“Why So Serious?” I Believe in Harvey Dent.”

These are two phrases that have stuck with us over the past year. They really showcase how The Dark Knight marketing unfolded–it was a two-fold approach and both sides of this viral marketing tool worked wonders.

In May 2007, the firm handling the marketing, 42 Entertainment, began IBelieveInHarveyDent.com with a single image of Aaron Eckhart as Dent (this same image would soon appear on flyers, small posters, and t-shirts). Soon after that, IBelieveInHarveyDentToo.com came out with a vandalized or “Jokerized” image of Dent that had a space at the bottom where you could submit your email address. With every email address submitted, a tiny pixel would be removed. In a short, short amount of time (Less than 24 hours later) enough people had submitted their email addresses to the website that all the pixels were gone and we had ourselves our first glimpse of Heath Ledger as the Joker.



The image was on the site a brief time, but long enough for friends to copy the image and add it to their Facebook profiles. The Joker faded away, and a message containing upper and lower-cased “ha”’s were left in its wake, as well as a message saying “See you in December.” Most people took that to mean the release of the teaser trailer, and they were right, although the teaser had no images, just sound-bytes of Bruce, Alfred, and the Joker.
The stupendous success of the movie ‘THE DARK KNIGHT’ lies not just in the adrenaline packed joy ride movie. IT had a brilliant viral campaign that caught the attention of millions. It would be ominous to say that the movie generated much buzz because of Heat Ledger’s death.




When I came across this brilliant campaign I was awed by its sheer creativity and more importantly its EXECUTION. The campaign is a benchmark in letting one understand few important things :

1.The digital media is reaching dizzying heights and companies have to learn to tap this abundant database of knowledge.
2.You don’t need the big bucks for making a campaign successful. Rigid conceptualization and implementation of ideas will ensure the success of your campaign.
3.Get the people involved. Make everyone feel like they are part of the campaign. Interaction and participation is of paramount importance.

The Dark Knight was a BRILLIANT movie and I watched it with a close friend of mine. I still remember how shocked we were. Neither of us spoke a single word throughout the movie. We were trying hard to keep up with the pace of the movie and its lightning speed story line. Once the movie was over, we spent the next fortnight talking about the roles and the haunting character of heath Ledger. The picture of Joker putting his face out of a car and his hair flying still reminds me of the greatest and the most ruthless villain EVER.



After hearing about the campaign and its brilliance one can only think of the panache of the producers and the director of the movie. Much credit has to be given to the advertising agency that made it all possible.

One can’t think of a film that was more smartly marketed than The Dark Knight.
Joker vandalized every effort of Harvey Dent’s in campaigning (a campaign within a campaign) for his elections. A host of other interactive stunts were created to divide the fans based on the two central roles of The Joker and Harvey. To know more about the campaign and the manner in which it was carried out please visit the AWESOME, one and ONLY, WIKIPEDIA.