Where’s the rest of the marketing?

Posted on

August 6, 2006

How many times do you stop and ask yourself, "Why isn’t there more marketing around this _______"? That’s right, almost never.

So you can imagine my surprised when I asked myself that very question this morning. My wife and I went to see Miami Vice last night (not bad, very fun, cool cinematography) and they showed a preview for Children of Men. The premise is similar to the incredible graphic novel Y:The Last Man, but in this movie all the world’s women are infertile, and the world is going nuts. There’s a discovery that there’s a pregnant woman and the cast needs to get her to some group called "The Human Project" to help save her, and perhaps society.

After the trailer finished, I thought for certain that there had to be some element of alternate reality game to it. The movie is ripe for it, and it looks (from the effects) that there was plenty of budget for the film. Think about the Lost Experience, a collection of Web pages that help support the story line.

Why would something like Children of Men not spend some time extending the story illusion? These types of Web sites are typically lightweight (read: inexpensive). Sure the strategy and story development can take some time and money, but overall this is cheap marketing. Look at the Lost Hasno Careers site. We’re not talking a ton of content.

With the movie coming out at the end of September, it seems like it’s a bit too late to launch "The Human Project" Web site. (Search that term on Google… good idea for the script writers to at least do some pre-research and/or register their names before someone else grabs it)

Talk about missed opportunities.