Like Your District Immediately

The official viral marketing website for "The Hunger Games" has had some activity this morning. When I woke up I was greeted with an email telling me to go to capitol.pn, the official website of The Capitol. Once there, I had to sign in with my Facebook account, and I was given a new district. I thought I was District 9, but apparently I am now District 8, Textiles. Once I signed in, I was ordered to visit and like District 8's Facebook page.

Back on the Capitol's website, I was able to make my District Identification card, which will be used for I don't know what. Hopefully they will mail me this, cause I'd love to have a hard copy. That's pretty much all that is happening with the official campaign.

The fan-made campaign is plugging along as well. It is October, so PanemOctober.com has officially launched. It is very similar to the official campaign - you create an identification card and get to show your support for your district (District 12 in this case). On the home page, there is a message from the Capitol and the Mayor:

Also, you are able to see the ID cards for other citizens, including Effie Trinket:

At this point, the official viral marketing campaign seems to have a little more finesse and polish, but they have the big bucks to make it look like that. I will say this for the fan-made campaign, however: they are making excellent use of cast photos. It gives it a little more credibility then it should have. Stay tuned as more news comes in...

One of the Gamemakers Speaks Out!

Head on over to movies.com where one of the creators of the fan-created viral marketing campaign for "The Hunger Games" speaks about their plans and how they tried very hard to get Lionsgate on board with their ideas. It is a really interesting read.

Sorry for the delay in posting, but things have been happening with both viral marketing campaigns for "The Hunger Games." Just to remind you, I am following both the fan made campaign as well as the official, Lion's Gate sanctioned campaign. Let's talk about the fan created campaign first. I got several text messages from District 12 recently. The first one urged me to return from the mines and check my email:

So, of course, I ran home from the mines and booted up my old, district approved computer, and this email was waiting for me:

Apparently there is a huge morale issue in District 12! No one seems to be excited for the 74th Annual Hunger Games, so Mayor Undersee, in all his tech savvy-ness, has created a Facebook page and Twitter account for us to follow and discuss the games. All in an effort to bring us together, right?

A few days later, I received another text. This time the text was telling me about some new updates to the social media accounts of my district.

Well, I am glad that D3 has been hard at work, but they can't be that hard at work because I'm not from D3! They figured it out soon enough, because they sent me the next text:

Silly Gamemakers. About five days after that, I received yet another text. This time, they were informing me about changes to the Panem October website.

A lot certainly had changed on the website, including a countdown clock that is set to expire on the first of October. Panem October, indeed.

Finally, I got another text last Sunday, stating that I needed to attend an interview with the Head Gamemaker this coming Wednesday (tomorrow):

I went to movies.com and found nothing. I guess I'll have to check it out tomorrow. They said it was mandatory so I hope I don't miss it...

As far as the official viral marketing for the film, the capitol's website has been updated, allowing you to register through Facebook or Twitter. Once you register, it tells you what district you are a part of, much like the fan created campaign. There are other cool things on the website as well, but for right now it is pretty bare. It's off to a good start, but right now the fan made one is winning, in my opinion. 

The Capitol Knows Who I Am

It's been a pretty big week for "The Hunger Games." The first footage from the film was shown last night during the MTV Video Music Awards (see the previous post), and today the official viral marketing campaign has kicked off, as discovered by Cominsoon.net. If you go to Capitol.pn, you are shown an image that is sort of shifting and changing at random. This reminds me of the website that was created to show the first image of Bane from "The Dark Knight Rises."

In the bottom left corner, you can link your Twitter account with the website, and once you do that, you get a message that says "Citizen confirmed," and it makes you tweet "The Capitol knows who I am. Identify yourself immediately," with the hashtag #whatsmydistrict.

It seems that this official viral marketing campaign might be taking some notes from the excellent fan-made one, and we are going to eventually figure out to which district we belong. I don't know about you, but I'm just glad that they are doing official viral marketing for this movie. And I'm honestly quite interested to see the fan-made one and the official one battle it out - because that will happen, very soon. Stay tuned for more "Hunger Games" news!

MTV VMA Preivew

The MTV VMA's were last night, and as promised, they premiered the first look at next year's "The Hunger Games." Keep in mind that this is just a 'preview,' meaning that it is not a full on trailer. It is merely a teaser for the film - however this teaser does more for the movie than another teaser did for a giant film also coming out in 2012 (in my opinion). Thanks again to Luke for the heads up! Check out the preview below:

Get More: 2011 VMA, Music

"The Hunger Games" Preview THIS SUNDAY!

The MTV Music Video Awards are this Sunday night, and it should be a star studded romp as usual. MTV normally leaves the exciting movie related events for their movie awards, but supposedly a preview for "The Hunger Games" should be airing during the broadcast. It is not being called a trailer, but a preview... is there a difference? I can't wait to see some actual footage from the film!

Fan Made Campaign To The Extreme

More than a few times on this site I have written about fan made viral marketing pieces. They have ranged from blatantly fan made to almost better than the professionals, but I have never seen a fan made campaign quite like this one. A month or two back, a site popped up that was obviously for the upcoming film "The Hunger Games." the sight had you sign up for 'tesserae' - in the book, each person under a certain age (18 I believe) is automatically entered into the drawing to pick the boy and girl tribute for each district. It didn't matter what kind of person you were, if you were under that age you were automatically entered. However, if you wanted to get some food from the capitol just to help your family survive, you could apply for tesserae which basically means more entries for your name, thus increasing the chances of you getting picked. So, this website has you give your information to sign up.

Once you signed up, you were sent an email from the district that you were assigned to - I was assigned to district 12, the home of the stars of the movie. The email came directly from the mayor himself:

That website then lead to another website, with a countdown clock, saying "see you in October." it seemed like the start of a very promising viral marketing campaign, but then the stuff hit the fan. Lionsgate contacted Movie Viral, which had originally been the first site to break the story, and told them that no viral marketing for the film had started - this was not an official marketing campaign. Movie Viral removed the story that they had posted and wrote a quick retraction article, apologizing for anyone that gave their personal information to the campaign. Then the creators of the campaign came out and, in an incredibly ballsy move, told Lionsgate that they had a very extensive campaign planned and that they should partner together to market the film. Lionsgate turned their offer down, and then nothing was heard from them for about a month and a half.

Then, on August 2nd, I got this email from the gamemakers:

At the bottom of the email was a brand new disclaimer, explaining that this is in fact a fan made viral marketing campaign. I guess Lionsgate didn't want to work with them.

Then, last Wednesday, I received a text message from the villain of the story himself, President Snow:

And again, he texted me on Sunday. I wonder what plan he has?

I know that this is fan made. But the fact that I have to keep reminding myself that simply means that it is the best fan made campaign I have ever seen. If Lionsgate didn't want to work with them, they better have something more fantastic up their sleeves. Otherwise, they are going to look foolish, because everyone is going to follow this massively impressive campaign. Stay tuned!

May The Odds Be Ever In Your Favor

The official website for "The Hunger Games" is live and includes some cool music, a cool motion poster (below) and a countdown clock. Thanks to Luke for the tip.

"The Hunger Games" is ripe for viral marketing, and I think if it is done well it could be really successful. There has already been some cool fan made viral marketing (more on that later), but I'd love to see something official, and soon. If Lionsgate plans this right, they could have a massive franchise on their hands. And with Harry having already taken his final bow, the timing is ripe for a new one.

And The Tributes Are...

Casting news doesn't typically fall under the category of viral marketing. It's usually announced in a press release of some sort, or leaked on the Internet, but rarely is it ever done creatively. Back in 2007 it was announced via press release that Heath Ledger, best known at that point for being in films like "Ten Things I Hate About You," was Christopher Nolan's choice to bring the Joker to life in "The Dark Knight." This was met with instant criticism and outrage by the fan community. It wasn't until a few months later, when the first image of Heath as the Joker was released, that people's cries of outrage turned into shouts of approval. Now imagine how differently that would have gone if the picture and the casting were announced at the same time, via the same viral marketing. There would be no more backlash because the instant proof that they knew what they were doing would be right there at the same time. All that goes to say that I think casting announcements should be handled with creativity, just like everything else in a movie is.

Which brings me to "The Hunger Games." As I said in my previous post, the movie is about a central government that forces it's twelve districts to send one boy tribute and one girl tribute to compete in a to-the-death gladiator style match to bring honor to their district. Obviously, the main characters are extremely important, but after them are the just as important other tributes. Instead of announcing who the tributes were in a press release, Lion's Gate decided to do something a little different. Instead, they created a Facebook page that at first had twelve different districts with a grayed out boys head and a grayed out girls head for each district.

Slowly but surely they started to reveal each of the tributes. What I love about this is that they didn't even bother to give most of the tributes names - as they shouldn't have. In the book, we only know some of their names and even then some are just nicknames. I think this really adds to the disgustingness and just hopelessness of the whole scenario - Katniss doesn't even know the real names of the people she is being forced to kill. Take a look at the tributes from each district, starting with the two from district one.

I really really like the person that they chose to portray Foxface, because she really does look like a fox!!!

So there they all are. I really like how this was done, and I love that it's kids of all ages and ethnicities, which is really cool. My only complaint is that all but one of them is supposed to die, yet most of them are smiling. Doesn't really go well together, don't you think? At least Katniss and Peeta aren't smiling. Keep checking Viral Infection, and especially this page because I'm going to write another article very soon. And don't forget Twitter (@viral_Nfection)!!!

What is "The Hunger Games"?

Originally written in 2008 by writer Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games tells the story of Katniss Everdeen, a teenage girl that lives in a country called Panem, which is located where the United States used to be. Panem is made up of 13 different districts and a central capital, and every year two 'tributes,' one boy and one girl, are forced to compete in the gladiator style Hunger Games as a punishment for a failed rebellion by the districts years and years ago. The series - made up of The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay - is a gripping and engaging story about the human spirit and what we can do when fighting for our rights. It is a fantastic, if a little disturbing, read.

In 2012, Lions Gate is releasing the first in four planned movies in the series, starring Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen. It is currently filming, and from everything I've seen it looks like it could be a really good movie.