Movie marketing campaigns are some of the most attention-grabbing pieces of marketing. With so much going on, these days movie makers have almost always got to do more than just put out an incredible trailer that leaves viewers desperate for more. You may be surprised at just how wide-reaching these amazing movie marketing campaigns are.
The Dark Knight
This installation of the Christopher Nolan-directed Batman series started its advertising campaign over a year before the film actually came out. The first step was a fake campaign for the politician Harvey Dent that was centred around a very clever website. They also ran scavenger hunts in different cities, created and distributed a fictional newspaper called The Gotham Times and even created cakes with cellphones baked into them that fans could later use to ring up the Joker. They also left Joker playing cards with “HAHA” in comic book stores.
Deadpool
Deadpool really broke the rules when it comes to advertising. It was offbeat, unconventional and quite frankly, borderline inappropriate a lot of the time. They made fun of movie clichés, creating a “teaser for a trailer”, then an actual trailer, then a “12 Days of Deadpool” series of small pieces of content to get viewers ready for the second trailer’s release on Christmas. In total, there were 16 different clips for TV that used almost identical footage in totally different ways. The posters also walked a fine line, with tag lines like “Witness the beginning of a happy ending”, with Deadpool posing seductively on a bearskin rug in front of a roaring fire.
The Fault in Our Stars
This film is based on a book of the same name that was a massive hit with teenagers. If you’re not familiar, it’s a story about two teens with cancer who meet and fall in love. Cue lots of tears and teenage angst. So, the best place for the film version to promote itself was on social media sites that are popular with teens, like Instagram and Tumblr (where it actually hosted its official site). There were plenty of swoon-worthy photos of the stars of the film, as well as peeks behind the scenes and on set in video, GIF and photo format. Author of the book John Green was also allowed to be on set and to share information, and he regularly tweeted out snippets of information that eager fans devoured. The Hunger Games
Jurassic World
We’re pretty sure a sequel to a popular movie series that’s basically about people running away from giant dinosaurs was going to be a hit anyway. I don’t really like action movies, but throw in some pseudo-science and a couple of dinos with big teeth and bigger roars and I’m there! But although Jurassic World came with a built-in fan base and an appealing concept, they had to market it as more than just another sequel. They created a promotional website that was like the theme park website would be if Jurassic World really existed, down to details like the park map, the current temperature on Isla Nublar and dinosaur fact sites.
Paranormal Activity
This scary film generated huge buzz online before being released by using its “found footage” style trailers. It made it seem like a real documentary rather than a fictional film. The trailer showed snippets of tense moments from the movie and quotes about how scary it was, but didn’t reveal much information about the plot itself. It also included audience reactions of people jumping out of their seats and screaming as they watched the movie. On top of that, they also created an online petition where people would sign and ask that the movie came to their local theatre. It’s considered the first time a major studio used this technique to get their marketing campaign to go viral. It was a huge success, and got people talking about the film.
