22 February 2016

Marketing

Innovation in Digital Marketing for Release of new Deadpool Film

Deadpool is the new movie that’s causing all the hype at the moment but the movie is special for far more than just creativity.

Marvel comics have come up with another superhero Deadpool, which aired on the big screen on the 10th February and is currently causing a lot of hype. However, from a Digital Marketing perspective, this movie is special for more than just character creation. The 20th Century Fox team has created an innovation in Digital Marketing techniques that, although not traditional, are extremely useful.

Facebook, Twitter and the whole shebang

It’s no secret that Facebook and Twitter can help exposure for anything from movies to businesses, but make something good enough, and people will use social media to advertise it for you. Take Ryan Reynolds, for instance, who was so excited about the release of the film, that he advertised the movie for months on his Twitter channel.
Let me take this opportunity to address the humungous elephant in the room– he very obviously had a vested interest in doing this, considering he was the lead. Now, although we’re not all friends with Ryan Reynolds, there is a moral to this story – celebrity or not, if you provide excellent service for your customers and create an exciting buzz that gets people talking, they will do a lot of the marketing for you and, even though that doesn’t mean efforts stop from your end, having tonnes of people talking about something you’ve created certainly helps, if only a little.

Special Occasions = Specialist Marketing

As soon as there a special occasion – be it Christmas, Halloween, or Valentine’s Day, everyone jumps on the specialist marketing bandwagon from your local supermarket right the way through to the business tycoons. For Christmas, the marketing team for Deadpool did a video piece on the “12 days of Deadpool” where a new piece of content was released daily in the run up to Christmas, preceding a new daily trailer. Deadpool managed to form alliances with the likes of People Magazine and Deviant Art and branded Emojis were trending the internet, making sure the brand was literally branded in people’s eyeballs months before the release date.

I understand that not everyone has the kind of money to be doing something on that kind of scale, but there are still aspects of this you can take away with you. Take the video interaction, for instance. You can use Youtube for literally no cost to push your brand image out there and partner up with people you think provide some value to your business and that you might be able to work with. You don’t have to go at it all alone and, most of the time it’s highly beneficial if you don’t, as someone out there may be able to give you new ideas that could make all the difference.

People like it when you talk to them

Appealing to the broader audience is great. It’s cost effective but gets the message across on a mass scale but let’s not forget the power of personalization. I’m not talking calling potential customers by their first name personal, as that might prove difficult considering you may not know their first name. I’m taking geographical personalization. If you are a company with channels across the world, why not take a leaf out of the Deadpool book (or comic) and be region specific.

For Chinese New Year, Ryan Reynolds dressed up as Deadpool and wished everyone a Happy New Year. Australia Day got similar treatment, too. Now, as nice as it would be, I’m not suggesting you get Ryan Reynolds to dress up as Deadpool and promote your business (but there’s probably no harm in trying) but it doesn’t hurt to take joy in other people’s joy. We may not all celebrate Australia Day, but it sure means a lot to those who do celebrate it to see you are thinking of them. Making special posters, videos or even just wishing them a Happy Day on social media goes a longer way than you might think and it’s this kind of attention to detail that separates the over-achievers from the achievers.

Personalize everything

These days, people buy into the person and values behind the business rather than just the business itself. What really makes these outlandish techniques work for Deadpool is the fact that the marketing reflects the characters of the film. There really is nothing generic about the marketing that they have done and this is what ultimately sells.

If there is one overall lesson to take from this, it’s to bin the generic marketing techniques and add some personality to it all because with Digital evolving practically every second, the days where people just cared about what they are buying have long gone. So, out with the old and in with the new as they say – go ahead and give your customers some virtual love.

No doubt the whole approach is and has been far from conventional, but it appears to have set a standard and actually worked and what’s life without a little Digital Marketing Experimentation. So, there is no time like the present to steal some of these ideas and see if they work for you – Have fun, go crazy with it and don’t forget to check out both the movie and www.fdcstudio.co.uk to find out how we can help you with your Digital Marketing needs.