You have to give credit where credit is due: The marketing campaign for the second season of USA Network's "Mr. Robot" has been downright impressive thus far. All of the promotional materials to this point have been light on specific details but heavy on intrigue and mystery. The network's promotional efforts amount to a tantalizing tease of what is to come.
Recently, a new tease has been released, and it's one of the more creative marketing strategies we've seen.
For a while, the website whoismrrobot.com has been uploading small bonus features and teases for the upcoming second season of the wonky hacker drama. If that wasn't enough to get your full attention, perhaps yesterday's teaser was.
In typical hacker code (loving the related motif here), the website added a new command input: fivenine. At first, it's perfectly fair to respond to that with genuine confusion. But if you do a little digging, you'll discover that the command input refers to the date 5/9, or May 9. So type in "fivenine," press enter, and check out how "Mr. Robot" just set the new standard for viral marketing.
The teaser features a dubbed version of President Obama discussing Tyrell Wellick (Martin Wallstrom), the violent Evil-Corp executive who was fired last season and helped Elliot Anderson (Rami Malek) complete his sack of the global conglomerate. In the teaser, Obama is talking about the fsociety "attack" that will "affect our economy in ways that are extraordinarily significant" and the consequences that will be forthcoming when the guilty parties are found.
Grace Gummer ("Ricki and the Flash") will play the FBI agent tasked with investigating the fsociety hack and locating those responsible from season one. Though we all root for Elliott, there's no denying that what he did was a crime, and it is Gummer's character's job to bring him and his gang to justice.
We've all been wondering where Tyrell is since he disappeared near the conclusion of season one. Now we know that he's been in hiding.
"We can confirm that Tyrell Wellick and fsociety engaged in this attack," Obama says in the video.
Here is the full text of the president's announcement (remember, it's just a dub):
"This is going to be affecting our economy in ways that are extraordinarily significant. The FBI announced today and we can confirm that Tyrell Wellick and fsociety engaged in this attack. They caused a lot of damage and we will respond. We will respond proportionally and we will respond at a place and time in a manner that we choose. It's not something that I will announce here today at the press conference. More broadly though, this points to the need to start working with the international community to start setting up very clear rules of the road in regards to how the Internet and cyber operate. Right now it's sort of the wild west. Part of the problems is that you got these weak states that can engage in these attacks, you got none-state actors that can cause enormous damage. That's part of what makes the issue of cybersecurity so urgent."
"Mr. Robot" will return to USA Network for a second season on July 13.
Follow Brandon Katz at @Great_Katzby
