THE DARK KNIGHT RISES 4
The final film, The Dark Knight Rises, brought in less revenue domestically, but it surpassed the global success of its predecessor( Box Office Mojo, 2013). Warner Brothers used a global strategy through social media to take the franchise to new heights. The marketing campaign began on Monday, April 30, 2012 with the posting of a“ fictional file for a criminal investigation”( The Week Staff, 2012). It“ contained a warrant for the arrest of „ John Doe aka The Batman,‟ who was on the lam after taking the fall for corrupt District Attorney Harvey Dent at the end of The Dark Knight”( The Week Staff, 2012). The Week Magazine( 2012) wrote an article that gave detailed features of the entire marketing campaign, including locations of clues and the overwhelming response( The Week Staff). Mashable blogger Joann Pan( 2012) revealed the actual Twitter hashtag and website codes that fans needed to access the scavenger hunt for graffiti. Batman-related graffiti was found in over 300 cities around the world, which was left as necessary clues for fans to unlock frames of the movie ‟ s trailer on the official scavenger hunt website, www. tdkr07202012. com( Pan, 2012). Twitter played a central role in the campaign as audio, image, and geographical clues were revealed. To unlock the frames, fans were required to photograph the graffiti and upload them to Twitter with the hashtag # tdkr07202012 or email them to tdkr07202012 @ gothampolicedepartment. com( Pan, 2012). Lalate News( 2012), a celebrity news website, featured articles about every major document release in the campaign and its success; they claim it was one of the“ largest viral scavenger hunts ever deployed for a feature film”( Lalate).
Uses and gratifications theory, from the perspective of a fan, outlines that The Dark Knight Rises campaign was used to satisfy his / her own desire to decode clues and become a part of the fictional investigation( Laughey, 2007, p. 26). Information was gradually leaked to fans as the drip-drip-drip marketing technique created suspense and increased awareness about the film ‟ s release date. Batman fans turned to online communities to actively engage with other fans through searches, participation, and responses to the campaign through Twitter and other social media platforms like Facebook. A detailed investigation of the successful campaign tactics used by Warner Brothers to promote The Dark Knight Rises could reveal future trends in other cinematic promotional campaigns.
Research Questions
The research questions were narrowed down in order to make them measurable and achievable. The revised questions are focused on the use of Twitter and its crucial presence in the marketing campaign for The Dark Knight Rises. Throughout the research, we have noticed the significance of Twitter and the use of hashtags( ie. # tdkr07022012, # thefirerises, and # aurora). We have decided to focus on the major themes that were found within hashtag threads. These tweets may reveal how Twitter users felt about the campaign ‟ s sequence of events and how the campaign engaged with the Twitter community to promote the film. For example, pictures of the villain that were released, featured trailers, and the graffiti scavenger hunt. These broader themes within the tweets have allowed us to construct the timeline of the hashtags which allowed us to chart and input chronological events and information into a database.
RQ1: What was the sequence of events in the campaign from the launch of Operation Early Bird to the release of the film?
RQ2: Which themes are common in tweets which used the hashtags # tdkr07022012, # thefirerises and # aurora?
RQ3: What were people ‟ s reactions on Twitter as a result of the Aurora, CO midnight premiere theatre shooting?