Lark: Alright! Pre-ordered my copy of Final Fantasy Type-0!
Summer: First of all, don't pre-order. Second, since when did you want that game?
Lark: I don't. But it comes with a demo of Final Fantasy XV.
Summer: Are you serious? You're going to pay sixty dollars for a three-hour demo?
Lark: Well, I already paid thirty dollars for a one-hour demo when I purchased Ground Zeroes.
Summer: That's true.
Summer: First of all, don't pre-order. Second, since when did you want that game?
Lark: I don't. But it comes with a demo of Final Fantasy XV.
Summer: Are you serious? You're going to pay sixty dollars for a three-hour demo?
Lark: Well, I already paid thirty dollars for a one-hour demo when I purchased Ground Zeroes.
Summer: That's true.
Basically this is when a work sells itself on including a preview for a much more anticipated work. This is often done with second string titles that would fizzle out on their own. This has become less prevalent (or at least less successful) with the rise of easier video sharing and video game demos on the Internet, but still there are some fandoms dedicated enough to shell out cash for a ticket to Movie You Might Have Ignored Completely if it means they get a chance to see just an ad for Everything You Ever Liked: The Movie.
This is also done on TV shows. You get a trailer (more often called a "sneak peek") packed somewhere in the commercials (although usually at the end) for an anticipated blockbuster.
Sometimes this works. A person willing to sit through the actual feature may indeed find something they like about it and become a fan. Other times, they just get the preview they wanted and ignore/throw away the rest.
The inverse is standard procedure, where an anticipated work includes a preview for a less-hyped title, in the hope that attention will rub off on it.
Examples:
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Films — Animation
- The teaser trailer for The Lion King, which consisted of the entire "Circle of Life" opening, was shown in theaters with The Three Musketeers and Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit.
- Because of the positive response to it, Disney released extended teasers for Pocahontas (with a re-release of The Lion King) and Dinosaur (with Toy Story 2).
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
- On the day of May 28, 2011, many bronies went to their TV sets and watched The Hub's airing of Garfield: The Movie just to see the "Equestria Girls" commercial, which was airing for the first time.
- An August 2015 showing of Equestria Girls: Rainbow Rocks on Discovery Family was followed by a "Friendship Games Special", which screened all of the YouTube shorts promoting the upcoming Friendship Games movie, capped with a sneak peak of said movie.
- Sing: As another network cross-promotional example, some ads for the season 11 finale of The Voice (which airs on NBC, part of the NBC Universal conglomerate that also owns Sing studio Illumination Entertainment) boasted that a sneak preview of Sing would air during said finale. The preview mostly consisted of clips that had appeared in previous trailers, but with some alterations that were closer to the movie. For example, they had the rabbits singing "Anaconda", but the clip of Rosita falling down was replaced with one of Buster telling the rabbits to stop singing.
- One airing of Toy Story of Terror! showed the first two and a half minutes of Penguins of Madagascar during the second ad break.
- Freeform (then still using the ABC Family name) once premiered a new trailer for Inside Out during a new episode of The Fosters. (The trailer in question was notable for being the first one to show Bing Bong.)
- A trailer for Shrek 2 premiered during an NBC airing of the original Shrek.
- Repeating history, one of the trailers for Despicable Me 2 was first shown on an ABC airing of the first film.
- Many fans of Teen Titans Go! saw Paddington 2 in order to view the trailer for Teen Titans Go! To the Movies.
- Trailers for The Simpsons Movie premiered during debut episodes of the TV show. note The first teaser was also shown theatrically with Ice Age 2: The Meltdown.
- The mobile phone game based on the show, The Simpsons: Tapped Out, spoofed this trope during their 2014 Christmas update. One part of the update has Martin tell Lisa that 60% of viewers only watch the show for the couch gag (the couch gag that they were discussing was a spoof of Frozen).
- Ralph Breaks the Internet spoofs this in its' stinger. A sneak peak of the sequel to Frozen is promised, but instead turns out to be Ralph doing a Rick Roll.
Films — Live-Action
- The teaser to Tim Burton's Batman (1989) appeared before prints of Tequila Sunrise, and was comprised of nothing but early footage and alternate takes that were never used in the film itself. It was so exciting that, according to most anecdotal accounts, people bought tickets just to watch the trailer, then left afterwards.
- Meet Joe Black, The Waterboy, The Siege and A Bug's Life all premiered the teaser trailer for Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace - and to make sure you didn't leave the theater, Meet Joe Black showed it again after the credits! Later, the second trailer was shown just before the Wing Commander film, and the final trailer was shown before The Mod Squad. In fact, many theaters have reported SW fans buying tickets to those films just to see those trailers and then leaving en masse.
- According to IMDB, Attack of the Clones' trailer was shown before Monsters, Inc. Again, fans brought tickets just for the trailer and left en masse.
- Pokémon 3 had many cinemas deny refunds in case people just came to watch the Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone trailer.
- The Scooby-Doo film attracted fans because of a preview for Chamber of Secrets.
- Fellowship of the Ring was a variation of this. It was already a hit when a trailer for The Two Towers was put into the film. So many people saw it again for the trailer, even though we were anticipating the previewed film because of the piggybacking film.
- Same thing happened with Back to the Future Part II, as it had the trailer for Part III before the credits.
- The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008) was advertised as being the only place to see the trailer for X-Men Origins: Wolverine.
- Similarly, there were huge billboards in the UK advertising a three-part trailer during 24: Redemption.
- Fans of Kevin Smith were known to have purchased tickets to Scary Movie 2 in order to see the exclusive Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back trailer.
- The adaptation of Stephen King's Dreamcatcher had a two-birds-with-one-stone piggybacking in that it was front-loaded with Final Flight of the Osiris, a short film from The Animatrix (released 4 months after Dreamcatcher) that led directly into (and served as a teaser for) The Matrix Reloaded.
- Bandslam, starring Vanessa Hudgens, was the launchpad for the first trailer of The Twilight Saga: New Moon.
- Similarly, in Sweden, Kick-Ass was actually advertised, in papers, with "Don't miss the Eclipse trailer!".
- In North America, Summit used Remember Me to launch the Eclipse trailer (both star Robert Pattinson).
- J.J. Abrams has been known to do this for announcing new projects. The first trailer for Cloverfield was shown before Transformers before production even started. Same thing with Super 8 being shown before Iron Man 2 and within Portal 2.
- The Jet Li film Hero was delayed for two years in the US so Harvey Weinstein could release the trailer before prints of Kill Bill.
- Some films are even reissued solely because of this trope. Examples include: The Empire Strikes Back before A New Hope, Return of the Jedi before A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, Pulp Fiction before Reservoir Dogs and Pocahontas before The Lion King.
- The movies of Adam Sandler went through a spell of this around 2010-11. Just Go With It had Zookeeper (with Sandler voicing a monkey) attached to it and that movie had Jack and Jill attached. Both times, the trailer didn't really fit with the movie.
- The trailer for Machete was attached to prints of Predators due to Robert Rodriguez and Danny Trejo working on both films. Audiences were probably in for a shock when after seeing Trejo mow down Border Patrol and Hungarian bodyguards in the trailer, he became the first person killed in the movie.
- The trailer for Die Another Day was attached to prints of Austin Powers in Goldmember as the result of a settlement between Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and New Line Cinema over using the name "Goldmember" (which MGM felt sounded too similar to Goldfinger).
- The only place to see an early mini-trailer for The Avengers (2012) was The Stinger of Captain America: The First Avenger.
- An odd example with Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (by Warner Bros.) and Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (by Paramount). While the first full theatrical trailer for The Dark Knight Rises (also by WB) was attached to Sherlock Holmes, Ghost Protocol got the opportunity to show the six-minute prologue of TDKR, causing many a headache for execs at WB.
- And only select prints of Sherlock Holmes got the trailer. Most prints had either Rock of Ages and Jack the Giant Slayer attached (and the latter film underwent Trailer Delay afterward, not opening until 2013), or the first teaser trailer of TDKR.
- Gravity is an inversion (the "highly-anticipated work promotes a lesser-known one" version) that is actually woven into the narrative. The radio conversation that Stone holds while aboard the Soyuz is actually connected to co-writer Jonás Cuarón's Aningaaq
, a short film about a Greenlandic Inuit fisherman out with his huskies, his wife, and his newborn, unable to understand, let alone comfort, the dying astronaut in space. However, this short was written deliberately to work as a companion piece to Gravity: not only does it show the other end of the poignant conversation, the seven-minute short encapsulates the same broad themes of life and death of its larger sibling — just as Stone goes over the brink of despair, Aningaaq himself isn't playing with his dogs as she believes in her film; he's actually devastated over the prospect of sacrificing his beloved, elderly husky.
- The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug included the first teasers for Interstellar and Godzilla. The latter teaser helped convince some fans displeased with The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey to give Smaug a chance, if only to see the skydiving sequence from Godzilla on the big screen. An odd case in that, despite the piggybacking, Smaug outgrossed both Godzilla and Interstellar.
- Screenings for Godzilla (2014) also included the second trailer for Christopher Nolan's Interstellar.
- The following Blu-Rays of Sony films were packaged with demos of the following Sony games:
- District 9 and God of War III.
- Zookeeper and Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One
- Total Recall (2012) and God of War: Ascension
- Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children COMPLETE and Final Fantasy XIII
- The 2004 Star Wars Trilogy DVD set contained a demo of the Xbox version of Star Wars: Battlefront, and the sequel had the same treatment in the Revenge of the Sith DVD one year later.
- The Indiana Jones rereleases prior to the fourth movie in 2008 had a demo for LEGO Indiana Jones.
- The 2-DVD set of the Spider-Man movie contained a demo for the PC movie game on its second disk.
- The Wizard is one of the more famous examples of this. On top of promoting many other NES games, it also had the first ever gameplay preview of Super Mario Bros. 3, and even includes some helpful tips for good measure.
- Commercials for Elektra aired with promises of the first trailer for Fantastic Four (2005).
- Ironically, about ten years later, the reboot for the latter film pulled the same thing by advertising that the movie would feature a trailer for Deadpool.
- Ironically, about ten years later, the reboot for the latter film pulled the same thing by advertising that the movie would feature a trailer for
- Lady Gaga and The Muppets Holiday Spectacular promised a sneak peek of Muppets Most Wanted would air during the broadcast. Like the Sing/The Voice example listed earlier on, said preview was literally just the entire theatrical trailer that had debuted in theaters and on the Internet earlier that month, but with a clip added of Ricky Gervais' character insisting that "Kermit's" deeper-than-normal voice is just him having a cold (when he's actually a criminal mastermind trying to pass himself off as Kermit while the real Kermit is in a gulag).
- The initial red-band trailer for The Happytime Murders was attached to select prints of Deadpool 2 in the United States.
- Many people went to see IMAX 3D screenings of The House With a Clock in Its Walls just to see the 3D Thriller music video.
Literature
- The Warrior Cats and Seeker Bears book often have preview pages for the next book, being written by the same author. In fact, one of the main selling points of the summer 2012 release Enter The Clans note is that it contains a teaser for Survivor Dogs, the new (not really) Erin Hunter series, and the fifth Super Edition, Yellowfang's Secret.
- The Tolkien Reader was originally conceived by publishers as a way of broadening interest in Tokien's non-fiction essays by mixing abridged versions of them with some of his shorter fiction.
- In fact, this is extremely common with books; often the paperback release of a book will contain a preview of the sequel or another book by the same author as a way of building hype for the upcoming book (and possibly in the hopes of getting people who bought the hardcover to buy the paperback as well). This is parodied in The Princess Bride, which has a preview of a sequel that was never supposed to be written.
Live-Action TV
- The first preview of Revenge of the Sith was shown at the end of an episode of The O.C.... even though it was advertised as being shown during the show, which meant that TIVO recordings didn't record the whole trailer because it ran past the hour.
- Preview piggybacking in the Super Bowl is an extremely common tactic. For example, Warner Bros. promoted the exclusive "first look" of Poseidon during the 2006 Bowl, though it was pretty easy to tell from that ad that the movie wasn't going to be making the $160 million that it would need to break even. The Cloverfield Paradox was notably advertised by its new distributor Netflix during the 2018 Bowl as "coming very soon" - as in, it was premiering literally after the game ended.
- This trope doesn't just involve to highly anticipated trailers, either - Fox has used it as a means to premiere new TV series. Both Family Guy and Futurama premiered in this manner (and both premiere episodes even Lampshaded this).
- Lost buried promos for upcoming episodes in commercial breaks for V (2009). This was inverted when the latter show ran a pop up ad during the former that blocked relevant onscreen content.
- Pokémon Sunday has brief bits of news about the upcoming games.
- The first teaser trailer of the special Doctor Who episode "The Day of the Doctor" was sandwiched between Strictly Come Dancing and the Atlantis episode "Twist of Fate".
- Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is a natural place to show previews for Marvel Cinematic Universe films, as they're all part of the same franchise.
- New specials produced for the 2015 revival of The Wonderful World of Disney have served as launchpads for anticipated Disney releases:
- Disneyland 60 featured a first look at Pete's Dragon (2016), presented during the show by its costar Bryce Dallas Howard.
- The first Magical Holiday Celebration was actually advertised as having an exclusive preview of Rogue One. The second one likewise did the same for The Last Jedi.
- Andi Mack: The premiere of "We're on Cloud Ten" was accompanied by sneak peeks of Ralph Breaks the Internet and The Nutcracker and the Four Realms.
- The Paley Center Salutes This Is Us had the trailer for Life Itself 2018 air during the first commercial break. Perhaps not coincidentally, Dan Fogelman was in charge of both productions.
Music
- One Direction's first North American gig was as an opening act for Big Time Rush. Although they had a hit TV show, the real-life BTR didn't really have a huge following. Meanwhile, 1D was rapidly starting to gain momentum across the world through social media. Thus, many fans bought tickets only for One Direction, and left the arena after they finished playing, leaving BTR performing to arenas that were more than half empty.
Video Games
- Zone of the Enders was at the time of its release widely known as the free game that came with the demo for Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. How many bought just the demo and ignored the game is hard to tell. But it got a sequel, a portable spinoff, an OVA and a TV series, so evidently some people liked the game.
- Similarly, the ZOE HD Collection includes a demo for Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. Lampshade Hanging or Mythology Gag? You decide.
- Crackdown didn't have a demo for Halo 3 (since demos can just be downloaded from Xbox Live), but it had access to the multiplayer beta. Crackdown was expected to get loads of returns after the beta closed, but that was not the case. In fact, Microsoft reported that the Crackdown multiplayer got more play time than the beta (although the actual release of Halo 3 got even more, predictably). Combined with the critical acclaim the game received, Microsoft stated they want a sequel, which they got at E3 2009. It didn't have access to the Halo: Reach multiplayer beta (Halo 3: ODST filled in the spot this time).
- Square Enix made a habit of this:
- Tobal No. 1 had a Final Fantasy VII demo disc that also included previews of Final Fantasy Tactics, Bushido Blade, and Sa Ga Frontier. It's highly likely that two thirds of the (subpar) sales were just for it, and even today Tobal is a heatedly sought collector's item for Final Fantasy fans, just for the demo that came with it.
- Parasite Eve had a demo for Xenogears and movies for Bushido Blade II, Brave Fencer Musashi, and Final Fantasy VIII.
- Brave Fencer Musashi had a Final Fantasy VIII demo. This is not dissimilar to the above Crackdown and Zone of the Enders examples, as Musashi has gained quite a reputation and cult following in the years following its release.
- They've even done this with music releases. The soundtrack for Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within includes a movie for Final Fantasy X.
- Vagrant Story had a disc with demos for, among others, Threads of Fate.
- In Europe, the PlayStation port of Final Fantasy VI came bundled not with Final Fantasy V as in America (that came with Final Fantasy IV. Chrono Trigger was left unreleased. Again.), but with a demo of Final Fantasy X, which wouldn't even work on the console the piggybacked game was made for, though both discs were playable on a PS2.
- Spanish magazine Hobby Consolas said the demo and the FMV were the best thing about the game. Fans were not pleased. Then again, they made a lot of factual mistakes about the same...
- Dragon Quest VIII included a demo of Final Fantasy XII in the US (neither series would need such a thing in Japan). This did help the game achieve gold sales in the US, probably a best for the series at the time (at least until Nintendo localized Dragon Quest IX and gave it a successful marketing campaign)
- Unlimited Saga takes this Up to Eleven, with more work actually being put into the Final Fantasy X demo than the game itself. People vaguely remember some not very good RPG that came with A PLAYABLE DEMO FOR FFX!
- Even in 2015 when downloadable demos are commonplace, Square-Enix still sold Final Fantasy Type-0 HD with a demo of the long-awaited Final Fantasy XV.
- A short demo for first-person shooter Area 51 was available in Mortal Kombat: Deception.
- The PlayStation 2 version of Mega Man X: Command Mission included the intro stage of Mega Man X8 as a demo.
- Mega Man: Maverick Hunter X, in turn, included a demo for Mega Man Powered Up.
- The God of War Collection (GoW I and II remastered for the PS3) includes a voucher for the God of War III demo.
- inFAMOUS came with access to the Uncharted 2: Among Thieves multiplayer beta. They did it again with inFAMOUS 2, which came with access to the Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception multiplayer beta.
- Fighting Force was rereleased with a demo of Tomb Raider III.
- Borderlands got a "Game of the Year" edition rerelease with all currently available Downloadable Content and a code that allows access to the Duke Nukem Forever First Access Club, so they could be among the first to play the demo.
- As mentioned in the page quote, Final Fantasy Type-0 comes with a demo for Final Fantasy XV causing people to buy the game just for the demo.
- Much like Crackdown and Halo 3, the Epic Edition release of Bulletstorm on the Xbox 360 shipped with a voucher for the Gears of War 3 beta.
- Resident Evil-related examples:
- Resident Evil: Director's Cut included a demo for Resident Evil 2.
- Certain copies of Dino Crisis came with a demo for Resident Evil 3: Nemesis and vice-versa.
- The Japanese Dreamcast port of Resident Evil 2 came with a demo for Resident Evil – Code: Veronica.
- The PS2 version of Resident Evil – Code: Veronica X came with a demo for Devil May Cry.
- In Japan, Capcom reissued the GameCube versions of the first Resident Evil and Resident Evil 0 in a collection set that also included a demo for Resident Evil 4.
- New copies of Dragon's Dogma included a code for early access to the Resident Evil 6 demo.
- Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D acted as a Tech Demo Game for Resident Evil: Revelations on the 3DS. Appropriately, the demo to Revelations is included.
- Sonic Mega Collection had the trailer for Sonic Heroes on it. Later, a few people preordered Mario Kart: Double Dash for the Sonic Heroes demo included on the preorder bonus disc (among other demos and trailers, such as bonus items added to Fire Emblem: Blazing Sword).
- Phantasy Star Online came with a bonus disk which included the first stage of Sonic Adventure 2 (The Trial). This showcases several differences compared to the final product, including with the cutscene preceding the stage which had its dialogue slightly altered for the final. The most noticeable change, however, is that Sonic was not wearing Soap shoes in this trial.
- The main screen for Brain Dead 13 comes with playable demos for Dragon's Lair 1 and 2 and for Space Ace.
- The 2010 reboot of Medal of Honor came with early beta access to Battlefield 3. Likewise, Medal of Honor: Warfighter comes with beta access to Battlefield 4.
- Crash Bandicoot games for the PlayStation often contained demos to upcoming Spyro the Dragon games and vice versa.
- The Steam version of Portal 2 contains an interactive sneak peek at Super 8.
- Early X-Box titles, such as Project Gotham Racing and Halo: Combat Evolved (before the platinum hits versions), included at least one demo to other X-Box titles to be released, such as Fuzion Frenzy and Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee
- The video game adaptation of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines included a demo to another video game adaptation of the same film: Terminator 3: Redemption, which is arguably the only good part about this game. For the record, Redemption is a huge improvement over this one.
- Both Super Smash Bros Brawl and the fourth game for Wii U include timed-demos (dubbed "Masterpieces") to some of the games that the playable characters came from, and then some more. All of these game can be purchased from the Nintendo Shop Channel. The games included can be seen here.
- The Need for Speed Porsche Unleashed (or Porsche 2000 in some territories) CD featured a trail for the film Gone In Sixty Seconds. Very odd given that the later 90s Need For Speed games really dropped the bomb on car chases in films. Why watch when you can do?
Western Animation
- Done In-Universe and made fun of in South Park episode "The New Terrance and Phillip Movie Trailer". The boys were attempting to watch through Russell Crowe: Fightin' Around the World, a show which none of them cared about and had others around them give deriding comments about, just so they can see a commercial preview of Terrance and Philip: Asses of Fire 2.
- Season 1 of Star Wars: Clone Wars has an Xbox demo of Star Wars: Republic Commando.
- SpongeBob SquarePants: The SpongeBob B.C. DVD had a demo for the PC version of SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom on it.
- The first teaser promo for Bob's Burgers was shown during the network premiere of The Simpsons Movie.
