The Dark Knight
About the dark knightChristopher Nolan’s sequel to 2005’s Batman Begins was released in 2008 and became the highest grossing film of that year, the film was The Dark Knight. It grossed more the $1 billion in cinemas and the Warner Brothers used various forms of marketing for The Dark Knight, they used traditional forms of marketing for the film, which they tend to use for other films. Warner Brothers also used forms of viral marketing and they would also have marketing help from fans of the Batman series due to previous films and the on-going comic book series. DistrubutionThe first sign of The Dark Knight was shown as promotional trailers for the screening of I am Legend. The bank robbery scene was previewed on special IMAX screenings of I am Legend and a promotional short trailer was shown on the non-IMAX screenings. |
For Viral marketing Warner Brothers integrated adverts for the Dark Knight into pre-existing social networking sites such as Facebook to increase brand awareness. Viral adverts came in the form of Flash games, eBooks, software and other forms of media such as images and text. After the death of Heath Ledger shortly after the film had finished, Warner Brothers adjusted promotional focus onto the Joker character. A puzzle was placed on Dark Knight’s site whysoserious.com and whysoserious.com/itsallpartoftheplan, the puzzles were to confuse the target audience to what could happen in the film.
There was also, an advertising platform to promote Harvey Dent a character of the movie, for district attorney. You could go to the website www.ibelieveinharveydent.com where you could sign your loyalty to him. Furthermore, the 'dent mobile' drove around America advertising Harvey Dent. You could be sent a promotion pack showing support for Harvey Dent with badges and posters, which people put all around America, giving free advertising.
Then in order to build suspense the page was defaced as the first images of Heath Ledge as the joker were released. This was a good example of modern viral marketing and traditional print based marketing working well together. Moreover, other websites got involved with the campaign and websites like Rent-a-Clown got fans involved, by allowing fans too upload an image of themselves in the 'joker' makeup. This ensured that the audience can engage directly with the campaign and will help to promote the film through 'word of mouth'.
They then got the fans involved with the campaign by creating a elaborate 'cases' to follow all across the internet. Fans were following the movements of 'the joker' in till they were given a date, time and location where they were told to meet up. It was then that hundreds of fans all across the world arrived in the location in New York (considered to be the real life version of Gotham). The symbol was projected onto the side of the building, and they were rewarded with the first view of the full trailer. This was very important for the campaign as these publicity stunts all created a hype for the film. Furthermore, an edition of the Gotham Times, was released which then was further defaced by the joker this helped to create excitement for the movie, and hype.
There were examples of offline marketing where Warner Bros were available for audience to collect. There was one token for he joker, one for the batman and one was a badge promoting Harvey dent. There were then a range of different posters for the film, with two different themes: one for the batman and one for the joker; which portrayed Batman as made with joker cards.
This as well as, the use of cross-media campaign. Examples of this included: my space, Nokia, got milk? This as well as, the use of media like, total film and Empire Magazine. Also, Warner Bros, Rock Steady Games and DC Comics are a horizontally integrated company so worked together to promote all the Batman products. An example of this is that Batman: Arkham Asylum was helped my the advertising of the movie and the movie was aided by promotion of the game.
Sadly, the tragic loss of Heath Ledger just months before the release of the film , this meant that there was a new host of new attention was given to the film.
links:
http://batman.wikibruce.com/Ibelieveinharveydent.com
http://batman.wikibruce.com/Ibelieveinharveydenttoo.com
There was also, an advertising platform to promote Harvey Dent a character of the movie, for district attorney. You could go to the website www.ibelieveinharveydent.com where you could sign your loyalty to him. Furthermore, the 'dent mobile' drove around America advertising Harvey Dent. You could be sent a promotion pack showing support for Harvey Dent with badges and posters, which people put all around America, giving free advertising.
Then in order to build suspense the page was defaced as the first images of Heath Ledge as the joker were released. This was a good example of modern viral marketing and traditional print based marketing working well together. Moreover, other websites got involved with the campaign and websites like Rent-a-Clown got fans involved, by allowing fans too upload an image of themselves in the 'joker' makeup. This ensured that the audience can engage directly with the campaign and will help to promote the film through 'word of mouth'.
They then got the fans involved with the campaign by creating a elaborate 'cases' to follow all across the internet. Fans were following the movements of 'the joker' in till they were given a date, time and location where they were told to meet up. It was then that hundreds of fans all across the world arrived in the location in New York (considered to be the real life version of Gotham). The symbol was projected onto the side of the building, and they were rewarded with the first view of the full trailer. This was very important for the campaign as these publicity stunts all created a hype for the film. Furthermore, an edition of the Gotham Times, was released which then was further defaced by the joker this helped to create excitement for the movie, and hype.
There were examples of offline marketing where Warner Bros were available for audience to collect. There was one token for he joker, one for the batman and one was a badge promoting Harvey dent. There were then a range of different posters for the film, with two different themes: one for the batman and one for the joker; which portrayed Batman as made with joker cards.
This as well as, the use of cross-media campaign. Examples of this included: my space, Nokia, got milk? This as well as, the use of media like, total film and Empire Magazine. Also, Warner Bros, Rock Steady Games and DC Comics are a horizontally integrated company so worked together to promote all the Batman products. An example of this is that Batman: Arkham Asylum was helped my the advertising of the movie and the movie was aided by promotion of the game.
Sadly, the tragic loss of Heath Ledger just months before the release of the film , this meant that there was a new host of new attention was given to the film.
links:
http://batman.wikibruce.com/Ibelieveinharveydent.com
http://batman.wikibruce.com/Ibelieveinharveydenttoo.com
Release
The release featured an opening sequence shot using IMAX technology, this made it the first time ever that a major feature film take was partially shot using IMAX cameras. It was very successful and broke box office records for IMAX with about $6.3 million from 94 cinemas in the U.S and Canada in the opening weekend. More records were broken as in the US and Canada it was distributed at 4366 cinemas, breaking the record set by Pirates of the Caribbean.
The premiere for 'The Dark Knight' was screened n New York City on July the 14th and on July the 24th in Britain, right at the beginning of the summer holidays.