Operation Intel Goes Social for The Bourne Legacy

In support of its upcoming film The Bourne Legacy, Universal Pictures has launched “Operation Intel,” it was announced Tuesday.

The next chapter of the espionage franchise is being promoted with a social campaign that allows fans to expand the Bourne series into their own lives by participating in real-world missions, creating a personalized trailer and going back to the beginning with characters from all the films in the series.

The Bourne Legacy hits theaters on August 10.

The campaign kicked off in June with a personalized trailer that recruited fans into the “Bourne Program.”  Using Facebook Connect, fans may watch themselves and their friends star in a personalized version of the action-packed trailer for The Bourne Legacy.

Followers of the series have also been tracking the story of the films in a unique series of posts on the Bourne Facebook Timeline.  Key events from The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum are being posted, and users have embraced the discussion around their favorite moments. Over the next few weeks, fans may see how these events intersect with the latest chapter, The Bourne Legacy.

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Operation Intel goes on the run with a series of real-world missions that began at the epicenter of pop culture, San Diego Comic-Con. There, fans opted in to receive text messages that advised them where to go to receive one of 200 limited-edition screen prints of The Bourne Legacy—created exclusively for Comic-Con—by artist Matt Owen for Gallery 1988.

These real-world missions will continue over the next three weeks in five cities across the U.S. Clues to each mission will be posted on Facebook for fans to work together and decipher.

Accompanying the real-world hunts is a mobile game that puts fans on the streets in search of classified files. Using GPS and mobile mapping technology, fans may engage in 10 covert missions in their very own neighborhoods.

Following audio and visual prompts, users must evade hostile agents and check-in at the required location, where they will unlock exclusive audio recordings featuring characters from The Bourne Legacy.

“The Bourne Legacy pulls back the curtain and allows us to discover the variety of intelligence programs existing in this series,” said Doug Neil, senior vice president of digital marketing, Universal Pictures.  “Fans who access Operation Intel are able to extend their experiences with these films and dig deeper into the fascinating world of Bourne.”

Universal developed the campaign with Emmy Award-winning production company Hoodlum.