As October rolled on, the release date for "National Treasure" drew ever closer. Matthew, as the undeniable star of the film, was naturally expected to cooperate with the production team on publicity and promotion, making various interviews and announcents a regular part of his schedule.
Beyond that, the production team had other promotional plans in store.
Returning ho from Walt Disney Studios headquarters in Burbank, the first thing Matthew did was open his computer, log into his blog, and then navigate to his email. He downloaded six images the marketing team had sent him. They were all similar in content: close-ups of the front and back of one, ten, and one-hundred-dollar bills.
Following the script laid out by the team, Matthew uploaded the six images to his blog, pairing them with a carefully crafted ssage.
"I t with a historian over dinner tonight and learned sothing incredible—there's an amazing secret hidden on the dollar bills we use every day. Unfortunately, the historian was cryptic and would only hint that the secret is concealed sowhere in the design of the one, ten, or hundred-dollar bill. I've been ho for hours studying them, and I still can't find it..."
As his fa had grown, his personal blog now had nearly a million subscribers, including fans not just in North Arica but also in the UK, New Zealand, and Australia, where English was the common language.
Furthermore, the vast majority of his million subscribers were active users, not silent lurkers.
The post went live, and within thirty seconds, a stream of replies appeared beneath it.
"What? There are secrets on the dollar bill?"
"Matthew, don't fall for that nonsense. You can't just believe everything a stranger tells you."
Half an hour later, the blog post had garnered over a thousand replies, with so people diving headfirst into their own detailed analyses in the comnts section.
The next day, with Matthew's permission, a newspaper reprinted his blog post. Although it wasn't a major publication, it generated considerable interest.
Then, a blunt article appeared in TMZ's breaking news section, mocking Matthew. They reposted his blog entry, ridiculing him for being so uneducated as to believe the ramblings of so supposed historian.
That sa day, Matthew hit back at TMZ with a pinned post on his blog, declaring that the outlet was engaging in its usual despicable behavior—covert filming, spreading rumors, and showing no respect for academics.
A certain historian also entered the fray, telling the dia that the graphics of Benjamin Franklin and Independence Hall on the hundred-dollar bill were designed with coded elents that the average person couldn't understand, and that one must first crack the code to uncover the hidden secrets.
TMZ, of course, wasn't about to stay silent and retorted that Matthew and the historian were simply fools.
In response, Matthew wrote another blog post...
However, after just a few days, the war of words, which had stirred up plenty of controversy, ca to a quiet end. People who had been following the story were now pulling out hundred-dollar bills to study the images of Benjamin Franklin and Independence Hall, searching for any possible secrets.
The news continued to circulate in the dia, and through word-of-mouth, it quickly spread among the general public, even sparking a small frenzy of "dollar research" across the United States.
As expected, the rumors grew more and more widespread, and the fervor of private discussions intensified. In late October, the Federal Reserve dedicated a routine press conference to debunking the rumors on the matter, but with very little effect. In an age of incredibly open information, official statents from institutions like the governnt in Washington and the Federal Reserve were naturally t with public skepticism.
Just a few days after the Fed's press conference, a newspaper owned by Walt Disney published an article about a mysterious letter from an archaeological adventurer nad Ben Franklin Gates. In it, he claid to have discovered the secret on the dollar bill concerning Benjamin Franklin and Independence Hall in Philadelphia—a secret he directly linked to the original Declaration of Independence, housed in the National Archives in Washington.
This story imdiately reignited the dollar-research fever that had begun to cool down in society.
This was only the beginning. On the last weekend of October, another Disney-owned newspaper published a second letter from Gates, which claid that, according to his research, a treasure map was hidden on the back of the Declaration of Independence, pointing to the specific location of a hidden treasure, possibly from the "Arican Independence" collection, worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
Viral marketing was hardly a new concept, and so people with a keen sense of sll gradually guessed from the successive releases that this might be a stunt orchestrated by a Hollywood studio to promote a film.
The production team and Disney had anticipated this and planned accordingly. The the of treasure hunting never goes out of style and holds a powerful, natural appeal for people, even if they suspected they were being baited.
The viral marketing campaign proceeded at Disney's pace. As November arrived and the film's release date approached, Disney, seeing the excellent public response, held back on releasing a trailer and continued to fuel the viral marketing hype.
Shortly thereafter, several dia outlets simultaneously reported that an archaeological adventurer nad Ben Franklin Gates had warned the FBI that a group of clandestine forces, having also uncovered the secrets of the dollar, was now targeting the original Declaration of Independence in the National Archives, and that the relevant authorities needed to imdiately strengthen its protection.
The FBI had already been involved during the filming of the movie, so the production team had obviously communicated with them in advance.
The news that soone wanted to steal the original Declaration of Independence was enough to cause an uproar, sending waves of excitent across the entire country.
A story like this couldn't be sustained for long, or the FBI wouldn't be able to withstand the pressure from all sides.
On the sa day these stories appeared in the dia, a newly registered blogger nad Ben Gates claid that the treasure on the map behind the Declaration of Independence was the lost treasure of the Knights Templar and the Freemasons.
The legend of the Templar treasure is extrely widespread in the West, and many people had heard of it.
With the secrets of the Declaration of Independence revealed, this viral marketing campaign was drawing to a close, having achieved an effect that t Disney's expectations. The secret of the dollar, the treasure map on the Declaration of Independence, and the Templar treasure beca frequent topics of conversation in Arican households for a short period of ti.
To say nothing of the fact that at the U.S. National Archives alone, the number of visitors wanting to see the Declaration of Independence had tripled in the last half-month.
The mystery was revealed, and Disney released the official trailer for "National Treasure." The frequent references to the Templar treasure in the trailer and the various analyses of famous locations across the United States enticed a massive number of fans to see the film.
During this period, "National Treasure" completely overshadowed all other films scheduled for release during the sa holiday season.
While the promotion for "National Treasure" was still in full swing, Matthew received another piece of good news: Zack Snyder was ready to start filming.
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