Dark Knight, Greatest Viral Marketing Campaign....

So like the rest of America I am going to see Dark Knight, and from all the reviews I can’t wait. Although the movie looks promising their interactive movie-marketing campaign has already delivered. What am I talking about you might ask, offline it seemed business as usual:

• Promoting the movie with commercial a year in advance (check)
• Commercials published on youtube (check)
• Pizza commercials endorsing the movie (check, check)

However if you took a closer look, Warner Bros. took an untraditional awareness-building maneuvers and starting the film’s promo push strategically.
Billboards arrived without explanation in more than a dozen major cities, with two simple call lines, “Harvey Dent for district attorney” and “I believe in Harvey Dent”. Within 72 hours, each billboard had been defaced with by identical graffiti: The candidate’s eyes were scrawled over with black rings, his lips crudely rouged with a smeary, clown-like grin.


An online version of the fictional newspaper The Gotham Times arrived and was followed by numerous websites, including a defaced Joker version of the paper called The Ha Ha Ha Times and even a website for the Gotham City Rail with a subway map of the city.
Then arrived a new page appeared at whysoserious.com/steprightup with a hammer game and some teddy bear toys. Each toy had an address on it located in a number of cities around the US. The note on the game told people to go to that address and say their name was "Robin Banks" (yes "Robbing Banks") and they'd get something there. It was first come, first serve, and each location was a bakery. What they were given was a cake with a phone number written on it. Now here's the best part: inside the cake was an evidence bag (complete with Gotham City Police printing) that contained a cell phone, a charger, a Joker playing card and a note with instructions. They got people armed with cell phones ready to go out and do whatever the Joker asks. It didn’t stop there clues spelled out in skywriting, secret meeting points were arranged, Internet red herrings, DIY fan contests and even fake political rallies.

Now if all of this has your head spinning, trust me I was in awe at the level of creativity that came oozing out of the genius who created a tangible marketing ploy. Viral marketing at its fundamental is about giving your audience a cultural event that lets people become part of the experience and connect emotionally. With weekend sales beating out Spidey, and I def see that the "ploy" paid off.

What do you think, have you tried anything as creative and would love to share?