Dark Knight Viral Marketing TIMELINE
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Written by: Phyllis, HH Admin
*Some Dates May Be Approximate
As reported in earlier threads (Joker Revealed 100% Real Thread), Warner Brothers studios has begun an intensive guerrilla and viral marketing campaign, starting with the opening of their Dark Knight Teaser site.
Below is an easy to follow time line of what has happened so far:
- April 1, 2007 / April Fool's Day (Sunday): Casting sides (script pages used only for auditioning) are leaked onto the internet. They are quickly slammed as fakes and pulled from websites. But on further examination, every first letter of the page's description and dialog spelled out "SEE YOU IN DECEMBER".
- April 19, 20, & 24 (Fri, Sat, & Tues): Fans swarm the filming of Dark Knight in Chicago and get home video and cell phone photos of Heath Ledger as the early Joker. Photos and video were online in less than 24 hours. Warner Brothers was not pleased, but could do nothing since the photos were taken on public streets.
- May 11, 2007 (Friday): Warner Brothers' Official The Dark Knight website is up. It is only a teaser page with a logo and no content.
- May 17, 2007 (Thursday): Visitors to the Official TDK site notice that when they click on the TDK logo, a second Warner Brothers site (I Believe In Harvey Dent.com) comes up. It appears to be a campaign website for Harvey Dent's run for Gotham City District Attorney. Site is also just a teaser site with only a Dent campaign poster on the front page.
A bootleg photo of Heath Ledger as the Joker doing a makeup test hits the internet and has several sites, including Ain't It Cool News touting it as real. WB flatly denies it's legitimate, and an internet geek with too much time on his hands eventually comes clean, not only admitting he made the fake, but showing the photos he used to do it. This has nothing to do with the marketing of DK. - May 18, 2007 (Friday): A new website with an unknown origin is launched, with the name I Believe In Harvey Dent Too.
It has one of the posters from Harvey Dent's campaign on the front page. The poster is defaced with blackened eyes, a giant red smile drawn on with lipstick, and emblazoned with the words "I BELIEVE IN HARVEY DENT, TOO!!!" Site requests visitors enter their email address to get a surprise mailed to them. Participants then received coordinates for one pixel on the poster that they could remove, uncovering what appeared to be a mystery photo underneath. - May 19, 2007 (Saturday): In less than 24 hours after the site was launched, more than 350,000 fans have participated, enough to clear the hidden photo to reveal the first OFFICIAL photo of Heath Ledger as The Joker. Warner Brothers insiders quietly acknowledge that the photo is legitimate.
Upon opening for business the next morning, customers and employees at local Los Angeles and Chicago comic book shops find Joker playing cards mysteriously scattered about the shelves. How they got there, no one knows. (Some Chicago area shops also find sidewalk painting.) But photos of the mystery cards appeared online within hours.
(The LA businesses found the humor in the marketing, but some of the Chicago shop owners have their boxers in a bunch over the fact that WB did not consult them before "strewing the cards all over their stores". Geesh, can you say, "taking yourself too seriously"?
)
- May 21, 2007 (Monday): Although the new IBelieveInHarveyDentToo site that had revealed the Joker pic was up and running on Monday morning, by mid-day visitors to the site began to get an error message, saying "Page Not Found". Upon further examination, it was discovered that by highlighting the entire page, you would find the words HAHA HA HA HAHA HA HA all over the page. Looking closely, you will find letters in the message that don't belong. The letters, in order, spell out the message: "SEE YOU IN DECEMBER". (Just as the supposed fake April Fools Joke script pages had almost 2 months ago.)
(To highlight and see for yourself, visit www.ibelieveinharveydenttoo.com)
And exactly who is behind this BRILLIANT viral marketing push? Finally a question we CAN answer. For the TDK marketing, WB has hired 42 Entertainment, a Seattle-based company that specializes in creating alternate reality games (ARG's). It is known for running some of the highest-expose ARGs for big name companies, such as Microsoft. Their two most famous ARGs are the I Love Bees promotion for Halo 2; and Year Zero, for the Nine Inch Nails album Year Zero. The company uses a three phase, escalating process for getting fans involved, including using hidden clues in websites that fans find & decipher, posting mystery videos on YouTube, and other techniques. 42 Entertainment just registered SeeYouinDecember.com on Tues. May 22nd.
42 Entertainment's techniques rely on participation from fans and internet surfers. So please help me keep an eye out on YouTube and other sites throughout the next year for sneaky hidden messages and videos about the upcoming Dark Knight film.
I don't know about you all, but being both a Heath fan and a Batman fan, I'm having a blast with all this!! And definitely looking forward to some very clever and mysterious year-long foreplay.
The Dark Knight opens in theaters on July 18, 2008.
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Sources:
SHH playing cards
SuperHeroHype
Batman-On-Film Forums
The Dark Knight Official Site (Teaser)
I Believe In Harvey Dent (Teaser)
I Believe In Harvey Dent, Too
42 Entertainment Corporate Website
42 Entertainment Wikipedia page