If you’re a reader of the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, the Chicago Tribune, the San Francisco Chronicle or The Dallas Morning News, your paper looked different yesterday. Terrifyingly different. The front covers of each were filled with redacted content.
What an impactful way to advertise Amazon Prime’s film, The Report, about the Senate Intelligence Committee’s investigation five years ago into the CIA’s detention and interrogation program after 9/11.
The ad, created by Amazon Studios, also ran on the websites of USA Today, the L.A. Times and Washington Post and the digital versions of CNN, The Guardian, Fox News and Apple News. The New York Times and the Boston Globe had Truth Matters, the tagline of the movie, in place of their mastheads.
“We are relentlessly looking for ways to be innovative with the print publishing platform and are excited to partner with Amazon Studios on this execution,” L.A. Times chief revenue officer, Josh Brandau, said in a statement.
Amazon said it wanted to make the story front page news again, that it didn’t get the media attention it deserved. Mission accomplished. The ad is actually four pages long. It includes an inside spread and back page cover wrap with information about the movie – and to highlight its importance. The movie deals with the news cycle and redacted information.
Amazon Prime also commissioned neo-conceptual artist, Jenny Holzer, to create out-of-home animations that will travel across Los Angeles on LED trucks until November 18. The animations incorporate text from the film’s writer and director, Scott Z. Burns.
On Twitter, Vice, IMDb, Prime Video and others will be part of a thread of blacked out tweets containing information about the movie. Some will also black out their display names. The campaign also includes a custom emoji, a redacted piece of paper, which will appear on Twitter whenever anyone uses the official hashtag #TheReportMovie.
See the entire promo: Amazon Los Angeles Times cover wrap







