'Dark Knight' ad push is an event in itself

HOLLYWOOD - The billboards arrived without fanfare or explanation in more than a dozen major cities last May. Bearing two simple catchphrases, "Harvey Dent for district attorney" and "I believe in Harvey Dent," they featured a photo of a stately Dent (imagine Eliot Spitzer with a shock of blond hair) against an American flag.

But within 72 hours, each billboard had been defaced by identical graffiti: The candidate's eyes were scrawled over with black rings, his lips crudely rouged with a smeary, clownlike grin. As well, each of the placards' messages had been altered to read: "I believe in Harvey Dent TOO."

Although not outwardly advertising anything other than Dent's political aspirations (never mind the impossibility of running for D.A. in more than one city), the billboards were the opening salvo of one of the most interactive movie-marketing campaigns ever hatched by Hollywood: a multiplatform, hidden-in-plain-sight promotional blitz for the new Batman movie,

The Dark Knight

, which stars Christian Bale and Heath Ledger and reaches theaters July 18.

By employing a variety of untraditional awareness-building maneuvers and starting the film's promo push more than a year before the film's release, marketers at the firm 42 Entertainment (subcontracted by the film's distributor, Warner Bros.) seem to have struck a chord with

The Dark Knight

's core constituency. The promotions - part viral marketing initiative, part "advertainment" - fit into an absorbing, nascent, genre-bending pastime called alternate reality gaming (ARG) that has been the toast of movie and comic blogs for months.

The Dark Knight

is mashing up advertising, scavenger-hunting and role-playing in a manner that variously recalls

The X-Files

, the play

Tony n' Tina's Wedding

,

The Matrix

, and the board game Clue - all to galvanize fans to bond (with the new Batman and one another) over the course of a wild goose chase.

Or, to be more precise, a wild Joker chase - one that has involved clues spelled out in skywriting, secret meeting points, cell phones embedded in cakes, Internet red herrings, DIY fan contests, and even fake political rallies.

Befitting the campaign's covert-ops MO, neither Warner Bros. nor 42 Entertainment would comment for this article. But as Jonathan Waite, founder of the Alternate Reality Gaming Network (

» READ MORE: www.argn.com

) sees it,

The Dark Knight

's multifaceted promo-push transcends marketing to exist as a stand-alone cultural event.

"This is looked upon as viral marketing, but you have to look at it as an engrossing experience - you have people getting very attached to the game," Waite said. "You're not a passive onlooker, you're taking an active role. And any time you take an active role, you're emotionally connecting. That's why people keep coming back."

As any Bat-fanatic will tell you, the Dent propaganda is meant to conjure Batman's

Dark Knight

nemesis, politician turned crime kingpin Two Face (a role memorably embodied by Tommy Lee Jones in 1995's

Batman Forever

; Two Face is played by Aaron Eckhart in the new movie). Early in the

Dark

Knight

marketing campaign, an official Web site for the film redirected viewers to

» READ MORE: www.ibelieveinharveydent.com

- a URL notably lacking any references to Batman that urges "concerned Gotham citizens" to "take back Gotham City" by backing the candidate's run for district attorney.

More specifically, it tells them how to get involved in a faux grass-roots political campaign through initiatives such as filming videos, writing "Take Back Gotham" songs, and coming out to meet the "Dentmobile" touring several dozen American cities.

On March 12, a rally for the fictional D.A. candidate was broken up by Chicago police who seemed perplexed by volunteers handing out Harvey Dent bumper stickers, buttons and T-shirts.

Taking the self-referential tactics a step further, another Web site,

» READ MORE: www.ibelieveinharveydenttoo.com

provides a clue about a connection between the Joker and Two Face that presumably will be explained in the film.

Discovering it takes some work. Call up the site and you'll see a blacked-out page with the message: "Page not found." But pull down "select all" from your browser's edit menu and a shout-out to the killer clown is revealed: a pages-long sequence of repeating Ha-ha-ha's.

"I've never been a fan of the Batman series," a poster writes on the marketing-analysis blog "Catch Up Lady," "but this sort of thing makes me want to go see it."

To date, the

Dark Knight

campaign's masterstroke has to be its clown-cake giveaway.

In July, specially defaced dollar bills advertising yet another

Dark Knight

Web site,

» READ MORE: www.whysoserious.com

, were handed out to fans at San Diego's Comic-Con. On the Web site, the Joker (Ledger in the film) offered Bat-aficionados the chance to become his henchmen.

These players gathered at a physical location to obtain a phone number that was written in the sky by a plane. From there, they embarked on a scavenger hunt around San Diego. It all ended with a scene taken from the

Dark Knight

trailer - a fan being abducted by "thugs" in a Cadillac Escalade and getting symbolically "murdered" by armed men who mistook the player for the Joker.

Before you could say "Holy meta-narrative, Batman!" fan bulletin boards and chat rooms went wild with news after players posted about the staged event. "I'm staying glued to this ARG until its end," wrote blogger Matt Keyser, "and definitely seeing

The Dark Knight

when it comes out."

In December, followers noted a mysterious countdown on whysoserious.com that instructed viewers to travel to 22 real-world addresses in cities from coast to coast to pick up a "very special treat" under the name "Robin Banks" (get it?).

Turns out the addresses were bakeries in possession of cakes bearing phone numbers spelled out in icing. Many of those who called the number recoiled in confusion when the cake in front of them began to ring - cell phones encased in "Gotham City Evidence" bags had been baked inside, each containing a phone charger, Joker paraphernalia and explicit instructions to keep the phone with them at all times. In addition to enlisting the players as the Joker's minions, the devices conveyed invitations to special screenings of newly cut

Dark Knight

Imax trailers.

"Wow. You really took the cake! Now put the icing on it," the note says.

So, how are ARGs going to affect the future of movie marketing? "It's a very powerful marketing tool for a certain kind of product - especially for a tent-pole like the

Batman

films," media writer Frank Rose said.

Or, as ARGN.com's Waite couches the debate: "A movie experience is an hour and 45 minutes, you watch it, you can talk about it, you're done. But wouldn't it be cool if you could explore more of it with others and expand the universe yourself? This stuff is tailor-made for movie fans."