What Internet Marketers Can Learn from The Dark Knight Returns (TDKR)

Note From ShoeMoney: This is an entry post for our "What internet Marketers Can Learn From contest".For making it to the blog this author will receive a Verizon mifi device and even perhaps some extra bonus items as well as a chance to win the grand prize! Submit your entry here What Internet Marketers Can Learn from The Dark Knight Returns (TDKR), the hotly anticipated 2012 Batman movie sequel: 1. You can’t go it alone. Shoemoney has a talented staff that have his back (like this dude – and he aligns himself with the best peeps in the industry. Batman can’t crush his foes if he doesn’t have people like Alfred building him new toys to fight crime. 2. Sneak peeks and openness generate hype and free publicity. Chris Nolan (TDKR director) approached this latest Batman sequel with a blue-collar, ‘we’re with the people’ approach. He filmed scenes in Pittsburgh, PA and let the public watch. The public took photos and video of never-before-seen actors in their costumers, i.e. Bane and Catwoman The production crew made local casting calls to the general public. If Nolan’s direction were to keep everything hush-hush and if Warner Brothers started being pricks (i.e. doing everything in a closed set, away from the public), the movie would seem fake and fans would take offense to the snobbery. Even though I can’t stand the phrase ‘social media’, Nolan’s openness here is deep, rich, social marketing at its finest, and he didn’t even intend it to be ‘marketing’. To him and us (the fans), it’s just ‘being real’. Marketers should adopt the same attitude. 3. Drama generates eyeballs and ultimately, cash. Again an unintended affect, Nolan is taking generous but calculated creative liberties with the characters and (rumored) plot. Bane is more ‘human’ than he is in the comic books, Catwoman doesn’t have pointy ears or a stripper outfit like Halle Barrie’s version. Fans are picking up on this and either loving it or hating it, but either way they’re discussing it like mad in various fandom online forums, Twitter, Facebook, etc. All this hype and uber-geeky criticism/praise just makes more people want to see the film. Just like every time Shoe speaks his mind, dorks like this guy want to knock him out – and all that does is generate more traffic to Shoe’s site. 4. There is always gonna be a bad guy. For TDKR, it’s Bane. For Shoe, it’s flakes like this guy. If you get big and popular (like Batman or Shoe), expect a bad guy to come out of the woodwork and try to screw everything up for you.