Sunday
15Jun2008
Marketing 'The Dark Knight'
Sunday, June 15, 2008 at 2:48PM
The rest of the summer is pretty much just a collection
of things to pass the time until we get to
The Dark Knight. That's not meant to slight
Wall-E or Wanted or Hancock or Hellboy, but let's be
honest, if everybody had to choose between any of those and The Dark Knight,
there'd be one jam packed theater and a bunch of nearly empty ones.
Last but not least - although there are probably dozens more
tie-ins we could mention -
Reese's has redesigned their famous peanut
butter cup into the shape of the Bat symbol.
As part of the campaign, The Joker is "calling all
Henchmen to put an end to Reese's bat shaped candy." The website features
periodically updated videos of various methods of, uh, discarding the world's
most delicious chocolate and peanut butter confection.
The great thing about all of these products, from the
studio's perspective, is all the free advertising the film gets from the
tie-ins, whether they're point of purchase displays, commercials, or just simply
on the shelves. Now, you're saying, "What's the big deal? Every movie does
this." That's certainly true, but I think this film has a higher Q score
(marketing lingo for the measure of a brand's appeal based on awareness and
favorability) than any movie this year, with the possible exception of
Indiana Jones. I don't think you can make a case for anything else until Harry
Potter comes along.
So, here's a product millions of people can't wait for
in the first place, that has set itself apart from the rest of the summer movies
with its viral marketing, has a higher level of curiosity among fence riders
because of Heath Ledger's death, and it's in every grocery store and cell phone
store and toy store in the country.
So the question is: At this point, is the marketing and
merchandising moving the needle for The Dark Knight, or is The Dark Knight still
selling itself and all these products? If it's the latter, then we're going to
see a huge payday for everyone, especially DC Comics and Warner Bros.
Finally, in related news, I hear Fox will offer vomit
bags emblazoned with Eddie Murphy's face for the theatrical run of Meet Dave.
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