Local, Regional Market: Budget over $1 Million
April 6, 2009
Increasingly, Hollywood studios are looking to spawn cultural phenomena by offering
audiences an “immersive” experience into the lives of movie characters. For Warner Bros., that meant giving fans of the Batman series a glimpse into Gotham prior to last
summer’s release of The Dark Knight.
The original film, Batman Begins, was a huge success in 2005. To ramp up excitement
for the sequel, Warner Bros. partnered with Comcast On-Demand to create a fictional cable news program, dubbed “Gotham Tonight.”
A series of six episodes, shot in the reporting style of 20/20, included actual scenes
from The Dark Knight and featured its stars, Anthony Michael Hall (as reporter Mike Engel), Eric Roberts (mob boss Sal Marone) and Aaron Eckhart (Harvey Dent). Each episode included storyline hints and drove viewers to the network’s Web site, Gothamcablenews.com. The final episode aired during the week of the movie premiere
on July 18.
The online push created even more promotional layers. All episodes were housed on the fictional network’s Web site and promoted Comcast as the real broadband provider within Gotham City. The studio, meanwhile, used its alternate reality game to tie in with the movie by providing new coverage of events from the film, such as Harvey Dent’s district attorney election, Batman sightings and escalating crime in Gotham. For extra Bat buzz, the studio had its site “taken over” by the Joker just prior to the release of the film.
Holy box-office hit, Batman! The Dark Knight topped Spider-Man 3 for the biggest opening weekend in history, at $155.34 million, and is the second highest-grossing film of all time behind Titanic. Comcast’s promotional tactics delivered $30 million in media value for the film, supplementing traditional merchandising at retailers including Best Buy, Circuit City and Wal-Mart.
Once Verizon Wireless identified a growth opportunity in the African American market,
it needed a promotion that would draw the interest of African American consumers and increase their interaction with their mobile phones. The answer came ringing from Momentum Worldwide in the form of “How Sweet the Sound,” an 11-city gospel choir competition culminating with a finale in Atlanta.
An application process identified the top eight choirs in each of the 11 markets. Next, those choirs advanced to live regional events at which congregations could send text messages of support and vote for their favorite choirs on large screens. Bins were set up to collect used cell phones, with the proceeds going to local charities, and an artist’s gallery displayed commissioned artwork from local African American artists that could be obtained as phone wallpaper.
Community attendance at the regional events and finale was encouraged through low ticket pricing ($5-$7). Free tickets were given to participating churches. Live simulcast events were hosted in nine markets for those congregation members who could not travel to the finale.
More than three-quarters (78 percent) of the 80,000 event attendees were African American. About a third of these consumers demonstrated increased purchase intent as a result of the promotion.
Talk about a smear campaign. Uni-ball is the category leader in roller/gel pens but faces costcutting threats from other manufacturers. Part of its marketing strategy is to focus on higher margin products like the $2 Jetstream, which uses smear-resistant ink. Last summer, uni-ball tapped NBC Skycastle on a tie-in with NBC Local Media during the 2008 Beijing Olympics. A TV campaign ran in eight markets that humorously depicted the pen’s anti-smear benefits, while a sweepstakes offered a week-long trip for two to the Games. The pen maker received 70,000 contest entries and enjoyed a 5 percent sales increase as a result of the promotion.