The viral and Alternate Reality Game (ARG) marketing effort (which I’ve previously written about here and Andy here) that has been hitting the masses for the new Dark Knight movie just got that much more interesting this October. At the beginning of the month, the whysoserious.com domain that has housed previous efforts got a cool little face-lift. In preparation for Halloween, a menacing Jack-O-Latern was now on display that many familiar with the Batman Universe would surely recognize. The burning Jack-O-Latern is identical to one featured in an old Batman comic called “The Long Halloween”. This definitely got the geeks a-talkin’.

If you were as fanatic as I am, and frequent the same blogs as I do, you’d come to learn that as Halloween drew nearer the candle in the Jack-O-Latern was slowly dimming and one side of the Jack-O-Latern’s face was rotting. This immediately got everyone thinking that we’d finally get to our first look at Two-Face, an infamous Batman villan that’s reportedly making an appearance in the new flick.

So, it’s Halloween (Happy Halloween BTW) and no Two-Face. But all is still right in my lonely geek universe. 42 Entertainment has blessed us with yet another puzzle to solve in our efforts to become even more engaged in this new universe that they’ve created. If you go to whysoserious.com now, you’re met with a new task that beats any Sudoku you’ve ever attempted…at least for me…because I suck at Sudoku. The gist? I think Aintitcool.com says it best:

… there’s missions for cities all over the United States… and if you click on these diced up pics - instructions come up for you and your city - of a place to visit and to photograph what you see there. They suggest that you not start till Daylight - .. Well - if you’re in the above cities and you go and check it out - take a photo - and post a link to your photo in the Talkback below and let’s see what they want us to see. But apparently you need to watch out for the corrupt police forces. Heh.

Happy Halloween!

The “tasks” referenced above are for people in the specified cities to go to a specified place and look for a specified letter. One of Austin’s clues was “Near Riverside and Barton Springs is a car wash with a mural. Go there, then find a nearby manhole that says SEWAR, stand on it and scan the skyline. I’d like to buy a vowel.” If you’re familiar at all with that location you know that you’d be staring straight at the Embassy Suites. “E”. A vowel. Someone took the picture and submitted it. Others from around the country did the same and a phrase is starting to become apparent: “The only sensible way to live in this world is without rules.” Awesome. Seriously awesome. When the last few letters are put in place we’re in for another surprise I take it.

What a great piece of marketing. It’s engaging and fun as hell. It hits the influencers straight in the heart and really gets the juices flowing. I’m hooked. Warner Brothers wins. We win.

I was wondering how they figured which cities should participate in this little adventure. If you click on the pictured letter on the site, the name and location of the person who took the photo is displayed. After doing this for all the letters I think I may have figured it out. It appears that 6 of the top 10 “Most Creative Large Cities” according to Richard Florida’s “Rise of the Creative Class” were used as destinations in this exercise. The top “Most Creative Medium City”, Albuquerque, NM, was also used. Have they figured out that these are the people that will play along? It makes sense. That’s something to think about.

Anyway, I’d suggest you bookmark whysoserious.com and try and keep up with all the goings on. It’s going to get crazy I’d imagine.

UPDATE: See what’s new after the jump.

The phrase at whysoserious.com is completed and we’re blessed with a new image of the Joker; no Two-Face, but I’ll take whatever they feed me. There’s also an audio clip that plays when the new photo arrives. “And tonight you’re gonna break your one rule.” Chills.

If you click on the picture you’re redirected rorysdeathkiss.com (this address surely has some significance that I’m totally not aware of yet) where we have yet ANOTHER message waiting for us. We fanboys have been instructed to dress up as the Joker tonight and go take pictures of ourselves at the major landmarks in our given city. As long as some punk kids don’t deface the Stevie Ray Vaughn memorial here in Austin I’m anxious to see how we’re represented in this. Oh, and the Joker promises that if we do this for him…he’ll do something for us. Too cool. Too cool.