GI Joe Targets Military Audiences, American Heartland

Paramount is taking some chances in the way that it is marketing its big budget summer film, GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra. Rather than focus on broad, national media campaigns and the standard red carpet premieres in Hollywood and New York, the film's marketers have instead decided to target their marketing specifically to people more likely to be drawn to the film.

This type of marketing is much more common with smaller budget and indie films, but it's likely never been tried on such a large scale as we're seeing with GI Joe. By staying away from the broad media campaigns and limiting the number of critical reviews, Paramount is banking on attracting a base of viewership that will be drawn to the ideals of the film. Marketers are trying to bring in military personnel and those who hold the US military in high esteem. Many times, it is the American heartland where these people are found in the highest numbers.

The film itself and the premise of its characters were also modified somewhat to ensure that the film had global appeal - not limited to those who want to see "real American heroes." In addition to skipping the cookie-cutter Hollywood premiere, GI Joe's marketers also kept the film officially out of Comic-Con, which raised some questions.

"You can never win with those guys," Lorenzo Di Bonaventura, producer of both "Transformers" films and "G.I. Joe," said of the San Diego convention. "They feel they're the keepers of the fan boys flag and have a deep childhood association with many of these properties. And we know the hard-core fans are already coming to see the movie."