The ability to destroy the Earth has become easier not by the rise of nuclear weapons but by the advances in computer-generated animation. Asking computer operators to make those pixels dance in a way that mimics a massive building falling down seems to be the primary skills possessed by some directors. One of those, of course, is the much-maligned Roland Emmerich. Emmerich is one of the brains behind Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow and other movies that have lots of people running away from various matte paintings and green-screens.

His latest is what brings us here today. 2012 is purportedly based on a reading of the ancient Mayan calendar that pegs December 21st, 2012 as the day the world will come to an end. And as with his previous films the focus is placed simultaneously on the world at large and on one small family – complete with requisite strife to heighten the drama – as things unfold around them.

The Posters

The first poster for the movie was a pretty simple teaser, with just the movie’s title treatment and a little bit of text on a black background. Above the title was the copy “Who will be left behind?” which not only plays into the idea that it’s the apocolypse and there will be survivors but also comes with the associated correlation to the “Left Behind” series of books that are popular with people because they pretend to be based on Biblical teachings.

The second, released shortly after director Emmerich appeared at Comic-Con, recreated an image from one of the trailers that shows a major metropolitan area – I think it’s Los Angeles – buckling like sidewalk blocks against the tremendous pressure of the entire ocean rising up and flooding it combined with massive earthquakes. As I said, it ties directly into the trailer footage but also carries more than a little bit of similarities with the posters for his last end-of-the-world flick The Day After Tomorrow, which also showed a city getting the shaft from Mother Nature.

More teasers then followed that continued not only the theme of this campaign but also Emmerich’s tradition of mass chaos, with each one of the three showing the rampant destruction and death toll being visited upon a series of locations around the world.

A later theatrical poster took the action and made it a little more personal while at the same time recreating one of the images from the first teaser trailer. This one features the same “We were warned” copy the rest of them sport but has a Tibetan monk standing at the top of the Himalayan mountains watching helplessly as the waves of water come crashing over the mountains in front of him. It works alright in that it gives a little bit of a sense of scale (as much as is possible with these movies) to the events and, because it harkens back to the teaser trailer, more or less brings the campaign full circle. It’s also a little less scary for the audience to see this level of decimation being visited on far-away mountain ranges than urban landscapes and so is slightly more accessible for the general viewer.

The Trailers

The teaser trailer features precious little about the movie’s plot, other than it’s going to revolve once again around Emmerich ending the human race in some way, shape or form. A lone Tibetian monk races along the mountain tops before entering a small building where he begins ringing what is presumably a warning bell. It’s then we start to see what he’s running from, a huge wave of water that’s coming over the mountain, a wave that eventually overcomes the small outpost.

In between all that are various bits of text about how the leaders of the world wouldn’t warn us if they knew the end of the world were coming. It’s ended with a prompt to find out the truth not be visiting a website but by searching for “2012.”

That’s an interesting strategy to take. It’s been used by a few companies in the past – encouraging people to Google or otherwise search for a brand name – but this is the first time for a movie that I can recall. And they obviously did their legwork before launching the trailer since a search of Google for that did bring up movie-related sites among the first few results, with more general paranoia links placing lower on the page.

The second trailer went more deeply into the story that we’ll be following in the film. It starts with a recap of how the Mayan’s warned us 2012 would be the end all be all before showing us the loving family that’s fathered by John Cusack, who while driving his kids finds fiery meteors raining down around him.

That’s the beginning of the badness, as we then get shot after shot of 200 foot waves crashing across the land, shore lines buckling under the pressure, landmarks crushing thousands of people and other such destruction. As that plays out we see Cusack is valiantly trying to lead his family to safety, a mission that takes them on planes, in cars and dangerously close to death. All while the government officials bicker about species continuity and who gets to survive.

There was a third trailer released after the long-form preview (discussed below) that starts off roughly the same way but features a lot of footage from that extended preview. We get more of Cusack trying to rescue his family from the coming destruction.

After that more singular focus the trailer then expands once again to show the devastation being wrought around the globe as monuments and come toppling down and survivors struggle to stay alive.

Online

The official website opens with the first full trailer playing over a background that’s pulled from that trailer, the image of the USS John F. Kennedy being tossed on to the White House.

The first content area is “About the Film” and that leads off with a Synopsis that’s two sentences long and simply restates the premise – the world is ending but there are survivors, which doesn’t really make sense – without going any deeper. Cast and Crew profiles are here providing background on the players. Downloads also lives here, which is a bit unusual since it usually gets its own section. Wallpapers, Buddy Icons and a Twitter Background are available there. Finally there’s a Gallery – again usually a stand-alone area – that contains a batch of images you can view but, of course, not download.

Let’s talk about that Twitter background for a second. that’s the first time, unless I’m mistaken, I’ve seen that offered on a movie’s site. Offering that to people is obviously a way to get those excited about the movie to spread the word in an organic way. And it’s simply the latest iteration of a strategy that’s been around since 2005, when movie sites promoted MySpace skins you could add to your profile.

While it’s pretty low cost to create and offer that same sort of thing for Twitter it does fly in the face of how people are using Twitter, which is vastly different than how they used MySpace. Website usage for Twitter is, according to most metrics, relatively low compared to its actual user base. That’s because you can use Twitter through text messaging or by using any number of third-party applications. So there’s very little need among experienced or higher-level users to ever hit the website. Which means exposure to this is going to be fairly low since 2012 enthusiasts are a subset of a subset of a subset.

Again, there’s no downside in offering this for download – it probably took about 10 hours to create and test, maximum. But Twitter backgrounds are, in my view, better used as part of corporate branding campaigns, where a company wants to bring a certain look over to Twitter or make sure that multiple official accounts are branded consistently. Not that there’s much downside here – the low cost means any adoption is a win, more or less – but it’s not going to get the same impact as even the preceding MySpace skins used to.

Getting back to the website, the next section here is “Video.” There you’ll find the Teaser and first full Trailer, but not the last one, which is kind of odd. There’s also the music video for the song from Adam Lambert (more on this later) and a whole blog with multiple video entries on the movie’s visual effects. There’s also one called the 2012 Movie Experience, which walks through the alternate reality game that was played in the year or so leading up to the movie and which I’ll cover shortly.

The next section promotes the couple of “iPhone Apps” that took the user through their paces as they were asked to try and survive the end of the world. One of those apps was more about testing your survival skills while the other was more of a recreation of the movie’s storyline as you tried to outrun natural disasters. After that was a “Game” that tested your survival skill knowledge. And finally the “2012 Escape Sweepstakes” tests your ability to recall something from the movie’s trailer and enters you to win a cruise vacation.

The movie’s Facebook and MySpace pages contain trailers, photos and other information on the film and promote the iPhone games, ARG sites and other elements.

Going back to the ARG, listed on the site under the “The Experience” heading, there are a couple main hubs that then have some offshoots. While the entire game has been a little hard to follow – largely because there’s little actual interactivity from the audience – it has been wide-ranging.

The core component has been the Institute for Human Continuity, an organization that is working to make sure the human race survives the apocalyptic events of 2012. Balancing that is ThisIsTheEnd.com, the website for Charlie Frost, a paranoid conspiracy theorist who’s also convinced the end of the world is coming but who questions the IHC’s efforts. Finally there’s FarewellAtlantis, the official site for the book written by John Cusack’s character about the Mayan prophecy of 2012. The fact that he’s written a book about it kind of makes the surprise his character seems to experience over what’s happening seem less credible. Shouldn’t he have been more…prepared? Or at least aware?

In fact, as Liz Miller at NewTeeVee points out, the fact that these organizations exist at all seems to run counter to the logic that’s used within the movie itself. The ARG seems to posit that there are plenty of people on the ball about what’s happening and are preparing for it, while the movie says it’s just the secretive governments that are scrambling to put covert plans into motion.

Most all of these have YouTube channels, Twitter feeds, Facebook profiles and more in an effort to not only blanket the web in content but also create a narrative arc that leads up to the movie. The problem is that, as I alluded to earlier, there doesn’t seem to be a tremendous amount of interactivity in the program. You can follow the arc of the story but mainly passively, with very few points where you can play along.

Instead of trying to recap them all and failing I’ll simply share the “Experience” video that’s on the website, which does a decent job of all that, though it’s painful in how it alternates between playing the ARG straight and then shifting to tongue-in-cheek mode.

Advertising and Cross-Promotions

With a movie of this size it shouldn’t be surprising that there was a ton of advertising done for it. TV spots have been almost unavoidable in the weeks leading up to release. Most all of them are shorter versions of the trailer and show off the same action sequences, including the flight between crumbling buildings and the manic drive as the street collapses behind the car. While I’m sure there are plenty who have seen these and been excited at the prospect of so many special effects being presented to them but in general these spots work far less well than the trailers, primarily because the shortened running time does the footage no favors.

A few weeks before release Fox engineered a massive “roadblock” strategy (Variety, 9/23/09) for the movie that put a two-minute clip of never-before-seen footage across most all TV networks, local stations, cable outlets and everywhere else during a block of prime-time programming, meaning you probably couldn’t escape it if you tried. The two-minute clip then teased the availability of an extended five-minute version that would be available afterward Comcast On Demand and Comcast’s Fancast.com streaming portal. (Disclosure: Voce, my employer, works with Comcast.net and I’m personally involved with that client. We did not, however, have any relationship with this promotion.)

Online advertising was also plentiful, mostly using the poster art, with some units incorporating the IHC alternate reality game as well.

Some of the poster art concepts also got repurposed as in-theater and other out-of-home ads.

Surprisingly I’m not seeing anything about any promotional partners.

Media and Publicity

The Institute for Human Continuity caused a lot of online chatter – especially on Twitter – as people found it and freaked out, only to have their friends then explain to them that it was all just part of a movie marketing campaign and the world wasn’t really ending in 2012, despite what the well-produced and slick-looking website was telling them. There were even some mainstream media stories like this one that dispelled the rumor that the IHC was real, which is some sort of testament to how good that site looked.

There was even some coverage of the campaign in the marketing press, with publications/sites like ClickZ writing up their reactions and recaps of the movie’s online campaign, ranging from the search engine components to the IHC “game” that was being played by the studio. And Brandfreak wrote up a piece about how Mayan elders were trying to shout into the wind about how 2012 isn’t actually when their calendar says the world will end, but their voice is pretty quite compared to a massive marketing campaign.

Countering the premise of the movie was also the subject of stories like this one in the LA Times (10/17/09) about how scientists were trying to calm the fears of an increasing number of people who were afraid they were going to be around for the end of the world and were having trouble dealing with that, including some people considering suicide to avoid that.

There was also considerable buzz to be gained by hooking up with “American Idol” runner-up Adam Lambert. The wannabe rock star contributed his first post-”Idol” song “Time for Miracles” to the soundtrack, with the song being teased on Moviefone and the subsequent video debuting initially on MySpace, part of that site’s attempt to become an entertainment portal.

There was even, as is the case with many similar movies, a cable TV special that dives into the premise of the film. These are barely-concealed marketing tactics and often come off as laughable and this looks to be no exception.

Put all together, the campaign became one of the most talked-about efforts (Los Angeles Times, 10/29/09) of mid-to-late 2009.

Overall

Well that’s quite a campaign, isn’t it?

Despite the impressive reach of the marketing – all those posters, all those websites, all those TV commercials – the campaign winds up feeling like the same sort of superficial spectacle the movie will likely be. It’s all glam that’s focused on the same five or six repeating images (USS Kennedy crashing into the White House, the Pacific sea board buckling into the ocean, etc) that convey the filmmaker’s and marketer’s hopes that seeing these moving images will be all the payoff the audience needs.

If you look back at the campaign for The Day After Tomorrow and use it as precedent, it’s unlikely that there’s anything substantive being held back from the audience in this marketing push. My guess is that after all the trailers, extended clips and other material we’ve now seen 98 percent of the movie’s major set-pieces. After all, what’s the use of hiding anything when the main thought process seems to be that you need those sequences to bring people in.

So from a marketing perspective you’d have to call the campaign a success. It’s unlikely to have been executed on the scale or with the tactics it was without a firm belief that it would appeal to the target audience, a group that is likely to be more impressed with spectacle than with substance anyway.

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If you’ve been reading MMM for any length of time you’ll know I’m a big fan of Scott’s. So it shouldn’t be surprising that I think there need to be more events like this and in more places. Scott’s part of a rare breed – those that not only want to engage in a lot of thinking and brainstorming around new ways of doing things but who also want to give practical, real advice that’s not only executable but also flexible enough to be put in action on any of a number of scales.

So to my initial point I would love to see these sorts of workshops and events be held in multiple locations. It would be great to have a rolling series of events in Chicago, New York, Orlando and elsewhere that could tap into the filmmaking community in those cities. I know Scott’s just one guy, but that’s no excuse quite frankly.

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Mediaweek

Variety: Sony Pictures taps marketing czar – David Kaminow has been named president of worldwide strategic marketing, a new part of the org chart there,  at the studio and will workin on brand management and franchise cultivation.

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Ironically those DVD revenues are not likely to be helped by retailers who are putting ridiculously steep discounts on the most anticipated pre-Christmas releases. Walmart, Target and Amazon have all announced plans (Variety, 11/6/09) to make Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Night at the Museum: Battle for the Smithsonian and other new releases available for online purchase at or around $10. That might get a bunch of people to buy but there’s no money to be made there and as soon as the prices go back up those sucked in will go right back to their not-buying behavior.

Meanwhile studio’s pushing for access to people’s TVs seems to be emblematic of their overall aversion to new media, something that’s captured by Adweek (11/6/09). While most of the viewing will indeed still be done TVs via other download or streaming there needs to be equal focus on mobile devices and direct online viewing, something that’s still being put to the backburner.

Believe me when I say no one currently having these arguments knows how the future is going to play out. That’s because it’s consumer behavior that will drive much of the distribution and marketing innovation yet to come, and that behavior will largely be formed by the experiments being run by small filmmakers who are getting the word – and their films – out on a shoestring budget and making direct appeals to the audience.

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The independent film world is abuzz about the collapse of the traditional independent film distribution model. In recent years, more than 5,000 feature films have been submitted to the Sundance Film Festival annually, and only a few hundred get the golden ticket. Of those accepted, perhaps a handful at best will make a sale that might cover at least half of their production expenses. Another handful might be offered a 20-year deal for all rights to their film — with either a token advance of about $15,000 or no advance at all. No longer can filmmakers expect someone to come and take their film off their hands and guarantee them theatrical release and full recoupment. Any filmmaker who doesn’t understand the current state of affairs is going to have a rude awakening.

And sign up at the book’s official site for a coupon

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Most notable is, of course, the announcement that next year’s event would be co-hosted by Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin. Martin has hosted the Oscars before (and I think did a great job) while Baldwin is a newcomer and, as Patrick Goldstein points out in that story, is one of those evil Hollywood liberals the Conservative media loves to rail against. So that should make for an interesting evening. The two are also co-starring in It’s Complicated, which is being released this Christmas, and so the announcement – and the subsequent press over the next few months – comes as a nice bit of marketing for that movie.

AMPAS, the organization that puts on the Academy Awards, is also prepping for the big day by hiring Media Storm for its new media marketing needs (MediaPost, 10/29/09). While specific media plans have not been laid out, the selection of a smaller and less traditional agency by the Academy says it’s trying to reach people across a variety of media platforms.

Finally, the movies themselves are making more appeals for nominations through social networks and other online platforms (Variety, 10/28/09), looking to build buzz on Twitter, Facebook and more in the lead up to the contenders being selected. That’s especially being embraced by smaller studios and distribution labels, as well as the talent that are on those status networks themselves. What’s going to be fun to watch is the analysis of what, if any, impact such campaigns have on the traditional “For Your Consideration” ad buys that trade pubs like Variety are increasingly dependent on. A shift to more WOM-focused efforts has the potential to cause some rethinking of that spending, especially if after this year there’s evidence that it has actually been effective.

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I can’t wait to see what Karina does for the next phase of her career. If I could start a magazine or online publication and hire five people to write for it she’d be the first person I’d call. I’m hoping The Portable SpoutBlog is simply a cap that she’s putting on that experience before moving on to even better things.

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Which is why I’m jumping at the chance to attend SuperGenius, the word-of-mouth marketing event being put on by GasPedal and Andy Sernovitz. Andy’s the author of the book Word of Mouth Marketing and an all-around nice guy who definitely believes what he preaches in terms of the power of WOM.

Here’s the overview of the day:

The “How to be great at Word of Mouth Marketing” Conference
12/16/09, Gleacher Center, Chicago
http://www.gaspedal.com/supergenius

Word of Mouth Supergenius is where you’ll learn to be a fantastic word of mouth marketer with 12 how-to classes, 12 real-world case studies, and 6 brilliant authors. You’ll learn practical, hands-on techniques to get started, grow your program, and earn amazing word of mouth.

Taught by masters of word of mouth from Starbucks, Maker’s Mark, Domino’s, LEGO, Coca-Cola, and many more, you’ll gain the knowledge and skills you need to get people talking about your brand. Captivating speakers like Jason Falls, Mitch Joel, John Jantsch, Saul Colt, Spike Jones, John Moore, Rod Brooks, and our own Andy Sernovitz (to name a few) will take you through a day jam packed with innovation and intellect.

You’ll ask questions, discover new ideas, and get answers from people who have been there, done that — and learn it all in just one day.

If you’re in Chicago or would like to come in and attend, MMM readers can enter the code VIPMOVIEMARKETINGMAD when registering and receive 10% off the regular price. And feel free to let me know you’re coming so we can connect at or around the event.

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The latter idea is the basis for The Men Who Stare at Goats. The movie stars Ewan McGregor as a journalist writing a story about this mysterious elite unit. In the course of research/investigation he comes across a former member of the division, played by George Clooney. Together they embark on a series of misadventures as Clooney recounts the history of the unit and tells of the various personalities that made it up.

This is actually one of three movies coming out in the next two months starring Clooney and, rightly or wrongly, is being viewed as the lesser of the bunch. Still, let’s take a look at how it’s being sold to the public.

The Posters

The first poster for the movie features, as you would expect from the title, a man and a goat. OK, it’s their silhouettes but that’s what they are. Behind the title treatment is a masonic symbol, making it clear to the audience that we’re in very odd territory here.

A second poster provides a clearer look at the cast but is no less surreal. This one has the primary cast; Clooney, Bridges, McGregor, Spacey and a goat, all looking heroically into the distance, chins held high. The same silhouettes of a man in a chair and a goat are used at the bottom of the image and the same Masonic eye and other symbols are used in the background of the cast’s faces. The entire rest of the poster is kind of water-marked with the images of goats around and about. It’s just as funny but obviously plays more to the audience by making sure to display all the movie stars that are in the movie and putting them there with utterly ridiculous looks on their faces.

Just before the movie was released – as in a matter of three or four days – a batch of character-centric posters were released. There’s not a whole lot to then design wise, though. Clooney, McGregor, Spacey and Bridges all get broken out into their own posters that have then staring into the face of a goat. They’re alright but don’t really add anything to the campaign, especially coming as they are this late in the timing.

The Trailers

We’re immediately introduced in the trailer to McGregor’s character, an investigative journalist who is tracking down the story of these psychic warriors the military is training. That leads him to Clooney’s character, who’s supposed to be the best of the best. He explains that he’s not just a psychic spy but a “Jedi warrior,” a line that I think made everyone on the internet guffaw more than a little considering who that is being delivered to. We then get introduced to the other members of this unit, Jeff Bridges’ hippie instructor, Kevin Spacey’s tactless officer and others. From there we get multiple scenes of just how not in-tune with their surroundings these “Jedi” are. The comedy plays maybe a bit more broadly than the movie probably is but that’s OK because it’s really funny.

Online

The official site opens with the core of the second poster’s art alongside the trailer, which auto-plays when the page loads.

“About the Film” is up first, with The Story, which gives a pretty decently written recap of the movie’s plot points and then a glorified credits block. That’s also where you’ll find Cast and Crew sections, with backgrounds and write-ups of the talent that went into making the movie.

The first trailer and about a half dozen extended clips are included in “Videos.” Most of those clips expand on what we’re first introduced to in the trailer and play pretty funny. There are about 10 stills in the “Photos” section.

The “Games” section is pretty funny in that the tests it presents you to see if you’re qualified to join the psychic division are completely ridiculous. They play it straight until the very end and get points for that.

There are a few Wallpapers and AIM Icons under “Downloads.”

“Fact or Fiction” is an interview with Jon Ronson, the author of the book the movie is based on. Ronson expounds on the origin of the book and how it’s actually a non-fiction narrative that’s been fictionalized for the movie. And on a related note, Simon & Schuster – the publisher of said book – is the only company listed under the “Partners” section.

There’s also a Facebook page and Twitter feed for the movie, both of which are supposed to be authored by a goat. That’s kind of funny, but there’s not very far you can go with it and unfortunately weighs the other online elements down a bit.

Advertising and Cross-Promotions

There’s been a bit of both TV and online advertising done that I’ve seen. The TV spots were, as is often the case, condensed versions of the trailer, while the online units recreated the second poster’s art but in box or banner form.

Media and Publicity

The movie got a bit of buzz, not all of it great, around a debut at the Toronto Film Festival – one of two movies (Time, 9/13/09) Clooney was there to present and promote – a couple months before release. Nevertheless, with a lack of awareness prior to the trailer’s release just a couple weeks before that this was a much-needed shot in the arm. After that a series of clips were released that provided a deeper look at the movie.

Overall

I want to like this campaign but feel like it falls down on a couple of occasions. Specifically, it plays up the slapstick humor a bit too much for something that, unless I miss my guess, is more likely dry satire. When it gives in to that tendency it doesn’t come off as strong as when it plays it straight and lets the laughs come more naturally.

Unfortunately Clooney’s presence becomes the campaign’s key distraction. It’s obvious that he’s having fun with a ridiculous role, but the fact that he has two other movies coming out this fall – both of which have more buzz and momentum – means that the audience is probably thinking about them while watching this trailer.

It’s probably going to be attractive to fans of political satire but will, I’m guessing, have trouble attracting any sort of sizable audience.

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