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Thursday, May 24, 2007

Mass Interactive: Dark Knight Infects

Muhammad Saleem at Pronet details a fresh viral from Warner Bros.

First, the company made a website for The Dark Knight, and put nothing on the page but a graphic.


Because people have been anticipating the movie so much, just the fact that they had put a site up for it got people excited. But when you click the image on the site, you are redirected to another site
, with the following graphic and that's all.


After that, yet another site pops up, also (mockingly) in support of Harvey Dent and apparently defaced by the Joker.


However, this time there's a catch. User's can interact with the site, and each user, by entering an email address and a verification code, can receive an email which gives the user (X,Y) coordinates that when entered into a link (also included in the email) will remove one pixel from the defaced poster to reveal an image.


But since participation is limited to one user and one pixel removal per email address, the average user will only be able to participate once. And since every ardent fan is desperate to see what lies beneath, it is in the best interest of every fan to spread the word as much as possible and to get the process going faster and faster so that we can all see what lies beneath. At this point the users undoubtedly take matters into their own hands, start spreading the word and try to get other users to participate and remove pixels.


As you can see, the campaign has successfully become viral and the Warner advertising machine rejoices. Not only have the various sites been submitted to socially driven communities, but there have been incoming links from a multitude of film sites and blogs alike. Within a matter of hours, we have the following reconstruction of the final image:

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

great minds think alike!

http://blog.ideacity.com/2007/05/24/bringing-us-batman/

so... having worked with the film industry before, how is it that the ultimate in conservative blockbuster mass audience biz folks have turned the corner? While our industry is still mostly anchored to the tv commercial?

AKI SYSTEMS 2600 said...

One partial answer to why some industries have "turned the corner" faster than us...THEY OPERATE FASTER AND ON LOWER BUDGETS. Like spoiled children, advertisers have grown up having been afforded long lead schedules, big-ass budgets, and armies of staff to squirt out a fanciful spot at the end. Movies, despite their out-of-control production budgets and mega-media spend (for big blockbusters, at least) leave little monies for the "creative" development and so these creatives have grown up thinking big splash ideas, thinking fast on their feet and solving problems cheaply. And being accountable. I think Adam Chorney, here, has championed the term "creativity loves constraints". Such constraints are new notions for most advertisers and some are adapting and blossoming creatively...while others are missing those "good ol' days". The misty-eyed memorials for those "good ol' days" may cloud the view of the huge potential of our good now days.

Anonymous said...

Now that is a decent idea!

Anonymous said...

the plot thickens!

more campaign developments here