12 Days of Viral – DAY TWELVE

On the twelfth day of viral, my movie gave to me…..


Public displays


This is it folks. The final piece of MovieViral’s ongoing holiday series. And I saved the best for last. If you want to get people’s attention, then get people to be a part.


If we start with District 9, then you will know that it started at Comic-Con in 2008. Banners were appearing in the halls, the bathrooms, and water fountains all over the place. Right off the bat you have a nice audience participation based off of a website, and of course, these odd posters and banners all over the place. The nice thing about this film, is the fact that it carried out the same style and reasoning behind the banners from Comic-Con right out into the street about a year later.

Tron Legacy went a completely different route with a “scavenger hunt” of sorts. Leading, yet again, Comic-Con (2009) viewers through the streets and alleys of San Diego, looking at posters with blacklights for clues, and eventually leading them to the mecah of all Tron -dom-ness (yes, you can use that), Flynn’s Arcade! This place housed some great old school games, including, but not limited to, the original Tron.





And of course, the jackpot of all finds, the new light bike

Now, if you want to talk participation, there is truly only one film to discuss. The Dark Knight took viral a not only a whole new level, but to a whole new arena of marketing where it reigns king. No other film can close to the participation that film saw. Hell, I’m not even going to call it participation. We’ll call it dedication. You have people lining the streets in Joker makeup. You have people yelling out their believe for Harvey Dent. You even had newscasters wearing the pins!

This was phones is cakes, numbers in the sky, makeup, suits, defaced trailers, and real life bat signals. This was a campaign that will have others knock down the rest by a few notches for years to come. And I bet when it too gets knocked down, we’ll have the scoop on what did it.


I hope you enjoyed the 12 Days of Viral series, and from all of us at MovieViral, have safe, fun, and Happy Holidays!

Other Days In The “12 Days of Viral” Series:
A trailer without a title
A Twitter account with the truth
Three Websites
My face on the site
800 Numbers
Password protection
Facebook interaction
Contests and winnings
Cell phones for calling
Videos and Youtube
Physical mailings