Buzz in the blogosphere is that Warner Bros has really hit the ball out of the viral park (sounds gross doesn't it?) with their online promotion for the new Batman: The Dark Knight movie.
The Dark Knight will be released in 2008, so this movie is still in production. Keep that in mind as you check out this stellar viral effort that was compiled from a few outdoor ad buys, four static websites and a couple of stills. (This run down is brought to you by my friend Lisa with some insider info as well as Pronet Advertising, who has a great summary of the online component of the effort.)
1. Awhile ago a static site, featuring just the image at left appeared online.
2. Recently, unbranded posters featuring the image at right appeared in some major cities (LA is confirmed). Around the same time, the static Dark Knight site began to link through to the I Believe In Harvey Dent website, which featured an identical image.
3. Within 48 - 72 hours, all of the posters in major cities were defaced to resemble the image seen at the URL I Believe in Harvey Dent Too (at left). If you went to that URL the site would ask for your email address. After you submitted (reusabale database anyone?) you were sent an email with the coordinates for a pixel that you could remove
from the site.
4. With users able to remove just one pixel each, a viral effort was underway to spread the word to get others to register and remove a pixel. In less than a day, thousands and thousands of unique visitors had visited the site to remove a pixel - ultimately revealing the face of the new Joker, Heath Ledger.
5. It doesn't stop there. If you visit I Believe In Harvey Dent Too now, you get a black error page with a message "Page not found." But, if you highlight the page with your mouse you see the message at left - an almost unending series of Ha ha ha's.
6. If you truncate those Ha ha's, the only letters left read "See You In December."
7. In case you're curious, www.seeyouindecember.com has already been bought by 42 Entertainment. What's more, Joker cards have started appearing at bookstores and other highly trafficked locales in various cities. Stay tuned for details friends, this thing ain't over.
GOD DAMN THAT'S COOL!!! I've never been a big fan of the Batman series myself, but this is the sort of thing that makes me want to go and see it. It's unreal that this entire viral component has been concocted out just a handful of assets and some basic Web 1.0 concepts. Just goes to show all those agencies and clients out there that you don't need a ton of money, or fancy microsites with flash components to make something go viral - just a die hard fan base and a really f'ing creative idea.
1/8/08 UPDATE - The comments on this post have been closed due to a shockingly high number of spam comments coming in. If you have something to share, email me directly and I will gladly post for you. Apologies!
This is starting to remind me of Snakes On A Plane except in this instance I think the actual end-product will be better. Wonder if fans will start to lose interest over time.
Posted by: Matt Haverkamp | May 22, 2007 at 02:18 PM
Funny, I also had a Snakes on a Plane type deja vu with this! Maybe studios are finally figuring out how to create some of the hype that SoaP got organically.
I too wonder if it will lose steam or if they have enough gas in the tank to turn this viral push into a die-hard LOST-type craze around creative teasers for the loyal.
Posted by: Catch Up Lady | May 22, 2007 at 02:26 PM
Thanks for the recap, post and links. Smart, simple idea, indeed!
Posted by: Tim Brunelle | May 23, 2007 at 12:10 AM
This is legendary. I don't know whether to be amazingly impressed or freaked out that someone sat down, figured this out, and then a whole world of people were nerdy enough to figure out that it necessitated a group effort. In any case, I'm just nerdy enough to realize that this is possibly the coolest viral campaign...ever...
Posted by: Liz | May 23, 2007 at 08:43 AM
"Coolest viral ever"? "God Damn this is cool"? 42 Entertainment did a MUCH more interesting job with the latest Nine Inch Nails Album "Year Zero". Granted, they've still got lots of time to make something interesting out of this. But I'd HARDLY call this "hitting this out of the park".
Posted by: Cowboy John | May 23, 2007 at 10:36 AM
Probably a dumb question - What does the 'truncate those hahaha's' mean? How do you do that?
Posted by: h0l1yw0od | May 23, 2007 at 06:43 PM
The easiest way I found to truncate the text is to copy and paste all of the text into Notepad. Then go to Edit>Replace. In the find field, type "ha" (no quotes), and type absolutely nothing in the replace field. Then click replace all. Do the same thing again, only erase "ha" and type a single space.
Posted by: Jeff Carlsen | May 24, 2007 at 01:52 AM
God damn that's cool. I'm glad someone asked the truncate question :)
Posted by: rebecca | May 24, 2007 at 06:02 AM
Yup, I did the same thing you did in word. Highlighted all the text and copied over, then did Ctrl+F and Replaced Ha with nothing. :)
I'm keeping an eye on that see you in December URL. I'll bet they're going to do an ARG with this (based on 42's experience). Should be cool to see where it goes.
Posted by: Catch Up Lady | May 24, 2007 at 08:09 AM
Tim --
Warner is simply doing what the Blair Witch Crew did back in 1997. The marketing team (the 2 film makers and a bunch of their friends) seeded a social phenomenon: did three university students disappear in the woods?
They used web mainly for 2 years to feed the phenomenon, then spread into print and cable TV, then national.
What cost them $35,000 to film and market ended up generating $241 million in tickets sales.
Now that's good.
While I do agree with Liz, the nine inch nails campaign was also a mere copy cat of the Blair Witch Project.
Posted by: Joe Szabo | May 24, 2007 at 10:32 AM
Simple, creative and entertaining, and I am not even a batman fan.
Posted by: Herbert | May 25, 2007 at 02:58 PM
There was far more to the year zero experience than web promotion. There was real world interaction and clue drops that had to be use to open new web avenues( see exhibit24.net for the recap). I think it is an evolution of what they did for blair witch. This will most likely be a similar experience. 42ent is all about the total immersion experience
Posted by: NoLifeKing | June 17, 2007 at 03:13 AM
42 Entertainment are a fantastically creative bunch, and I have to echo the thoughts of NoLifeKing and Cowboy John - for them, it isn't even that boundary-pushing. They've had people answering payphones in hurricanes, playing poker in graveyards, being sent into space (well, that's in a year or so, I think) and more besides!
The idea of 'viral marketing' in this context is a bit misleading, I think - it's not just marketing, it's entertainment! And what does 'viral' mean, really, apart from 'cool enough to tell your friends about'? I think these sort of experiences are more about extending the "source text" to create even more fun and intrigue, rather than just shilling for the main brand.
Posted by: Guy Parsons | June 20, 2007 at 05:04 PM
this new wave of marketing is answer to all the people who spend more time online then on T.V.
Posted by: Aurora | September 19, 2007 at 11:28 AM
I heard somewhere that this was the next viral website
http://thegothamtimes.com/
Posted by: Caroline | November 22, 2007 at 01:50 AM