The welcoming message on the official Fox website The Day After Tomorrow leaves no doubt about it, “The Day after Tomorrow is here!” This website, also known as www.thedayaftertomorrow.com was especially created for the film The Day after Tomorrow by 20^th Century Fox. The message is accompanied by a picture that must look familiar to people, who have heard or seen anything about the film. It is a picture of the Statue of Liberty being swallowed up by the sea, but holding its torch held firmly above the water, as though it tries to say, “no matter what happens America will survive”. At first glance, this website is mainly directed at the American audience. If they want, they can get showtimes and the first of the eleven languages that can be selected is, of course, (American) English. However, I have decided to analyse the ‘English outside North America version’.

After selecting a language, the screen slowly fills itself with all sorts of information. It is almost like a navigation system supported by computerised sounds. Visitors can see pictures of familiar buildings being covered in snow, get some information about the film and this website and in the background there is a haunting music. Not only that, but there is also an image of a globe and a countdown with all zeros. This gives it a somewhat menacing feel. Visitors can register to receive updates on the film, and they can navigate quite easily through the website. There are four main options, respectively ‘The Production’, ‘Multimedia’, ‘Out of Time’ and ‘Weather Gone Wild’. The first one offers general information about the cast, filmmakers, a synopsis and production nodes. There are some interviews with cast members, but these are not very extensive or unusual. Visitors can select the information they want, and besides reading it they can also send it to friends. This form of viral marketing is often used by corporations, because it is an easy and cheap way to ‘spread the word’.

            The second option, ‘Multimedia’ is filled with all sorts of entertainment formats. It not only offers a galleries of photographs from the film and conceptual drawings, downloads, montages and videos, but also a special programme called ‘Global Watch’ which enables visitors to select places on the globe and to read alarming weather predictions. Another programme called ‘City Freeze’ lets visitors select places as well, but this time they can actually see what will happen ‘if a worldwide climate shift caused a massive global superstorm’. To be more precise, visitors can see fabricated footage of well-known buildings slowly being covered in snow. Since this also happens in The Day After Tomorrow, it is an obvious reference to the film. However, I do get the impression that the makers of the film and this website have used the attributes and affordances of the Internet and created these options to make people more aware of what can happen if the movie does become reality. Every once and a while, the computer screen ‘freezes’, so that people are unable to do anything for a short period of time and almost all the photographs and videos are accompanied by place names, countries and time, to emphasise that it concerns all of us. 

            The third option, ‘Out of Time’ is about the only option that offers some form of participation. There is no real messageboard and all the other options are more a one-way communication. However, in here, visitors can create their own profiles; with information about themselves and what they would do if there would be no ‘Day after Tomorrow’. They can also fill in their three favourite songs, or their co-called ‘Life Soundtrack’. By adding their voice, reading others and sending it to friends, people can let other people know what they think about what the film is trying to say. This way the makers of the website (and the film) can get a general idea of their target market and what they like. Consequently, every day a ‘Profile of the Day’ is selected to further stimulate people to fill in a profile. At the same time, this website tries to make visitors more aware of their corporation(s). For instance, when people want to register, they can ‘get more information on upcoming Fox Products, promotions and services’ etc. What’s more, this website is partners with Samsung and Stella Artois Screen, where people can win The Day after Tomorrow merchandise. In the end, this website was most likely created to promote the film and to make it more appealing to people, they have tried to offer relevant information about the film but also about its message.   

            The latter is especially emphasised in the forth option, called ‘Weather Gone Wild’ and the fact that this website is also partners with Future Fo2rest. This option is dedicated to the overall message of the film The Day after Tomorrow. Visitors can read all sorts of alarming facts about the present situation and future predictions, and if they want they can find out more by clicking on links to other - mostly - environmental websites. For instance, there is a link to the website of the NRDC: Natural Resources Defense Council about global warming and a website about inland flooding. Furthermore, visitors can get information about ‘what they can do’ and read articles about ‘newsworthy weather events’. All in all, I get the impression that Fox tries to promote the film The Day after Tomorrow by emphasising on the message of the film, and not really by saying over and over again how great their merchandise is, or by using slogans like “you have to see it!”. In other words, this website tries to catch people’s attention by offering information that might interest them, and will hopefully make them more curious about the film.  

5. IIII) Activities of Others: fans and Greenpeace

It did not take long before others began to do something with the official The Day after Tomorrow material and according to Fiske and his ‘active audience’ theory this is no surprise. Fiske believes that it is impossible to see a text as completely ‘closed’, because it is always interconnected with other texts. Besides, the creators of texts can never completely dictate the meaning of a text, since every text leaves open some gaps and because most people actively try to make their own meaning.[1] Fans are a good example of an active audience, because many of them actively try to interpret, rework and do something with the things they admire. In the case of The Day after Tomorrow, some fans of the main actors decided to dedicate parts of their websites to this film, by writing reviews, collecting photographs, creating wallpapers and desktops and by discussing it on their messageboards. Also, on Yahoo some people formed groups where they could exchange information about The Day After Tomorrow and the actors that appear in the film, for instance, TheDayAfterTomorrowGroup and the   Gyllenhaalgroup. Moreover, some of these groups are so-called role playing games, where people can pretend to be in a situation like in the film.

            However, fans were not the only ones who felt inspired. As I mentioned before, the environmental organisation Greenpeace used this film - and especially its website - for their own cause. They made a spoof site that much resembles the official website, but not quite. The opening page looks almost identical to the official opening page with a picture of buildings and palm trees being flooded by a big wave. Likewise, visitors can select the country of their choice. Although this time The Netherlands is an option, I have decided to analyse the United Kingdom version instead, because this way all my research material is British. The website clearly states that it is a Greenpeace website, but it also makes a reference to the official Fox website of The Day after Tomorrow. They probably do this, to give them some credit of the design of the page and maybe also because the official site does seem to care about the message of the film. 

Even though the main page opens much less flashy than the official page, the use of space does resemble the official Fox website. For instance, it also has a moving banner with global weather reports and it also offers a synopsis and information about the ‘cast members’. Only this time it’s not Emmerich who directs the film, but Esso Exxon and Exxon Mobil, while the ‘producer’ is George W. Bush. Also, this time the ‘special effects’ are real and the ‘extras’ are the victims of climate change. The opening message of this website says it all, “The Day is Today. What will you do?” In other words, we have to do something now and not wait until ‘The Day after Tomorrow’. This website encourages you to ‘Get Active’ and just like www.thedayaftertomorrow.com they offer relevant links to other sites, for instance ‘Greenpeace International’ and ‘Stop Esso’ as well as related articles. This time, the ‘Get Active’ part also involved the possibility ‘re-write you own ending’. For instance, ‘Don’t buy Esso’, ‘SayYes2Wind’ and ‘Join Greenpeace’. Moreover, visitors are stimulated to ‘Tell a Friend’ about Greenpeace’ campaign against climate change. This way, Greenpeace gets their message across, while simultaneously getting a general idea of their visitors.              

            Furthermore, in the ‘Gallery’ visitors can watch the Greenpeace version of a film trailer, which unlike the Hollywood version shows ‘real images, with no special effects’. Additionally, visitors can look at photographs of real environmental disasters, because what is happening in the film The Day After Tomorrow is partly happening already. To make the site more appealing to people Greenpeace has come up with a few games, which are quite entertaining, but not much more. Again, they are mainly targeted against Bush and Esso. Even so, the accompanying message “who will you blame?” tries to remind people of their responsibilities, because even though Greenpeace mainly targets Bush and Esso, they also believe that it is everybody’s responsibility to do something about it, before it is too late.   

In their article: Fwd: This Made Me laugh. How viral Ad Parodies Impact Your Brand by Harvest, one of their question is “who or what the target if the parody is”.[2] Even though it looks as though this site tries to mock the film The Day After Tomorrow, I don’t get the impression that they are the target of the parody. Like I just said, the parody is more or less industry specific with the main targets being Bush, Esso and Exxon Mobil and people who don’t seem to care about what they are doing to the environment. In fact, in the ‘Media’ section, Greenpeace even tries to explain why they believe ‘Esso deserves to be singled out’. 

With this in mind, I believe this website only uses the film and its website to try and lure people who have taken an interest in the film and its contents and who might want to know more about it. Consequently, the intent behind this website is to make people more aware of what some corporations are doing to the environment and that they themselves can (actively) do something about it. For instance, by informing themselves, notifying friends and maybe then deciding to openly protest against it.     

6) Evaluation 

After analysing the way the film The Day after Tomorrow is advertised by large corporations and used by the active audience, the first thing that comes to mind is, that the British movie magazine Empire and its website www.empireonline.co.uk seem the most commercial. For instance, www.empireonline.co.uk uses the attributes and affordances of the Internet to not only promote the film by offering lots of information about the film and crew, exclusive material and numerous trailers, but also by offering links to other large corporations, like www.ebay.co.uk and www.amazon.co.uk that sell all kinds of related merchandise. In other words, they mainly focus on the entertainment side of the film The Day after Tomorrow. Even so, Empire Online does enable people to participate, as long as they are a registered member. And although these members can not really change the available material, they can discuss it by writing reviews or by interacting with others on the available messageboards.

The official website www.thedayaftertomorrow.com also tries to promote the film, but does it in a less obvious way. In other words, Fox tries to make an appealing and engaging site that is inspired by the film, but they don’t emphasise the commercial aspect as much as Empire (Online). The way the website is designed gives visitors the impression that they can have a say in it, since they are the ones who navigate through the website and see what is happening on a global scale. Even though I do think the overall aim of this website is to get people to see the film The Day after Tomorrow, they don’t really try to catch people’s attention by letting them know where to find related merchandise, but by emphasising that this film has something important to say about the current situation. They even encourage people to send e-mails to friends and to create and read profiles, so that they can see that other people share the same view and are more inclined to go see the film and visit this site again.

However, besides these so-called profiles there is not much actual interaction. There is no messageboard or the like, which may be one of the reasons why some people have created their own groups, where they rework the material the way they see fit. Also, the organisation Greenpeace felt inspired to use the synopsis of The Day After Tomorrow to create a spoof site, where they could protest against Bush and Esso. This website not only resembles the official Fox website in name, but also in design. However, they don’t seem to have spent as much money on the actual website as Fox probably has, since they only use the most basic entertainment formats of the Internet and they are not really concerned with promoting the actual film. Even so, just like the official website this website uses viral marketing, only they use it to inform as many people as possible about their campaign against climate change. 

7) Conclusion

In summary, in this paper I have tried to focus on the different ways large corporations like Fox and Empire try to promote the film The Day after Tomorrow on their websites and if and how they allow possibilities for participation. In other words, I wanted to find out how these corporations (structures) offer possibilities for interaction and how consumers (can) react to it.  

Consequently, my main question for this was “What are the variations of corporate structure and user agency in the promotion of the film the Day after Tomorrow?”. To try and answer this question, my research material consisted of the film The Day after Tomorrow and four advertising resources, respectively, the British movie magazine Empire and their online version www.empireonline.co.uk, the official Fox website www.thedayaftertomorrow.com and the spoof site www.thedayaftertomorrow.org by Greenpeace. I decided to do a textual analysis of these different websites, by first of all focusing on what they have to offer about the film The Day after Tomorrow or its message. For this, I looked at how the technologies of the Internet were used by corporations and to what extent visitors could do something with it. In other words, I have focused on the so-called in interplay between production and consumption. Besides this, I also tried to figure out the overall aim of these websites.  

            I believe this research can be related to issues like intertextuality and functionality, therefore, the theory I have used mainly concerns these issues. Overall, I think Empire made the right decision to create their own website, because the Internet has numerous benefits and will only grow in importance in the future. Not only because it can offer this so-called ‘multimedia experience’ Marshall was talking about, but also because it can reach far more people than any ordinary magazine would. Moreover, the Internet is interactive in nature and makes it relatively easy for corporations to advertise their products and work together with other related corporations. In the case of the film The Day After Tomorrow, the Internet is a useful advertising and branding medium, because it can offer people all the information they need and want about the film in a challenging and nicely designed environment. 

All in all, there is so much information available about Internet and (film)advertising that I had difficulty deciding what to use and what not. Also, for a next possible research it might be a good idea to select a different film than The Day After Tomorrow. Not that there is anything wrong with this film, but I would have liked to have seen (even) more fan-activity. Consequently, I also didn’t think the analysed websites offered the so-called ‘viewsing’ experience Harries was talking about. Even so, in the end the overall impression is that there are many different ways to get people interested in what you are trying to say.