PRINTBuilding the suspense
Theatrical trailers are no longer enough for some fans
Illustration by Meredith Purcell
June 26, 2008 | 12:00 a.m. CST
In the wake of primary season, hype around a new candidate has emerged.
His runaway campaign for district attorney in the crime-ravaged metropolis of Gotham City has attracted national attention. His groundbreaking online voting system has reached many constituents throughout the municipal elections. Videos and letters have flooded in from people expressing their support.
Related ArticlesHis name is Harvey Dent. He is a fictional character, but his campaign Web site is real and the result of a viral marketing campaign for the Batman sequel The Dark Knight, in which his character appears.
Viral marketing, as defined by Harvard Business School professor Jeffrey Rayport, is a strategy designed to engage consumers and give them incentive to spread a brand’s message. Participants immerse themselves in these virtual worlds and collaborate with other fans.
Viral marketing has evolved into an all-inclusive undertaking with the introduction of alternate reality games, or ARGs, which use Web sites and real-world events to involve fans in fictional worlds. Fans can participate in live and online events, and their actions in the real world can impact how the alternate reality plays out, fully drawing them in to Gotham City and Cloverfield’s version of New York City. Susan Bonds, president of 42Entertainment, a company that produces ARGs to promote creative works, helped create her first ARG for the movie A.I.
“It didn’t start out as a marketing tool,” Bonds says. “It started as a way to create a world that plays across platforms.”
ARGs are designed to keep fans guessing and reward them for their participation in the creative work. 42Entertainment created an ARG with Trent Reznor for Nine Inch Nails’ dystopian concept album, Year Zero. USB drives were left at various concert venues and led fans to a series of Web sites that revealed the album’s back story. Fans who solved the online puzzles were rewarded with a link to download the album for free. “I think it allowed people to immerse themselves in the music and the album on a completely different level of engagement where they really felt they were doing things that impacted that world,” says Alex Lieu, a 42Entertainment creative director.
The Dark Knight has taken the ARG to a new level of complexity. Promoters have built alternate universes with branches in both the digital and the real world in an effort to make Gotham City as real as possible. There have also been promotional events, the most recent being a scavenger hunt in 12 major cities. Participants collaborated to crack codes, some involving cakes with secret messages and cell phones with texts leading to the next location. The reward for completing some of these challenges was a screening of the prologue for the movie.
Other films have also featured ARGs. The original trailer for Cloverfield included a release date but no title. This sent fans on a hunt for information about the film. The ARG also included links to some of the fictional Japanese companies featured in the film.
Alex Billington, executive editor of the film marketing Web site FirstShowing.net, has been following and participating in the ARGs for The Dark Knight. “When you give fans the ability to get this involved, they end up becoming much more passionate, much more supportive of the film in every way,” he says. “They’re gonna tell more people, and the idea becomes way bigger.”
Billington has participated in several promotional events, including a campaign rally for Harvey Dent. “All these people were having a great time participating in something that in essence was completely fake,” he says. “Gotham City doesn’t really exist, but everyone who participates loves the idea of believing in Gotham City and participating in this world as it exists.”
The Harvey Dent campaign is a bold example of how participation in ARGs can create tangible results in that other world. “Dentmobiles” brimming with Dent campaign promoters even made their way to Columbia in March, handing out bumper stickers and T-shirts outside of Shakespeare’s Pizza. “We actually caught them right when they came as we were leaving Shakespeare’s,” says Rosa Sow, an MU student. “I really like Batman, so I was like, ‘Hey, hook me up!’ They were pretty intense about staying with their theme. They were like, ‘Who’s Batman?’ and stayed in their character.” All of this adds to the excitement of seeing the film in theaters.
“If you’ve gone to a good movie, you don’t want that movie to end,” Bonds explains. “If they’ve done a good job building up that world, you want to spend more time in it.”
