Cool viral marketing campaign for the next Batman movie

[wienerdog]

Apparently, there has been a big viral marketing push for the next Batman film.

First, earlier this year, WB launched this site http://thedarkknight.warnerbros.com/
which is a link to:
http://ibelieveinharveydent.warnerbros.com/

http://ibelieveinharveydent.warnerbros.com/

There were posters around some cities with some "graffiti" like this:
http://catchupblog.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2007/05/22/batman3.jpg

Apparently, there was a form to submit an email address, and when you registered, you received the ability to "remove pixels" from the image there to reveal the look of the Joker:
http://catchupblog.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2007/05/22/batman4.jpg

If you visit http://ibelieveinharveydenttoo.com, you get a black error page with a message "Page not found." But, if you highlight the text, you see an almost unending series of Ha ha ha's. If you paste the text into Word and replace all the "ha"s with blanks, you'll be left with text that reads "See you in December." Since the movie doesn't come out until next summer, there must be an Alternate Reality Game going on this winter.

Then, over this past weekend, San Diego hosted the Comic-con, a big show for comics, Hollywood, and geek culture.

Apparently, a bunch of clues were given out throughout the San Diego area (including some sky writing of "Ha ha ha ha ha...") to go to a website (www.whysoserious.com - now transfers to a different site), look up some clues, and call this phone number: 1-800-395-9646 (which is real creepy). It lead the players to show up at a specific place at the Comic-con, where they were told to put on make-up (as long as they were 18 and over). They were apparently recruited into the Joker's gang, and a new website was launched: http://www.rent-a-clown.com/

It's been made to look like a low-rent Rent-a-clown business, with Comic-con attendees shown as clowns you can hire (and clearly never would!). Creepy cool. The site's page has HTML comments of "hahahaha" with "hidden" characters that spell out "made you look."

I LOVE stuff like this. They go to a lot of trouble for viral marketing most people don't hear about, but I guess it helps promote the movie and spread the word-of-mouth buzz.

Pretty nifty. I look forward to seeing what they have coming in December.

[MikeTheVike]

i think the viral marketing is awesome, but I wonder how many people actually know about it...

[wienerdog]

i think the viral marketing is awesome, but I wonder how many people actually know about it...

Not many, but I think they do this because word-of-mouth buzz has a lot of value, and this is a surefire way to generate it. They get people who are hardcore into this to brag to friends about it.

[CkretAjint]

I lve stuff like this too, cause it shows they are actually thinking about creative ways to promote the movie coming up, and not just turning them out as fast as possible to make a buck... *thumbs up*

[D-Frag]

I took part in some viral marketing once, then my doctor prescribed me a cream and im all better now.

[Patrick Shannon]

Oh, you mean that they came up with ideas other than creating an official MySpace page? Woot.

On the other hand, a Dark Knight friend would go great next to my friends Spiderman 3 and iPod Nano Green.

[wienerdog]

Oh, you mean that they came up with ideas other than creating an official MySpace page? Woot.

On the other hand, a Dark Knight friend would go great next to my friends Spiderman 3 and iPod Nano Green.

Oh, don't worry, they're working on the CSS right now. They just don't want to give away too much imagery from the film a year before release. They don't want to wear you out from it too early. I'm sure by spring 08, you'll have plenty of Joker and Batman MySpace content to choose from.

I love some of the slogans seen on trucks used by the Joker gang:
they say "Laughter is the best medicine" but have an "S" spray painted before the "L" so it reads:

"SLaughter is the best medicine"

[budafist]

It would be awesome to work on a campaign like that. The Simpsons Movie one is pretty big too.

[Zendada]

I really like what they did for AI (Kubric’s Artificial Intelligence). It was simply one credit in the trailer that started this wild puzzle that lead through various websites all looking legit... except for the fact that they were all near futuristic.

From IMBD...

As a promotional tool, the creators developed an elaborate internet game of discovery and problem solving, through hidden messages and puzzles in internet sites, telephone answering messages, e-mail accounts and clues in the film's trailers. The game, set in the world of A.I. involved websites registered in several countries around the world as well as telephone numbers from across the US, and a group of followers called "The Cloudmakers" followed the puzzle, sharing information.

Took me a while but I found some of the pages. What they did was added “Sentient Machine Therapist Jeanine Salla” to the credits of the teaser trailer. Googling Jeanine Salla brought up what looked like a legit web site at Bangalor University (http://bangaloreworldu-in.co.cloudmakers.org/salla/default.html). Then it spread from there once you started doing searches on other things in those pages. It was totally wild.

[wienerdog]

I really like what they did for AI (Kubric’s Artificial Intelligence). It was simply one credit in the trailer that started this wild puzzle that lead through various websites all looking legit... except for the fact that they were all near futuristic.

From IMBD...



Took me a while but I found some of the pages. What they did was added “Sentient Machine Therapist Jeanine Salla” to the credits of the teaser trailer. Googling Jeanine Salla brought up what looked like a legit web site at Bangalor University (http://bangaloreworldu-in.co.cloudmakers.org/salla/default.html). Then it spread from there once you started doing searches on other things in those pages. It was totally wild.


I think that's considered one of, if not THE first Alternate Reality Game. Many of them are very time-consuming, and become a hobby of their own. I'm sure there's a target demographic (probably age 15-25) for things like this. The TV show LOST did this to wide reception last year, and it was huge and, of course, incorporated all kinds of corporate promotion to justify all the time/expense.

[captain spanky]

I'm going to ask a silly question../s...

this batman... is it the follow up to batman begins?

i liked the first lot of batman films but batman begins made it a lot more dark,real and just cooler... then i wished they'd just re-do the other films in the same style... is that what this is?

[Two-Toe Tom]

here's a plot summary of the new batman movie: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0468569/plotsummary

it takes place after batman begins and the villain is the joker, so i'm guessing they'll take more liberties with the original storyline like they did in batman begins.

[SpugNothuson]

I like it that they're introducing us to Harvey Dent already, it will make the third installment have more background. :)

[wienerdog]

I like it that they're introducing us to Harvey Dent already, it will make the third installment have more background. :)

I'm wondering if they'll be shoe-horning Two-Face into this movie, or holding off until the 3rd. Two Face may be my favorite Batman villain. The character as written in the Batman Animated Series in the 90s was perfect.