Marketing the Bat

November 26, 2007 6:19 PM

Viral marketing for The Dark Knight kicks it up a notch. The Gotham Times -- Joker's Take -- A Safer Gotham -- Gotham National Bank -- Gotham Police -- Gotham City Rail -- Victim of Crime -- Harvey Dent for DA -- Wanted: Henchman
posted by flarbuse (25 comments total)

Marketing the Bat
posted by DU at 6:24 PM on November 26, 2007 [3 favorites]

Zesti Blue.
posted by tepidmonkey at 6:26 PM on November 26, 2007

Yet again the animated series will kick its ass.
posted by Artw at 6:29 PM on November 26, 2007

The virus has infected MetaFilter.
posted by chunking express at 6:47 PM on November 26, 2007

You gotta admit though, Gotham has a pretty awesome mass transit system. The rail network even reaches out to the airport.
posted by bluejayk at 6:50 PM on November 26, 2007 [3 favorites]

Is this virus a bit like Batman: Digital Justice? Because in retrospect that totally blew and is a bit embarassing.
posted by Artw at 6:51 PM on November 26, 2007

Artw, I must respectfully disagree. That blew on release, as well as in retrospect.
posted by mkhall at 7:12 PM on November 26, 2007

Pepsi Bat?
posted by kittens for breakfast at 7:20 PM on November 26, 2007

Thank you for sharing these advertising opportunities with us.
posted by Avenger at 7:20 PM on November 26, 2007

Digital Justice blew in ways that media science had previously believed impossible.

Before it, the standing belief was that no form of media could blow harder than an equation of C+RMHR, where C=The Cathy comic strip and RMHR is equivalent to Romy & Michelle's High School Reunion.

The Russians were hard at work covertly supporting the production of both the Zippy comic strip and Gigli, in hopes of destroying humanity at a level greater than that of the aforementioned equation. However, the Americans pulled through with Batman: Digital Justice. This stand alone rape of all that is good surpassed any combination ever conceived before it.

And thus, the suck race was won.
posted by rollbiz at 7:30 PM on November 26, 2007 [2 favorites]

I liked the "I Believe in Harvey Dent" line, recalling The Long Halloween and Dark Victory graphic novels. It suggests that the producers have good taste.
posted by SPrintF at 7:56 PM on November 26, 2007

I can't wait for more blurry, incomprehensble, completely fucking useless, boring fight scenes!
posted by stavrogin at 8:19 PM on November 26, 2007

Why are these sites so poorly designed and implemented? Couldn’t the web team figure out how to properly declare the character encoding? They look like the budget for this campaign was about $200.
posted by ijoshua at 8:35 PM on November 26, 2007

They are doing some other things too that sort of fit into this "viral" marketing campaign. I do like the slow reveal of Heath Ledger's Joker on the Empire Online cover. Never before have the fanboy legions been so excited about socks!
posted by gemmy at 9:02 PM on November 26, 2007

Neat as it is, this marketing is pretty much unnecessary; they only had to convey the idea that Christian Bale (Batman Begins–style, not The Machinist–style) will be appearing in this movie. </girlzone>
posted by booksandlibretti at 10:40 PM on November 26, 2007

I know I'm having a "you kids get off my yard" moment, but these really do nothing for me.
Give me a frickin' TRAILER, Nolan. NOW.
I want to see the product. On the screen. Even if it's just 30 seconds, one minute, two minutes.
posted by willmize at 12:57 AM on November 27, 2007

Yeah, because there was no way Batman fans would have gone to see this otherwise.
posted by Smedleyman at 3:09 AM on November 27, 2007

also which features a recruitment test for being one of the joker's henchmen.. and a list of locations in the states with something worth looking out for...?
posted by Dillonlikescookies at 3:11 AM on November 27, 2007

I just got around to seeing Batman Begins a few weeks ago when upgraded to HD.

What the hell was up with Christian Bale's Batman voice?
posted by unsupervised at 4:34 AM on November 27, 2007

It was deep.
posted by ghastlyfop at 4:40 AM on November 27, 2007

Zippy

I hope you mean Ziggy, because Zippy the Pinhead is a friend of mine. I like monosodiumglutinates, too.
posted by Sparx at 6:20 AM on November 27, 2007

I want to join in the hate for all things advertising and mainstream (I had a 'Batman vs. Trent Reznor' joke all lined up and everything) and the 'new thing sucks in comparison to old thing which was never actually cool at all' fun, but I can't because Batman rules all day long. Sorry fellas.
posted by Uther Bentrazor at 6:39 AM on November 27, 2007

Couldn’t the web team figure out how to properly declare the character encoding?

Yeah, the target audience definitely screams "Unicode Required". It's a Batman movie. Hopefully it will be decent and the effort they've put into this alternate reality seems like it's worth it.
posted by yerfatma at 6:50 AM on November 27, 2007

This has actually garnered my interest, when I've been pretty indifferent about Bats for a while... though it's not as sucky-in as the Cloverfield marketing which I think now owns my living soul. (Mmmm Slusho)
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 9:37 AM on November 27, 2007

A Complete List Of Things That Are Awesomer Than Batman:

Thank you.
posted by beaucoupkevin at 4:31 PM on December 1, 2007