Abrams followed along the choices of Christopher Nolan (Director of The Dark Knight Trilogy) to release the opening scene in IMAX in December with the release to The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey as Nolan did with both The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises. The move worked for Nolan, and so far has seemed to work with Abrams as the 9 minute opening scene was met with positive reception and helped set an record for largest December opening for an IMAX film to date. Kicking off 2013, it was revealed that
Source: comingsoon.net
Cumberbatch would be portraying John Harrison, who conveniently enough doesn’t exist in the Star Trek universe so is most likely a pseudonymous which is straight out of Nolan’s playbook as he did the same thing for both Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Marion Cotillard’s characters in The Dark Knight Rises (and in addition to following the same moves of The Dark Knight, the whole marketing campaign is very much mirroring The Dark Knight which is playing on one of the most popular film franchises in the past year to get fans even more excited about the film.)
But Abram’s biggest move was with the Super Bowl. Days prior to the Super Bowl, an app was launeched that allowed fans to interact with images and trailers to gain exclusive content about the film, with a second surprise coming when fans used the app while the TV spot played during the Super Bowl. And now, after Super Bowl, the surprise is something very unusual but exciting: fans who have used the app and interacted with the Super Bowl TV Spot have the opportunity to buy tickets to advanced screenings of the film on May 15 in IMAX 3D (two days prior to the film’s wide release on May 17) exclusively through the app. Still nothing as to who John Harrison is, but none the less fans are dying to know, and this marketing strategy has definitely worked on this fan who already has his tickets via the app for the advanced screening and is anxiously waiting May 15 to figure it all out!