Unless you live under a rock, you’ve probably heard about this little thing called “The Hunger Games”– you know, the book-turned-movie that has literally gripped the nation for the last month or so. I am a HUGE fan of the books (I read all three in less than a week) and was so obsessed with the movie that I have seen it three times since it came out. (I justify that last part by telling people I take pride in personally participating in the record-breaking box office sales. Makes me feel like I’m achieving some sort of world record or something.)
Anyway, besides it being an amazingly addicting book series with a first-class female protagonist and an adventure filled/slightly morbid plot line, The Hunger Games has also done a great job promoting and branding itself leading up to the movie release date, especially from a digital and social standpoint. The Hunger Games Facebook Fan page, with close to 3.6 million “Likes,” has an average engagement rate of .90%, the highest engagement rate at 2.10%. Compare that with the Twilight fan page, which has .20% and .36% average and highest engagement rates, respectively. What makes The Hunger Games a more successful social expenditure is the fact that it has invited its fans into the world of Panem– when you register on the website, you become a citizen are even assigned a career and a specific in which you live! There are even separate Facebook pages for each respective district, which you are urged to visit after you are assigned your home. From an article I found on Ignite Social Media:
“Once you have completed this process, you are prompted to join your district on Facebook. Each District has its own Facebook page complete with a district mayor, recruiter and journalist. These individuals are fans and genuine enthusiasts of The Hunger Games who participated in elections, held earlier this year on the Facebook Wall and were chosen by ‘The Capitol’ to be administrators. The mayors act as leaders for the Districts, and are responsible for celebrating its citizens and relaying communication from the Capitol on Facebook. The recruiters help spread the word through the Districts primarily on Twitter and the journalists (who are established bloggers) receive ‘tips’ from citizens and periodically write about Hunger Games news.”
Talk about hitting all your bases– you’re capturing audiences through Facebook, Twitter and blogs, and spreading the message through far more channels and to exponentially more people.
Through all these positives, however, comes one negative. Gaming company Funtactix was set to release a game called The Hunger Games Adventure on March 23, as one further promotion for the movie release. (Writers over at Mashable thought it kind of weird that they would choose to release it on the day of the movie release, rather than say a week or two before hand to create even more hype. I kind of agree with that too… makes me wonder…)However, March 23 came and went, and no sign of the game, and to this day, the game has yet to go up. Developers claim that select users can be invited in to experience a Beta version, but Mashable reports that those users also haven’t gotten any word of it. To me, this sounds a lot like the failed attempt at JK Rowling’s website, Pottermore, which was set to launch in October but is still, to my knowledge, in Beta mode. In any case, I hope they can resolve the issue soon, because I’m gonna be all over that.
So kudos to the marketing team at The Hunger Games for launching such a great digital campaign, and involving its fans in such an original and highly-interactive way. I hope this can be a lesson to future “big-name” movie releases.
SocialBitsandBytes 