Paramount is gearing up for the release of "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" by implying a few small marketing tactics in well thought-out places. Now, as a result of their latest attempt, you can "super-poke" your friends on the popular site Facebook. What is a "super-poke"? To begin, a "poke" has come to imply a flirtatious invitation. When someone "pokes" you online, it's just a friendly reminder that someone was thinking of you. The team behind Indiana Jones has created this idea of the "super-poke" which, paired together with an image of this character's infamous whip, might seem a bit more scandelous.

I think this was a creative and efficient marketing approach for this movie. First, they didn't add a whole new application on Facebook promoting themselves, their movie or how awesome their cast is. As a Facebook user myself, I can tell you that those are seen as spam and an annoyance. They did, however, just add on to an existing and familiar Facebook feature. This website puts it well; they tapped into existing behavior instead of trying to cultivate a new one. This marketing tactic is non-intrusive and establishes the film in relationship to a familiar concept amongst their target audience. Sounds pretty smart to me.

While Indiana Jones isn't the first movie to use this social networking website as an advertising device, I thought they deserved recognition for a good attempt. The "super-poke" is being sponsored on the Indiana Jones official website, which also is good advertisement for Facebook itself. Win-win situation.