In what might have been the least effective ad placement in the history of the internet, there's a picture of The Hunger Games' Peeta buried in the source code at Just Jared right now. The only reason it works at all is that the website itself tells you to go and look for it... which sort of undermines the purpose of it being hidden in the first place. So, anyway, there's a novelty for fans of The Hunger Games, and it's all to promote... well, a scheme to get us to do their promotions for them. Because it's actually an instruction to tweet out a particular marketing hashtag and... I don't know. This seems to be my least favourite ad campaign in the history of movies. It's a shame, because I really do love the Hunger Games series and I think innovation and creativity in marketing are to be celebrated. Anyway, should the amassed Hunger Games fandom hammer that hashtag all the way to Lionsgate's satisfaction, it will lead to the publication of a video - ie. another promotion for the films. I don't know about anybody else but I think I'm going to and lay down in a dark cave for a while.
Brendon Connelly has been a film writer since the early 90s, with time on the staff of Orbit Magazine, Slashfilm, Bleeding Cool, Den of Geek and many more. He's a long time teacher of film studies and practical filmmaking classes, and has directed music videos, commercials, short films and more. His favourite film is Terry Gilliam's Brazil, his favourite food is pancakes or crepes, and he tries to live his life by the teachings of Kermit the Frog.
