That upcoming movie got you marking your calendar and keeping an eye out for tickets at your favourite theatre in the city? We do the same. We get our binoculars out to enjoy the epic fest that movie marketing is. Movie marketing includes everything from promos and teasers to publicity stunts – the whole shebang.

Here are some movies that we love but their marketing, we love better. Sorry movies, marketing is always our first love.

Like movie like marketing, the Blair Witch Project

The movie drips with themes of desperation and the fear of the unknown. How many of us kept on the lights after watching a particularly disturbing horror movie? You’re lying if you say no.

The movie let the real mimic the reel by announcing its actors missing. On an average day, missing people elicit notes of concern. But when linked to a mysterious movie? It turned heads, grabbed eyeballs and left people rushing to the theatres. To corroborate the ‘missing’ story, a website was created around a mysterious serial killer. Filmed on a budget of $60,000, the movie went on to amass a whopping $250 million, thanks to this ingenious campaign.

World War Z: another Zombie apocalypse?

Did we really need another one of those? Critics chorused when filming plans for World War Z were unveiled. Despite being riddled in controversies, its marketing received enormous attention. We love a good mystery – you must know this by now. So when anonymous accounts from around the world were reporting similar anomalies, we were equally intrigued.

Culminating with an anchor announcing an emergency, the marketing had drummed upto a crescendo. Referencing world landmarks throughout its marketing, every warning left people wondering – was this real? Could this be true?
Come movie release date, crowds dashed to movie halls. After all, nothing incites us like intrigue. World War Z amassed $500 million around the world, thanks to this movie marketing strategy.

From DC, With Love: The Dark Knight

We all want our heroes to love us – if not, at least notice us. With The Dark Knight, DC reciprocated and declared our love for Batman wasn’t unrequited. He, they actually, loved us too. Kicking off at San Diego Comic Convention 2007, fans were treated to the first trailer and a freshly minted copy of the Gotham Times.

After that, the marketing was a roller coaster ride that only went up, my friend. Kickstarting with treasure hunts across several US cities, the clues led to a website created for ‘Harvey Dent’, a fictional politician of Gotham City. Around Halloween, a treasure hunt was organised by the Joker, leading fans to a ‘special treat’. Leading to bakeries across the United States, fans were treated to cakes with phones buried in them. The fans were instructed to call a number written in skywriting over them upon which a gaming website was used to release the first poster of the movie.

While Team Joker was encouraged to dress as Jokers and raise chaos, Team Batman was contacted through a secret pizza delivery service. Offering fans a chance at vigilantism, they were lead to a bat symbol and initiated into the bat-fam.

Besides raking up $1 billion in box office earnings, this alternate reality campaign earned itself new fans over the course of this ‘Why So Serious?’ campaign.

Super, not hero: Deadpool

After a haunting, if not scarring, portrayal in X Men Origins: Wolverine and a tight movie budget of $58 million, Deadpool seemed like a cursed project. But the mercenary, Ryan Rey- we mean, the actor, Deadpool… Okay, let’s give this another shot. The Deadpool team came up with a campaign that stayed true to the character’s expletive humour. After a trailer screening at the 2015 San Diego Comic Convention, its team went full-Deadpool with their marketing.

From the get-go, the team wasn’t shy about admitting the film wasn’t family-friendly. This, the team announced Deadpool-style by ‘killing’ an interviewer on-camera. Thereon, Deadpool took over everything from holiday messages to a testicular cancer PSA parody to exhibit his dry humour. Around Halloween, Deadpool staged a recruitment drive with kids dressed as X-Men characters.

When it was time to announce the second trailer, the team used Christmas as an opportunity to kick off ’12 Days of Deadpool’. To release its first poster, the team used cheeky billboards with three characters – a skull (dead), a poo emoji and the letter ‘L’.

Hilarity, discussions and tweeting rampages ensued. Amused fans worldwide began using the three characters and #Deadpool garnered 90K tweets per day by movie release.

Black Panther

Marketed as a celebration of black culture and point of view, the debut of a black superhero grabbed a lot of eyeballs. The movie went on to amass over $1 billion in ticket sales by getting SO MANY things right.

The release date – February 2018 – was strategically planned to coincide with the Black History Month. This, along with its predominantly black cast and crew, meant the movie was going to be unabashedly black. Similarly, the teaser was also strategically released at the NBA Finals – reaching their target audience at one of the most important events of the African-American community.

Partnering with Kendrick Lamar, Black Panther released its official soundtrack a month before the movie. The movie also inspired funding for underprivileged children to watch the movie in theatres – a trend that was later carried forward by celebrities like Brie Larson, Ellen DeGeneres, Octavia Spencer and Viola Davis.

Collaborating with Hasbro, Black Panther merchandise were released for kids. Another partnership, first viewed with trepidation, was with Lexus to release the LC Inspiration Series cars. Finally, three days before the movie release, Welcome to Wakanda: Fashion for Black Panther was organised. Featuring several A-lister black designers, the runway designs were auctioned and its proceeds were donated to Save the Children.

While we certainly lived vicariously through these marketing campaigns, here’s what we found every successful marketing campaign ever had:

Great timing

With the right context, even an off-season release date could pay off

Stay on-brand, always

Find your movie’s central theme and align your marketing campaign to it. The audience must know what you are selling at all times

Immersive

The best marketing campaigns feel like an extension of the movie into the real world

Build mystery

Enough said. But we will add that, this is especially true of movies with a plot that you cannot risk revealing

Not a production house but want an equally enthralling marketing campaign? Get in touch with us.