Welcome to a world without LULZ.
Ever heard of the term Viral Marketing? 42Entertainment has. They damn near invented it. Back in 2005, before Halo 2 came out they were the main team promoting the game and barely anyone knew about it. They led fans to real world locations and random websites where fans had no idea if anything even connected to the Halo universe. At the end of the game, fans got a chance to play Halo 2 before anyone inside of empty movie theaters across the country. 42 has also led awesome campaigns promoting Nine Inch Nail’s album, “Year Zero” & The Steven Spielberg film “A.I.”
When it comes to promotion, I don’t think any of us had ever seen anything like it & we didn’t know if we ever would again. It was brilliant, there was some amazing minds behind all of it. Turns out it would show up again, but this time we had no idea what we were in store for.
The ever amazing team behind the viral marketing campaign (which I will have a full write-up of soon) for this summer’s sure-to-be-hit, The Dark Knight, led fans to yet another part of the game this last week. Two new websites popped up on April 23rd, the first was a list of corrupt cops who had fled Gotham City, the second detailed The Gotham City Hotel and even gave out a phone number to call the front desk (This will play a big part later). The fictional Gotham City Police Department claimed to have info regarding the whereabouts of all the former police officers on the list. They all had reservations at The Gotham City Hotel with packages en route to their room. Fans were told to call the front desk of The Gotham City Hotel & convince the concierge that they were in fact the person whom the package was addressed to but they had to change their plans at the last minute, they then gave their real world address and had a package mailed to them the next day.
The package contained a cellphone, a cell phone charger, a few notes detailing instructions for the fans and a Joker card. Shortly after all the packages had been mailed out, a new joker website popped up. The website, an extension of the Joker’s already established site WhySoSerious.com revealed the new official poster for the film, seemingly rewarding the fans for completing the task put forward by the G.C.P.D.
The website where the poster originated, one of the many ‘Jokerized’ WhySoSerious sites, has been updated and it seems something big is going down on Monday. I, on behalf of TheFour11, and one of my comrades in San Francisco will be leading the charge in solving the scavenger hunt. One at the actual location, one at home on a computer. It all points to us getting a new full trailer on Today. Happy Hunting.
