The Anchorman 2 viral marketing onslaught continues.
First there were the talk show cameos, then the Dodge campaign. Now Will Ferrell has taken Ron Burgundy to an actual newscast. KX News in Bismarck, North Dakota hosted Ferrell/Burgundy Saturday night for their entire program, so don’t tell me nothing interesting ever happens on local news.
Here’s the big question: Can the movie be as funny as the marketing leading up to its release? We’ll know soon enough.
I sort of feel for the real news anchor in all of this. She’s obviously a serious TV journalist and knowing some people ‘in the business’ she most likely has aspirations beyond a small market newscast. Here she is being used basically as a promo prop for a movie. a movie that in fact, kind of pokes fun at her profession. Hopefully she’s not forever remembered as ‘That girl in the Ron Burgundy newscast’.
I thought there was so much pent-up demand for a second “Anchorman” film that they had to make a sequel. Yet now we see Will Ferrell scrambling across the country for every publicity tie-in the studio can concoct? It ultimately doesn’t reflect badly on the film, but why such an aggressive marketing push? Is this really what’s needed to hawk an already branded product in 2013?