The Hunger Games: ‘Mockingjay’ Campaign Ramps Up With ‘Rebel Warrior’ Advertisements

Promotions for the latest movie in The Hunger Games trilogy, Mockingjay – Part I, are ramping with a new advertising campaign.

Note: This article contains spoilers for The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.

After The Hunger Games: Catching Fire concludes, Katniss Everdeen — played by Jennifer Lawrence — is taken to the headquarters for the revolution, District 13. From there, she helps launch a guerilla campaign against the dictatorship in The Capitol.

The ‘Rebel Warrior’ advertisements show off Katniss’ fellow revolutionaries, dressed in combat gear. Characters Gale (Liam Hemsworth), Cressida (Natalie Dormer), Messalla (Evan Ross), Boggs (Mahershala Ali), Pollux (Elden Henson) and Castor (Wes Chatham) form Katniss’ inner circle, as they begin their assault on The Capitol.

The ‘Rebel Warriors’ ads are the latest in distributor Lionsgate’s mammoth campaign to promote Mockingjay.

As Wired explains, the ‘Rebel Warrior’ pictures is a departure from older Mockingjay marketing. Previous advertisements came from the perspective of The Capitol and its dictator, President Snow, but now Mockingjay symbols are overtaking the propaganda.

Earlier this week, ‘District Hero’ billboards began appearing in New York and Los Angeles. The billboards mimic the propaganda campaign in Panem; the fictional country where The Hunger Games takes place. The ads look like they have been vandalized with Mockingjay symbols.

As MTV News points out, the graffitied Mockingjay “[prepares audiences] to head back to a dystopia on the verge of collapse”.

Another part of the viral marketing campaign: a new smartphone app, ‘Our Leader The Mockingjay’.

As reported in the Inquisitr, the app also uses the Mockingjay motif to track the rebellion. Using geo-tag technology, it allows users to virtually ‘tag’ locations with a Mockingjay symbol.

While the unique app has been popular with users, it has not been immune to controversy. As Inquisitr writer Crystal Wantanabe explains:

[The app] allows users to create digital marks of their own photographs… [geo-tagging] the image on a satellite map, allowing users of the app to pinpoint the location where the ‘mark’ was created. While this is a great way to get users to spread word of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay by having hundreds of images floating around on social media, users initially took photos of their homes, only to find their homes now marked and connected to photos.

The ‘Our Leader The Mockingjay’ app is available in both the Google Play and Apple stores.

Fans have only a few months left to wait for the release of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part I. It is due out in theaters on November 21, 2014.

[Image source: Lionsgate]