Influx

A contender for 2007 summer’s blockbuster is Michael Bay’s latest effort Transformers.Although the movie isn’t released for another 6 months, the second phase of the effort began just prior to Christmas with a new trailer. The first round of marketing began in July when the first teaser trailer was released. Already, it looks as though the marketing team is hard at work embracing a non-traditional marketing arsenal, from fan remixes to hidden codes in trailers.

The latest trailer contains codes for a hidden website and password which you can only see if you pause it.

The secret web site looks like this.

It’s too early to tell if this site is the start of an ARG, or just a location for viral Easter eggs. This site has downloadable PDFs and other goodies.

The story about the “secret” website made it onto Digg on December 22nd and has received over 1,1000 diggs.

The new trailer generated over 300,000 views on YouTube in just 3 days.

Online communities are helping to generate all this attention.

It’s amazing to see the range of communities that are picking up on the story and sharing it;

Transformers online community

The movie’s director Michael Bay’s forum

Blade Runner fan forums

Dedicated blogs for the movie

Gaming forums

Home Theater forums

Heavy Metal Internet radio stations

Automotive news blogs

Other mass community sites like Flickr that are being use to collect and share assets from the film. It’s interesting to see the interplay between those sites at the top of the Long Tail, Flickr and YouTube, the community forums in the middle and the individual blogs in the tail.

While no marketing campaign can ever compete with a $300 million blockbuster for cultural attention, it can learn from it. This may not work for all marketing efforts, but for those that are based on creating an entertaining spectacle, it can.

If you organize and audit all your content and the stories that relate to your campaign, you can understand the range of communities and bloggers would could be interested and start to communicate with them.

If you do this right, you can propel your idea closer to mass consciousness, but only if you provide relevant stories, relevant content and then let communities and individuals play.