The viral marketing campaign for "The Dark Knight", the latest installment of the 'Batman' franchise, is in need of a makeover. In light of the tragic death of actor Heath Ledger, the film's 'Joker', Warner Brothers is looking to rework the campaign to put less emphasis on the late star.
The campaign, started nearly a year before the film's July 2008 release, is perhaps the strongest viral marketing campaign for a film to date. It began in the summer of 2007, in which a cryptic website, www.whysoserious.com, sent websurfers on a wild goose chase for small clues pertaining to the film. It also revealed, upon much tooling, early photos of Ledger as Joker, a much anticipated role. Other aspects of the campaign included sending out promotional copies of the fictional newspaper, "the Gotham Gazette", to members of the press, and which led them on a quest to discover a hidden cell phone, which led to a press pass, which then took them to a press conference, all pertaining to the film's plot and ultimate release. If not evident in my description, this is a viral marketing campaign unlike any other. The extent to which the movie studio is relying on the hype that viral campaigns build is astounding.
The blog circuit anticipates that the campaign will be re-worked to emphasize the heroic role of Batman, building off of clues from the studio. While the nature of Ledger's role in the film is nothing short of disturbing, to keep emphasis of the marketing campaign on him provides the role with an even more chilling basis. The poster pictured above is the latest for the film, with obvious emphasis on the big reveal of the Joker. It is being pulled as promotional material for the time being, according to Variety. The release date for the film is still on track, and much of the campaign has already gone underway, but it seems that "The Dark Knight" might be going in a new direction.
Thoughts? I personally was shocked to hear about Ledger's death, and think that the buzz on his role in the Batman film will become even more deafening as we get closer to the summer.
7 comments:
I too was really shocked when I heard about Ledger's death. I am still interested to know what exactly happened. I have heard all the stories with the sleeping pills, etc., but there are still a lot of unanswered details. I think it is going to have a positive outcome for the movie, but the whole story is really sad. He left behind a little girl which is the saddest part of all of it.
I'm interested to see what the marketers for this film will present in the months to come. It's so ironic that this movie was so heavily based on the Joker character, and now the tragic death of Heath Ledger. This was supposed to be another break through role for him, showing his talents as an actor by stepping in the BIG shoes of Jack Nicolson. I can see how they would make changes in their advertising, being that this was supposed to portray such a dark, disturbing role.
The viral marketing campaign for this movie is insane. I think if you go to the wikipedia page they list like at least 12 sites that are associated with the movie, and I'm sure there are more out there. This will be interesting to see how it affects viewers of the movie, and the people that made it too.
I didn't realize how much viral marketing the production was using. It is really working though because of all the hype. I think it was tasteful for them to pull the poster with Ledger on it for the time being in light of his tragic death.
Ditto to everyone else's comments. His death is sad and unexpected, but not to sound insensitive, I'm done with all the news about him. I feel overly saturated with Heath Ledger at the moment and although it's tragic, I only want REAL updates.
As for his career, I think it'll flourish now more so than when he was alive. Isn't that the way it always works?.... If for some strange reason all the hype for his new movie is just that and in actually its not that good, it won't matter- it'll still bring in the millions. I'm going to call this one... :)
Keep up the good work.
It's interesting to see just how permeant digital memory has become in our everyday lives. It's like everywhere I turn, I see something with a card slot or USB port, lol. I guess it makes sense though, considering how inexpensive memory has become as of late...
Gahhhh, I shouldn't be complaining. I can't make it through a day without using my R4 / R4i!
(Submitted from SPPost for R4i Nintendo DS.)
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