COOL STUFF

Viral Recap: The Dark Knight's Why So Serious Campaign

by Alex Billington
February 26, 2009
Source: Alternate Reality Branding

One of my favorite experiences of last year was participating in the viral marketing game for The Dark Knight. If you read this site during the six or so months leading up to TDK, you're probably already very familiar with every little aspect of it. But if you didn't read the site, or just want to see a good recap of the whole thing, the guys over at Alternate Reality Branding have put together a really slick video recapping the various elements of the ARG (alternate reality game). I'm one of those people who believes that viral marketing, when used properly, is a brilliant way to nurture fan loyalty and gain immense buzz.

This video is being referred to as somewhat of a calling card for 42 Entertainment, the company behind all this viral marketing. It wasn't put together by them (I think?), but it does do a great job of showing just how incredible this viral was and the impact that it had. Considering The Dark Knight just crossed the $1 billion mark at the box office last week, the proof of its effectiveness is in those numbers. Check it out:

Early last year, before this viral had even really picked up, I wrote an article titled Why The Dark Knight's Viral Marketing is Absolutely Brilliant. It received a tremendous amount of both positive and negative feedback and set somewhat of a precedent regarding my interaction in the viral from that point forward. Interestingly enough, the whole ARG became even more interactive soon after and became even more brilliant in the last few months before The Dark Knight hit theaters. And as you can see in this video, it really got huge numbers of fans quite excited, more than any other viral campaign has previously.

This isn't another article about why viral marketing is good or bad, but this video just goes to show that it's not useless marketing that riles of up fans to no effect. Maybe it just takes a good guided recap like this for some people to understand the bigger picture and get an idea for just how elaborate this game was. In fact, that video didn't even touch upon half of the more meticulous aspects of the viral and all of the mini games involved with it, but that doesn't really matter. I think they still did a great job of explaining it all under 5 minute. And special thanks to Film School Rejects for first finding this video and sending it our way.

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