Movie Marketing Madness

Movie marketing news, reviews and opinion by Chris Thilk.

Movie Marketing Madness: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

I made a big deal back in 2005 about how my desire to review the marketing campaign for Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith was one of my principle reasons for starting Movie Marketing Madness the year prior to that. Star Wars was – and still is – my all-time favorite movie series and the notion of writing a column covering its campaign was very alluring. I wanted to contribute, in my own little way, to the buzz on the movie as well as use that column to express my long-time fandom of the movies, even the prequel series.

But I never even entertained the notion that there would be another entry in the Indiana Jones franchise for me to cover.

Rumors of a fourth Indy movie have circulated since about a day and a half after 1989’s Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade opened. There have been, in the intervening years, countless times where star Harrison Ford was said to have been prepping for a return to the role. Or where producer/creator George Lucas was finally happy with a script (something we now know to put into perspective). Or where director Steven Spielberg was clearing his schedule for an immanent shoot. But all of these have, of course, failed to come to fruition as the series’ devoted fanbase debates whether a fourth entry would be welcome, with new mysteries Indy could explore, or if they should just leave well enough alone, that Crusade closed out the trilogy by bringing the main character full circle and showing us so much of his personal life.

Myself, I almost always fell in the former camp, feeling that if Spielberg, Lucas and Ford were all excited about a new idea than I would gladly go to see it since it must be at least passably good to earn all three seals of approval.

My first memory of Indiana Jones involves seeing a promotional special for Raiders of the Lost Ark on TV, I’m not sure if it was HBO or broadcast TV, while staying with my grandparents while my parents went to see the movie. I was hooked even with that behind-the-scenes special. A swashbuckling hero with a whip and an awesome hat AND he was played by the same guy who brought Han Solo to life? Please. To my six-year old self (I wouldn’t turn seven until later that year) that wasn’t even fair.

The only problem was the snakes. Like Dr. Jones himself I had – and still harbor to this day – a fear of snakes. But, having received assurances from my parents that when they took me to see it we could sit in the back row so as to be as far away as possible (yes, I’m psychotic, let’s move one) I was sucked into Indy’s adventure as he sought to keep the Ark of the Covenant out of Nazi hands.

My last memory of the Indy franchise, at least in theaters, was of course The Last Crusade. Not only did I love the movie, but it also contained a powerful motivator but un-related reason for me to see it: The first trailer for Tim Burton’s first Batman movie was reportedly running in front of it and I was anxious to see that, having doubts at the time about Michael Keaton’s ability to play that role.

Once again, 19 years later, Indiana Jones and Batman share a summer release year. But where The Dark Knight is all about continuing the re-invention of the Batman character, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is about reviving an iconic figure with all the audience’s favorite components intact.

Once again, Harrison Ford takes up the whip and fedora as he seeks to find some mysterious but powerful object. This time, though, it’s the 1950s and its Russian Communists that are after the Crystal Skull, a mystical artifact that bestows unlimited power to whomever returns it to its rightful place.

Helping Indy out on this quest are new characters played by Ray Winstone and Shia LaBouf, who plays Mutt Williams, a young man who may or may not (but probably is – he too would be named after a dog) the child of Indiana Jones and Marion Ravenwood, played by the returning Karen Allen.

The interesting thing is that, as with the other Maguffins Indy and his band of cohorts have been after, there is a ring of truth to the legend of crystal skulls. There are said to be 13 genuine such skulls that were created and which hold some sort of mystical power.

As Indy said, it’s not the years but the mileage. While a lot of years have passed – someone born in 1989 has been driving for three years now – that’s but one of the problems facing Paramount’s campaign for the movie. Not only do they have to sell the movie to fans of the original AND younger folks who might not be steeped in original-release viewing stories, but the movie comes out after 19 years of evolution in film-making. They simply don’t make them like they used to, and a return to the Saturday morning serials may not hold as much water with the crowd that made Transformers a hit last year.

All that is but prelude though. Let’s begin our look at how Paramount is selling the latest movie that can say, “The Man in the Hat is Back.”

The Posters

It took a while for Paramount and Lucasfilm to get around to releasing a teaser poster for the movie. But when they did it turned out to be a great effort. Jones is shown in silhouette as he stands in some sort of ancient looking gateway, his trademark hat on and his trusty whip in hand, all images that are immediately evocative of the Indiana Jones character and films. Even the color palette of orange and brown brings to mind the earlier films.

With all that in place it accomplishes its primary goal, which is to let people know that Indiana Jones is returning to theaters in a new adventure and that everything you loved about the character before is coming back with him. He still has that slightly over-confident half-smile on his face. In short, he’s the same old Indy you loved all those years ago, just in a new story.

Aside from the title treatment the just what that new adventure is really isn’t addressed on this poster. That’s largely because, let’s face it, the one area where this movie could stumble is in the story, so it’s best to not address that just yet. This is all about evoking feelings of nostalgia in the audience and maybe, just maybe, getting the people who remembers the original series to explain to their kids what Indiana Jones is all about, thus setting the stage for a new generation of fans.

The later theatrical poster took the opposite tack, though was no less seeped in nostalgia. It’s designed very much like the one-sheets for earlier movies, with the cast of characters arrayed around the giant floating head of Harrison Ford.

Moving clockwise from Ford, we first see a giant snake slithering down the wall of some sort of temple gateway, reminding us all of the famous snake-pit scene from Raiders and the subsequent gags that play on Jones’ paralyzing fear of snakes. Next to that is LaBouf’s Mutt Williams on his motorcycle, doing a bit to not only set the shifted time setting but also establishing that there’s some new blood being introduced into the series.

Down at the bottom we get Indy in another pose that’s meant to remind us of Raiders as well as the character’s general lot in life: Running away from a group of tribal warriors and not looking quite sure how he’s going to get out of this one. Above them is the crystal skull of the title, which we’re led to assume by the positioning on the poster has some connection to that tribe. It certainly does look mystical and mysterious, with the light shining from it meant to invoke the presence of power as well.

Continuing around the horn is Marion Ravenwood, albeit a much more smiley Marion than we seem to remember from Raiders. But still, she’s there and letting us know that she’ll be back to cause some problems for Indy emotionally as he navigates all the physical dangers around him. Next to her in the “sidekick” role is Ray Winstone, who seems to be taking the position in this movie that John Rhys-Davies’ Sallah did in the first and third films. Finally, above him is Cate Blanchett, dressed as a totalitarian dominatrix. Well maybe not that, but obviously she’s the villain here.

The poster is certainly in line with the overall design and feel of some of those for the previous movies, especially The Last Crusade, which used a similar circular layout. So it brings with it a certain amount of graphic familiarity. That, added to the nostalgia created by placing familiar objects like Marion and the snake around the image and you have a poster that’s certainly meant on a lot of levels to remind the audience of the previous movies and why they loved those films.

The inclusion of plenty of new stuff in a familiar setting is likely meant to convey the message that while this might be a new movie it’s treading familiar ground and that the audience shouldn’t be worried too much about the unknown. There’s plenty that’s new there to convey, in bits and pieces, the story of the movie so it’s not ceding the entire playing field to nostalgia.

Of course the familiarity is helped immensely by the fact that both posters were designed by legendary poster artist Drew Struzan, who worked on the one-sheets for all three earlier movies, all six Star Wars movies as well as tie-in materials like books for each of those properties. He’s almost as synonymous with the Indy and Star Wars franchises as John Williams.

So, as you might have surmised, both trailers work pretty well at achieving their needed goals, specifically of raising audience awareness and passing on the feelings of both newness and familiarity through design and coloration and other means. They both fit the established Indy brand extremely well and would look perfect on a wall alongside one-sheets from the earlier movies, which is a big win for the print campaign here.

The Trailers

To say the teaser trailer was highly anticipated by the audience would be among the bigger understatements I can think of in recent history. Debuting in theaters in front of The Spiderwick Chronicles, online at Yahoo and the official site and on TV during “Good Morning America,” the build-up to the trailer was tremendous. Up to this point we had just gotten the barest wisps of a marketing campaign for the movie. The teaser poster had already been released but aside from that the campaign to that point consisted mostly of the occasional set photo and some promotional videos that appeared on the IndianaJones.com site (which we’ll deal with in full later, of course). So this was our first real solid look at the new movie and its new and returning characters.

The format of the teaser trailer should be familiar to anyone who remembers the first teaser for Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace. The first third of the trailer’s running time is devoted to a trip down memory lane, showing us all that Indy did in the first three movies, although being careful to not to show Harrison Ford in full in any of the shots, much like he was seen just in shadow and silhouette at the beginning of Raiders.

After the character has been appropriately setup comes our first look at the new movie, a look which comes, appropriately in the same sort of slow-reveal style. We look down from high up to see Indy being thrown to the ground and then the camera cuts to a shot of his feet scuffling to pick up his fallen fedora. The camera continues up with him and we see the shadow of Indiana Jones, hat now back in place, an immediate return to how we first met him and an immediate trigger for everyone watching to shout “OH YEAH!”

The rest of the trailer, less than a minute from here to the ending, is not concerned at highlighting the movie’s story but instead is focused on selling the action set-pieces to the audience. So we see Indy and his friends running down a set of rapidly disappearing stairs, engaged in a car chase and otherwise alternately pursuing or fleeing the bad guys. There are a few minor hints dropped, the biggest of which is a military storage case that as “Area 51” stenciled on it that magnetically attracts Cate Blanchett’s dog-tags, but that’s about it.

Finally, the action gives way to an image similar to that on the teaser poster, of Indy standing against a red-lit background as the title treatment and release date are displayed.

Nothing is really explained and nothing is really laid out, but doing that isn’t the goal of this trailer. This is all about awareness raising and on that level is succeeds pretty darn well. The idea of a new movie is certainly generated in people’s minds and it’s placed well within the context of the larger series thanks to the footage from the earlier movies.

Paramount was certainly happy with the reaction to the trailer, crowing a couple weeks after its release that it had generated 200 million views in the first week of its release. It wasn’t stated exactly how it had arrived at that number or what got added up to reach it (did they count YouTube vids? Are the using Nielsen numbers for the GMA debut? These are the kinds of questions I have) but any measure that’s an impressive milestone and something Paramount was understandably eager to hype as the busy early summer movie season approached.

It was quite a well then, at least in Internet terms, before the release of the first theatrical trailer, something that didn’t happen until the first week of May in front of Paramount’s first summer release Iron Man. That put the trailer’s debut just three weeks out from that of the movie, which is seriously cutting it close.

Unlike the teaser, this trailer was all about the movie’s story. It opens with Indy explaining to someone (and sounding a little exasperated to be doing so) about the legend of the crystal skulls and the power they’re said to contain. All this is accompanied by shots of ancient temples and vine-covered walls and ghostly natives moving through the corridors of those temples. Finally we break out of exposition mode and rejoin Indy facing the same array of soldiers that we’d previously seen throwing him around.

Let me pause here and make a note: Both trailers include a line from Indy that, while not directly acknowledging his advance age, certainly play up the idea that things aren’t quite as easy as they used to be for our hero. In the teaser he swings from a warehouse rafter but fails to make it to the truck he was aiming for, instead falling backwards into another truck with two bad-guy red-shirts. When that happens he intones, “Damn I thought that was closer.” In this trailer when Ray Winstone says “This isn’t going to be easy” Indy retorts, “Not as easy as it used to be.”

I like the fact that the studio is acknowledging, at least in a subtle way, the age factor because it more or less takes the piss out of people who are going to use that to lambast the idea of a 60+ year old swinging around on a whip. It’s usually better to have a laugh at yourself before your detractors do it for you because it, on some level, allows you to maintain control of the situation. It doesn’t make it any less real of an issue, but at least you’re the one bringing it up and not them.

Back to the trailer, the rest of the spot gives us a pretty good look at all the major characters bounding around with – and against – Indy. We see John Hurt’s ragid professor, more of Winstone, our first good look at Shia LaBouf’s greaser and a little bit more of Marion Ravenwood, who again is there to provide a call-back to the first movie as she explains to Mutt Williams that she doesn’t think Jones “plans that far ahead” just before he emerges from the back of a truck with a rocket launcher. Some of the same footage we saw in the teaser is used and some of it is expanded, but not so much that this doesn’t feel like a new effort that provides a lot more detail on the movie.

The third trailer, released just about two weeks before the movie hit theaters, was not that much different from the first theatrical spot. It utilized the same format, with Indy explaining the mystery of the crystal skull before it gives way to a bevy of action sequences. The biggest addition was a single shot that showed the Nazca Lines in Peru, a formation that many believe to be the work of or evidence of alien visitation to Earth. Since aliens have long been rumored to be part of the movie’s plot it seemed logical to conclude that this was a further tip of the hat to that notion.

Online

Again I’m going to compare the movie to Star Wars, simply because like that franchise the official website is not movie-specific but instead a portal for the entire series of movies and meant to promote all four movies. Indeed my buddy Kirk Skodis even compared the look and feel of the site to a portal, albeit one that’s specifically devoted to helping you find information on Indiana Jones and his universe.

So because there’s a lot of information thrown around I’m going to try to do this in as logical an order as possible, using the menu that’s included toward the top of the page as my guide.

Our first stop (you’re going to have to imagine a the site as a map and our journey around it will be tracked with a red line. You’re welcome.) is “News” where you can find some of the major announcements dating back to early 2007, when the movie was first officially announced and moving all the way up to the release of some branded icons. This certainly isn’t comprehensive in terms of news about the movie or site updates but does include notes on major magazine stories and the release of new trailers and casting announcements and such. Unfortunately there’s no permalinks for the individual items, at least none that are easily found. I know the site has enabled deep-links but I don’t see how to access them once you’re on the site. But that’s a minor quibble.

Next up is “Adventures.” There are Adventures for each of the three previous movies in the series, with a slot open for the new entry. Diving into each one you get sort of a mini-site for that film, with a selection of still photos, videos and a brief story synopsis for the movie. There’s also an option to buy the new edition of that movie’s DVD at the IndianaJones.com online shop. Kind of cool and a nice way to bring all four movies (eventually) into a logical progression.

“The Film” offers a decent About description of the movie’s story and does a good job of explaining who some of the characters we’ve seen in the trailers and elsewhere are in case you were unsure. After that there’s a good selection of Production Notes that maybe lean a little too heavily on nostalgia, but mostly just try to place this movie within the context of the larger series. It’s not exactly hard-hitting or extremely informative but does provide not-bad background and quotes in case you were wondering whether or not everyone had a great time filming the new movie. (Spoiler: They did.)

“Cast” and “Filmmakers” are not surprising in the least, providing filmographies and biographies of the major cast and crew members, with the most important folks getting more depth and shading than the more minor players.

There’s a good amount of stills included under “Galleries” that are divided into a handful of, well, galleries. There’s one labeled Kingdom of the Crystal Skull that obviously contains production shots from this movie. You’ll also find some behind the scenes shots from filming and production under On Location & Behind the Scenes. All tallied up, though, there seem to be fewer pictures here than have been released to the press. And considering there are still plenty of open spots on the grid for each gallery that’s a little surprising. I would have thought the studio would fill that up as much as possible. There are also galleries for Raiders, Temple of Doom and Last Crusade. You can enlarge each picture, which opens a pop-up that also allows you to download the picture to your hard drive.

“Video” is again broken up into a handful of galleries. I’ll start off with Trailers, which contains not only the trailers for Crystal Skull but also teasers and theatrical spots for the first three movies too. That’s very cool and it’s a lot of fun to watch them and get a glimpse into what constituted a major trailer back in 1981. All nine TV spots for the new movie are under TV Spots, which right there makes this site a cut above most others, which decide people don’t really want to watch those or reference them at all. I’ve long said the official website should be an archive of all the movie’s marketing materials and this is a great example of doing just that.

The last gallery, at least among those that are active, is On Location. This section has played a major part in the movie’s campaign, with videos from the set being added to it all the way back in June of 2007, when the movie was just beginning shooting. These provided some of our first looks at the movie and created tremendous buzz online, with fans scouring them for glimpses of Indy and other characters and creating screengrabs for their sites so others could get a look as well. Videos range from cast interviews to compilations of Spielberg directing to the cast video that was created for last year’s Comic-Con. The release of these short videos has allowed Paramount/Lucasfilm to create an ongoing source of buzz for the fans anticipating the franchise’s return by whetting their appetite just a little bit every now and again, especially before the actual marketing campaign began with the release of posters and trailers. Some of these are obviously better than others but they all form a nice collection of spots.

Moving on, the next section is “Downloads.” There are over 25 Wallpapers that are specific to Crystal Skull, as well as a handful from each of the earlier movies as well. If you want Buddy Icons you’ll have 15 to choose from and there are also a wide selection of Posters to choose from and download, again with the entire series represented here.

Here, as well as on the site’s main page, is where you can grab the widget for the movie. I’ve had that widget here on MMM for quite a while now and it functions quite well as a mini-site. Through it you can view trailers and other video, check out photos and read news updates on the movie. There was also a contest you could enter by grabbing the widget that would give the publisher with the most secondary grabs a trip to the movie’s premiere. Paramount used that widget as a distribution platform for the first theatrical trailer as well, exponentially increasing that trailer’s reach since it now had its own little syndication network in place, a network made up of willing fans who had decided to trade site space for the ability to display their love of Indiana Jones movies.

The next section, “Community,” is really kind of cool and not something I’ve seen a whole lot of on other movie sites. It’s got a bunch of stuff to download that’s almost specifically meant for publishers of blogs and other sites as well as those with social networking sites. You can download sets of banners you can add to your sites as well as a whole package of high-quality version of posters, photos and banners. That’s kind of awesome since the studio is then encouraging fans to grab this stuff and use it on their sites or elsewhere. There are also page skins you can grab and sets of desktop icons – one for each movie – to download and start using on your personal computer. All of this gives fans and enthusiasts exactly the kind of high-quality collateral that enables them to express that enthusiasm in the best manner possible. I love it.

The movie is also on MySpace and Facebook , something that just kind of blows my mind.

The MySpace page, as such pages are apt to do, largely recreates the official site only in miniaturized form. There are pictures and posters and more to download and trailers to watch. The biggest addition is a contest you can enter by becoming a friend of the site that awards the winner a six day “Indiana Jones inspired” trip to Venice. (Cue, “Ahhh…Venice.”)

The Facebook page is kind of in the same boat. Because of the different limitations of the site there isn’t as much to download, but you still see pictures and trailers and other material like that. The coolest thing about what Paramount did on Facebook was to add Indy’s whip to the SuperPoke application that’s super-popular among users of the social network. As I explained earlier, the thing I like about that move was that they added on to a tool people were already using instead of trying to change behaviors and adding their own application.

Since they were the host for the teaser trailer’s premiere, Yahoo also has its own little Indiana Jones site going, with trailers and pictures from all four movies available there, as well as the movie’s widget.

In the final days before the movie came out, while the cast and crew were at the Cannes Film Festival (more on this below), each of the principle players did interviews on video streaming site Seesmic (I’m streaming live now, come chat!!!) something that went over like gangbusters with the Web 2.0 crowd. Ford, Blanchett, Spielberg, Lucas and Allen all had profiles created where they answered questions and generally interacted with the people there, which was a great move at the last minute. The reaction there was that this was not only a fantastic effort to make the actors and creators more approachable, but also a singular moment for Seesmic, which obviously benefited from the celebrity presences. Of course the adulation wasn’t universal, with TechCrunch’s Mike Arrington griping that he wasn’t notified of it and therefore wasn’t prepared for the technical problems to come.

Cross Promotions and Tie-Ins

My, the world has certainly changed in the last 19 years, hasn’t it? Maybe it’s my brain filtering things out to the point where I’ve become convinced the earlier Indiana Jones films were never sullied by something as crass as promotional tie-ins, but I have to think this is the first Indy movie to feature such a wide array of marketing partners and co-branded products. I know there were collectible glasses at Burger King for at least Raiders and I’m sure there were other things, but all that has been lost to the vacuum of time as I now remember them being as pure as freshly-fallen snow when it comes to be tie-ins and the like.

But instead of fooling myself like this further let’s look at what brands have signed on to help promote Dr. Jones’ return to the big screen.

Let’s start off with M&Ms. The candy brand used the cross-promotion to launch a new “Mint” flavor of M&Ms and created movie-branded packaging for both the mint ones as well as their regular milk-chocolate and peanut versions. The promotional site not only provides information on those candies but includes a pretty fun game that takes you through an adventure to find the mint M&Ms. There were also print and TV ads that put cast the M&M characters in the role of Indy. Finally, Kyle Busch’s #18 M&Ms car received a new Indiana Jones-themed makeover for the Dodge Challenger 500 on May 10th, just a couple weeks before the movie’s opening. The promotion even extended to M&Ms’ ice cream products.

M&Ms wasn’t the only partner to think that auto-racing made a lot of sense for a Jones-related promotion. Blockbuster had Marco Andretti’s #26 car re-done with an Indy/Blockbuster paint scheme for the May 25th Indianapolis 500. The rental chain took the car on a 10-city tour across the country to promote the partnership and sold both general Indiana Jones merchandise as well as that specifically created for the “Indiana Jones at the Indianapolis 500” event at stores nationwide.

Expedia highlighted the availability of trips to some of the Indiana Jones-featured locations on its site. The travel site also ran a sweepstakes dubbed the Quest for the Golden Suitcase. By playing you could win anything from movie tickets, toys, games, DVDs to a grand prize of a trip for two around the world to the places Indy has been.

Burger King used Indy’s return to the big-screen as the basis for the second of its three major movie tie-ins of summer, 2008. (The first being Iron Man and Hulk following after Indy.) The fast-food chain added Indiana Jones toys to its Kid’s Meals, with some of the toys recreating scenes from the movies and others just generally “adventure” oriented. In-store signage, especially that featuring the chain’s King character sporting fedora, along with a cross-media ad campaign supported the promotion. BK also has a scratch-off game going where people can enter their codes online for daily prizes. Finally, the chain created a limited-time Indy Double Whopper with some new sauces and such that I totally want to get because it sounds really good.

Dr. Pepper was another big partner, putting their efforts under the “Passport to Adventure” moniker. The effort, which also brought together the promotions from Burger King and Expedia, was built mostly around a 1-in-6 game involving Indy-designed cans that awarded prizes like t-shirts or movie tickets. But each prize also brought with it a code you could enter online that would lead to someone winning a trip to an exotic, Indy-esque location. Codes were also included in print ads Dr. Pepper ran in a variety of lifestyle publications. The promotional site is built like a map, showing each one of these locations along with a brief film clip from a portion of one of the movies that took place there. The soft drink brand also worked with a handful of grocery store chains to build special Indiana Jones/Dr. Pepper displays that included movie tickets or other incentives for buying specific items or a certain amount of product. It too ran TV and online ads to promote the promotion.

Disneyland also helped out by creating “The Summer of Hidden Mysteries” that seems to be built solely around Indiana Jones. Guests to the park are given special maps that take them around and about to various locations where they can shop or watch a stunt show and collect clues that, when put together, give the guest access to exclusive online downloads.

Major League Baseball even got involved, putting Indy’s face on the May 22nd date on all its teams online calendars, something I first saw on Chicagoist but which AOL’s Fanhouse blog also noted and was not a big fan of, saying it messed with the integrity of the game. Personally I think this is about the least intrusive way they could have structured a deal so I don’t have a problem with how it was executed. In fact I thought it was kind of cool and a nice way to reinforce the movie’s release day among sports fans without running an annoying banner ads. People certainly were going to pay attention to the face of Harrison Ford staring out at them, so it’s a good effort I think.

There was also plenty of licensed product support for the movie, with Hasbro and Lego handing the toys, Random House, Scholastic, and DK publishing a series of tie-ins and other printed material for the movie and Hallmark creating ornaments, greeting cards and other products for sale in its stores. Lego even created another video game encompassing the first three movies much the same way it did for the Star Wars trilogy. There’s also an online side-scrolling game you play to get a sense of what a Lego Indiana Jones would look like.

Finally, a mobile game from THQ Wireless has been created to get the younger audience’s interest and start immersing them in the world of Indiana Jones.

Advertising, Press Coverage and Other Media

The advertising for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was…well…it could have been as unavoidable as Iron Man’s ads couldn’t it?

Most of the paid ad campaign is pretty straight-forward. As archived on the official site, there were upwards of 10 TV spots created. Most took the same kind of tone as the theatrical trailers and featured, for the most part, footage we had already seen in those trailers. Each spot took a slightly different route, though, with some featuring more Mutt or more chases or whatever. Most all of them offer brief glimpses of scenes we hadn’t seen previously, but it’s usually just enough to make us want for even more. The spots were pretty common, at least based on my TV viewing, in the last two weeks or so prior to release, likely waiting until the Iron Man campaign was dying down to really start a major push.

I also came across a handful of online and outdoor ads in my travels through the virtual and real worlds. I’m not sure what the overall ad campaign entailed but it seemed to be pretty widespread without being annoying, with movie ticket sites like Fandango also running their own Indy-branded ads online.

The outdoor campaign may not have been all that big in Chicago, at least downtown where I just saw a few posters, but it was apparently huge in New York and Los Angeles. Paramount draped a giant ad for the movie outside of New York City’s Madison Square Garden and reportedly blanketed Los Angeles in billboards and other outdoor signage for the movie. The entire out-of-home campaign is said to have included 2,000 installations of various types.

In terms of other media that are being released in an effort to promote the new movie there are three major components.

The first is the re-release of the original trilogy on DVD. I received a review copy of the new box-set of the three films and have to say that, purely from an enjoyment point of view, this set blows the 2003 editions out of the water.

On the original release there were no bonus features on each movie’s discs. Instead, a handful of retrospective featurettes and some assorted other material were put on a fourth disc that was included in the set. While they were very good, they weren’t quite as in-depth on each movie that I think fans were looking for.

This new set corrects that problem. The movies themselves are the same, even down to the menu animation on each disc. But each movie now gets its own set of features. That includes an “Introduction to…” featurette that has Speilberg and Lucas talking about that movie followed by some sort of behind-the-scenes look at a specific aspect of the film. So the Raiders disc, for instance, has a whole thing devoted to the “Melting Face” special effect. Similar features appear on each disc along with photo galleries and other media related to each movie. There’s also a PC-playable demo of the Lego Indiana Jones game on each disc.

I greatly prefer having the special features on each disc as opposed to a separate one, both for the depth it can offer as well as for the fact that I can then more fully immerse myself in each film’s story and background.

The second major component, also appearing on DVD (but which I did not receive review copies of) in the months leading up to the new movie, were three volumes of the “Young Indiana Jones Chronicles” TV series from the early 90s. This is a huge coup for fans of the franchise as the series released a scrambled and overall sub-par VHS release back in the late 90s or so when the trilogy received a new, re-mastered VHS release. The new DVDs were well stocked with material that explores the historical truth behind the locations and events a young Indiana Jones finds himself tangled up in the middle of.

The third component was taken care of by Dark Horse Comics, who not only released the official comic adaptation of the new movie but also released the old 80s and 90s series in their “Omnibus” format, putting each story arc in chronological order based on the events portrayed. For those of us who remember those old series this is a great item, almost a must-have on the same level as “Young Indy,” if you want to own the archeologist’s complete adventures.

The movie, since it’s such a huge event – this is the return of a popular culture icon at the hands of some of the biggest names in Hollywood, after all – has been helped tremendously by some media coverage that, if you ask me, negates the need for much of the advertising that’s been done.

Positive pieces celebrating the genius of the filmmakers and the importance of the movies have appeared in Vanity Fair, Entertainment Weekly and Empire Magazine, to name a few. The Vanity Fair piece treads the same ground as Lucas’ Star Wars prequels, being given a not-at-all hard-hitting interview story that’s accompanied by gorgeous Annie Lebowitz photos from the set.

Again, I’m not saying that this coverage isn’t deserved or earned (indeed it defines the phrase “earned media” in public relations terms). What I am saying is that the eyeballs that are going to see the magazine covers with Ford, LaBouf, Spielberg and Lucas on them are roughly equivalent to the eyeballs that are going to be exposed to some of the advertising that’s gone on.

The Sci-Fi Channel also created a conveniently timed special, hosted by Lester Holt, on the legend of the crystal skulls that aired just days before the movie opened.

Not to be outdone by third parties, an official Indiana Jones magazine was launched, with the premiere issue covering the new movie debuting the same day the movie’s been released.

The filmmakers also made the decision to give Crystal Skull the biggest of big stages on which to debut, taking the movie (out of competition) to the Cannes Film Festival, making it the premiere for the film instead of something more traditional in Los Angeles or New York. That brought out a lot of skeptics who believed it would suffer from the critics there for serious films who were just waiting with sharpened knives for a popcorn action movie that they could savage. Mostly it was compared to The DaVinci Code since it made the same move a couple years ago, getting savaged by critics before going on to make $300 million-plus at the box-office. Reaction after the screening, though, seemed to be mostly positive, with many of the critics giving it props for being fun and adventure-filled even if it doesn’t come up to any level of fine artistic statement-making or anything.

Overall

From the moment it was announced that the movie was shooting, through the first look at Harrison Ford on the set to the revealing of the title and up through the last TV spot that was released this campaign has been all about reinvigorating the Indiana Jones franchise, one that’s been dormant for almost two decades.

Looking over the campaign from top to bottom I’m hard-pressed to find something that Paramount and Lucasfilm did especially wrong. They consistently walked a line between invoking feelings of nostalgia in the older audience and creating an allure around what might be viewed as a dusty old franchise in the younger audience.

I think the posters were well-designed, the trailers were well edited and did a good job of re-introducing a old characters were brought into the fold. The Website was nicely put together and nicely tied all four films together into one narrative, giving old-time fans plenty to look over at the same time they were able to check out the new movie. And the movie certainly doesn’t lack for promotional partners, many of which took the same approach they would for a more naturally younger-skewing film.

Some have labeled the campaign for Indiana Jones as “inescapable” but I think compared to some others this early summer movie season it’s downright subdued. Others think Paramount seriously bungled the campaign but I think there are problems with all the alleged mistakes that are pointed out there.

I think they did a great job of appealing to all audiences with a campaign that occasionally poked fun at itself at the same time it presented an epic return of a truly epic adventure. Yeah, I’m naturally inclined to like the movie since I’m such a fan of the character and the earlier movies but even so I think this is a great campaign for a movie I’m looking forward to immensely.

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