Exceptional marketing for James Cameron’s “Avatar”

It was recently announced that August 21st, 2009 will be “Avatar Day” — a whopping 15 minutes of James Cameron’s new movie will be shown free of charge in IMAX and 3D movie theaters worldwide.

This exceptional decision is consistent with an extraordinary level of confidence in the quality of the movie — think about it, how many movies can afford to show 15 minutes of their content free of charge without giving the proverbial farm away, or betraying the fact that the movie is, frankly, dull and mediocre? Many movies can’t even manage to put together a compelling 2-minute trailer, let alone a 15-minute give-away.

Not so with "Avatar." The rationale underlying this strategy is that the scenes are so compelling that positive word-of-mouth will spread like wildfire. Actually, it already is: I haven’t had the pleasure of seeing the 15-minute reel yet, but those who got to watch it in San Diego’s Comic Con have overwhelmingly spoken favorably of it.

August 21st, then, will be “World Avatar Day” — it makes it sound very much like some sort of Global Holiday. Count me in.