So who’s not excited for the summer movie season? With so many big movies coming out, there has been plenty competition fighting for the buzz. This immediately brings me to the marketing of Ridley Scott’s upcoming film, Prometheus. Few movies have the advantage of having a massive budget, a famous director, and the convenience of being a loosely based prequel of the Alien franchise. That would usually sell itself, right? Well whether it would or not, Fox isn’t taking any chances.
Many movies are just marketed with loads of previews and ad space, but with that said, Prometheus has started marketing in a quite revolutionary way. With a June 8, 2012 release date the initial teaser trailers were released in December of 2011, as expected. Then, on February 28, 2012 a TEDTalk was posted on the TED website. TEDTalks are usually comprised of speakers exposing new and revolutionary ideas. The odd thing was that this talk was dated from TED 2023 and featured a speaker, who was quite obviously actor, Guy Pearce. He tells the compelling myth of Prometheus and talks about the development of technology in the middle of a massive stadium filled with people and flying cameras. Pearce ends the talk by saying, “My name is Peter Weyland and if you’ll indulge me, I’d like to change the world.” What Prometheus co-writer and producer, Damon Lindelof, achieved was an official use of the TED brand. He did this by contacting Tom Rielly, a production director of TED Talks. Rielly was immediately on board for the idea even though TED has never officially been used to promote a product.
The reason Lindelof thought this was an appropriate strategy, comes directly from the premise of the movie. It is a common fact that the Weyland-Yutani Corporation is the ruthless company responsible for many of the Alien sequels. That places this talk before the merger. The Weyland Corporation and its founder Peter Weyland, at this time, are making further advances in technology, such as androids and terraforming. These ideas propose big ethical questions, which in their infancy may have seemed crazy/futuristic…sci-fi. These are, however, exactly the type of ideas that come through TEDTalks. People who think outside of the box and use a medium to share their ideas with like-minded individuals. These talks often involve topics like social and scientific trends.
Prometheus focused on blurring the line between fiction and reality. By getting to know their own fictional universe and determining their message, they were able to translate it into today’s existent mediums. They recognized TED as a brand, which coincided with what the message they wanted to achieve. The campaign only started there. In March, at WonderCon, viewers of the trailer premiere were given Weyland Corp business cards and encouraged to call **WEYLAND. Upon calling you are greeted by Weyland Corp’s automated voice and simultaneously receive an MMS message with a video. The video, narrated by Prometheus star Michael Fassbender, advertises the upcoming androids to be released by Weyland Corp. It is the total, seamless, execution of this campaign that makes it so intriguing. When movies have the resources and ability to fully envelope their audience, they create that much more buzz and genuine interest.
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