Brand: 20TH Century Fox
Idea to Steal: Blur the lines between reality, fiction and marketing.
To promote “X-Men: Days of Future Past,” set to hit theaters on May 23, 2014, 20th Century Fox enlisted the help of agency Ignition Creative to create a nifty, thorough and realistic website for Trask Industries, the fictitious company behind those menacing Sentinel robots X-Men fans will recognize. If you’re unfamiliar with the X-Men story, stumbling upon this slick website might fool (and scare) you for a second or two; if you’re acquainted with the backstory, you’ll probably find yourself joyfully inspecting the site for Easter eggs and gawking at pictures of the Sentinels, not to mention Peter Dinklage, who portrays founder Boliver Trask.
Equipped with slick page-to-page transitions; looping in-page videos; a fictional video ad (with more than 2 million views); realistic photos of Sentinels in action; anti-mutant propaganda posters; detailed “About” information; specific dimensions and specs for Sentinels; and much more, Trask-Industries.com makes it easy for visitors to immerse themselves in the film’s storyline months before it hits movie screens. It’s also a disarming and imaginative way to stir up anticipation for the film, as the clandestine nature of the website and the connection to various social networks lend it well to viral sharing. Oh, and the campaign was kicked off at Comic-Con, which is something of a relevant audience for this type of thing.
According to Ignition Creative, the campaign involved zero paid media and managed to get more than 400 million social media and editorial impressions. It remains to be seen if all this clever execution can help make the film a hit, but the marketing has been a winner so far.—JH
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