The Star Trek marketing campaign was built around reintroduction. Abrams was launching a younger Enterprise crew, so the trailers needed to reassure longtime Trek fans while still making the movie feel big, fast, and new enough for a broader audience.
Teaser Trailer
Release date: January 18, 2008
The first tease took the mystery-box route. Instead of giving away plot, it framed the Enterprise as something being built from the ground up and treated the ship itself like a reveal.
Theatrical Trailer
Release date: November 17, 2008
The later trailer opened things up. Kirk, Spock, Nero, and the larger scale of the reboot all came into focus, and the movie was sold less as a quiet reboot than as a full-bore summer event picture with Trek DNA.
Campaign notes
What made this rollout work is that it never marketed the movie like homework. The trailers used recognizable icons, but they sold energy, swagger, and scale first.