gather audience no matter whose side they choose.

• The 360-degree alternate reality experience that was played out, generated incredible passion amongst the fans setting a new benchmark for immersive entertainment, getting more press and excitement.

Results:

The dark knight was the highest grossing film of 2008, with the tickets, being sold out in 3 hours of commencement in the US. The marketing scheme was able to gather an unprecedented level of anticipation and buzz among the fans and won a lot of awards for this strategy. A lot of movies were being released in the year 2008, but Entertainment 42 somehow managed to leave its footsteps in the minds of the people. Would they be able to replicate the whole thing or do something even better for any other movie remains a question.