The dark knight

The Dark KnightMarketing Campaign

• 42 Entertainment began a viral marketing campaign utilizing the films “Why So Serious?” tagline with the launch of a website featuring the fictional political campaign of Harvey Dent, with the caption “I Believe In Harvey Dent.”

• Aim to interest fans by having them try to earn what they wanted to see

• 42 Entertainment also established a vandalized version of I Believe In Harvey Dent

• Replaced with many “Haha”s and a hidden message that said “see you in December”

42 Entertainment

• The Dark Knight centred around teasing the film

• Warner has a well-known franchise, an established fan base and a built in trailer in ‘Batman Begins’

• Advertising The Dark Knight gave little of the actual story away, focusing instead on other aspects of the movie.

• Warner devoted a much bugger chunk of it efforts to developing supplementary online material that could be spread virally, building on the storylines, the Gotham City setting and characters such as the Joker and Harvey Dent

Posters

Viral Marketing• In 2007 Warner Bro set up a viral

marketing campaign by setting up a fake newspaper called ‘The Gotham Times’.

• An online document made to look real but also had hard copies of this newspaper to help promote the film.

• The site aimed to interest fans by having them earn what they want to see (emails sent by fans slowly removed pixels, revealing the first official image of the joker).

• http://www.thegothamtimes.com/

• San-Diego Comic-Con International, 42 Entertainment launched WhySoSerious.com, sending fans on a scavenger hunt to unlock a teaser trailer and a new photo of the Joker.

• 31 October 2007, the films website did another scavenger hunt with hidden messages, instructing fans to uncover clues at certain locations in major cities throughout the USA and to take photographs of their discoveries.

• The clues combined to reveal a new photo of the Joker and an audio clip of him from the film saying “And tonight, you’re gonna break your one rule.”

Viral Marketing

Viral Marketing

• Completing the scavenger hunt led to another website called Rory’s Death Kiss, where fans could submit photographs of themselves costumed as the joker.

• Those who sent photos were mailed a copy of a fictional newspaper called ‘The Gotham Times’, whose electronic version led to the discovery of numerous other websites.

Merchandise – Burger King• Fast food franchise, ‘Burger King’

lined up with ‘The Dark Knight’ to produce a burger called the ‘Dark Whooper’

• Followed with a series of adverts of Berger King customers doing bad things branding the words ‘bring out your dark side’ to go with the films name.

• Burger King franchise also designed a kids menu which came wit ha free toy of different characters from The Dark Knight.

Merchandise

• The film in line with Warner Bros released a range of official merchandise so fans could purchase from their online website

• This ranged from mugs to costumes/clothing.

• After the death of Heath Ledger (22 January 2008) Warner Bros adjusted its promotional focus to the joker

• Dedicated to promoting the film and posting memorial tribute to Ledger on the film’s official website and overlaying a black memorial ribbon on the photo collage in WhySoSerious.com

Heath Ledger

• Warner Bros. delivered a stronger PR effort for The Dark Knight. This was illustrated most visibly in the final 3 weeks build up to the weekend release

• Successive waves of stories about the film helped to build buzz and create demand for the important weekend

• Started off with news of record advance tickets sales, followed by speculations about Heath Ledger being nominated for an Oscar.

• The Dark Knight managed the unexpected death of Heath Ledger with a high degree of tact and skill.

• Insiders at the studio comment that his tragic passing became a big boost for the film’s awareness levels

• The awareness of the film reached extraordinary levels and interest in seeing the film increased roughly 20%

Heath Ledger

Film Premiere • The world premier of The Dark Knight

was not a traditional red carpet, it was black in honour of the late Heath Ledger

• The cast also dressed in dark colours • Inside the premier an orchestra

preformed extracts from the films score, complete with a light show of Batman signal.

• Outside the premier, the iconic ‘Batmobile’ was shown

Teaser Trailer

• A theatrical teaser was also released with non-IMAX showings of I Am Legend

• The sequence was released on the Blu-Ray Disc edition of Batman Begins on 8 July 2008

• The teaser trailer was no longer than a minute and consisted of the batman logo in front of a bright light

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWw0ov-cAUg

The Dark Knight - Official Trailer