Batman – The dark Knight

Marketing Campaign

Film Posters

Viral marketing • In the run up to ‘The dark Knight’ Warner Bros

set up a fake newspaper called ‘The Gotham Times’. This was an online interactive document. But in Chicago hard copies of the newspaper were given out to help promote the film.• Warner Bros even set up a site for the paper (

http://www.thegothamtimes.com) which aimed to interest fans by having them earn what they wanted to see. The first official image of the Joker was revealed by pixels slowly being removed after emails sent by fans were received.

• During the 2007 San Diego Comic-Con International, 42 Entertainment launched ‘WhySoSerious.com’.

• Why So Serious?" was designed as a 360° alternate reality experience that played out over 15 months leading up to the release of The Dark Knight. Spilling out over a multitude of different platforms, this deep immersive campaign recruited the audience to become real citizens of Gotham City. Over 11 million unique participants in over 75 countries fueled the rise of the Joker as henchmen, campaigned for Harvey Dent to get elected as District Attorney, and even took the law into their own hands by becoming copycat Batman vigilantes. From calling phone numbers written in the sky, to hunting down GPS coordinates to find mobile phones baked inside of birthday cakes, "Why So Serious?" was an experience like no other. As these fans collectively scoured the globe in search of clues, their incredible passion generated billions of impressions in the press and blogosphere setting a new benchmark for immersive entertainment.

WWW.WhySoSerious.com

Ibelieveinharveydent.com• Another website set up to promote the film

was the Harvey Dent for District Attorney Website (Ibelieveinharveydent.com) based around an election only existing in Gotham city. But the website was quickly defaced. Fans quickly realised that they could erase certain pixels from the site. This revealed a image of the joker. The site actually managed to get fans out on the streets supporting Harvey dent (a fictional character in a fictional election). When election time came voter registration cards were sent out in the mail

• On the week of The Dark Knight premier hundreds of ‘Gotham city Citizens’ gathered in down town New York, and at 10pm the bat signal was shown on the side of a building. But in front of there eyes it was defaced by the joker himself.