Movie Marketing Madness: Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol

The Mission: Impossible franchise has probably at this point gone on longer than anyone originally involved could possible. What started out as a high-concept TV series has now become a film series that’s already spawned three movies that have achieved success of varying levels under the directorship of a variety of helmers. 1996’s debut film came from director Brian DePalma and was more of a drama than a straight action flick. The second entry went in the other direction with action icon John Woo behind the camera. Number 3 in 2006 had J.J. Abrams, then mostly known for his TV work at the helm. But all three starred Tom Cruise (in what’s oddly the only franchise of his career) in the role of Ethan Hunt, the top field operative in the Impossible Mission force.

Now Cruise is back with another director calling the shots, Pixar veteran Brad Bird. Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol takes Cruise as Hunt back to the role of rogue agent. After a mission in Moscow goes pear-shaped as, oddly, the Kremlin explodes in his wake. Disavowed (again) by the U.S. government he’s intent on clearing his reputation and that of his team. So he takes tech guru Benji (Simon Pegg) along with Jane (Paula Patton) and the enigmatic Brandt (Jeremy Renner) on a mission to find out who’s behind the conspiracy he finds himself and the others caught up in.

The Posters

The first teaser poster for the movie was actually a repurposing of a previously-released publicity shot, with Cruise staring at the camera with a hood drawn over his head. Random numbers appear like some sort of code around him and the familiar M:I fuse that’s burning down appears at the bottom.

The second one-sheet was one designed specifically to sell IMAX presentations. It also reused an earlier-released publicity shot, though this one was significantly more spectacular, showing Cruise in the middle of the tower-climbing sequence that was highlighted in the first trailer. It certainly sells the big scale of the movie – at least parts of it – and that makes sense for this IMAX-specific pitch.

A third poster finally got the rest of the cast some recognition as they flanked Cruise – who was still wearing his Zartan hoodie – in walking toward the camera as sparks flew around them and the whole area was apparently in the middle of sandstorm.

Next up was a series of character banners for each of the four main characters, with a different phrase for each one.

A fourth poster was specifically meant to promote the IMAX release of the film and nicely worked the image of the Dubai tower into the lit fuse that’s so associated with the M:I franchise.

The Trailers

The first trailer opens with dire intonations about the Kremlin being bombed and warnings that the incident is going to be blamed on the members of the IMF team, who will be made into scapegoats. So their mission is to find the people who are really behind the attack and clear their own names. That’s about all the exposition we get as the trailer then transitions into shot after quick shot of very beautiful people infiltrating parties, kicking other not-quite as beautiful people and, of course, a glimpse of the movie’s key action sequence with Cruise scaling a glass tower. It’s not bad but it looks pretty generic at this point.

The next trailer, which on Yahoo started with an introduction from Bird, throws us into the middle of a mission by our crack team that goes very wrong when the Kremlin blows up and the team gets disavowed. But then the team is really on their own when their boss gets killed, meaning this mission is very personal to the remaining team members. There’s some humor, there’s lots of action and more as we see how everything plays out, including the possibility that one of the members might not be playing straight with everyone else. It ends with more of the building-scaling sequence that we’ve seen elsewhere and which is obviously the focal point of the campaign.

Online

There’s a lot thrown at you when you first hit the movie’s official website. The main element is a recreation of the final poster key art but over on the right there are a bunch of small video windows that rotate through scenes from the trailer. Then just to the side of that there’s a series of prompts to play a game on Facebook, see it in IMAX and more. There’s also a Partners box that opens up, when you click on it, some invitations to find out more about the companies that were promotional partners on the film.

Over on the right is the main content menu, where the first option is “Videos.” There you’ll find both trailers, a couple of Featurettes, some TV spots and a handful of extended clips from the movie.

By my count there are about 16 stills in the “Gallery.” “About the Film” has a decent synopsis of the movie’s story.

“Cast and Crew” has career information on the stars of the movie and those who made it happen behind the camera. Finally “Downloads” has collections of Wallpapers and Buddy Icons for you to grab if you like.

The movie’s Facebook page has videos and photos along with publicity and marketing updates, many of which can also be found on the Twitter profile that’s specific to the film.

That Twitter handle was one of the first ones to get access to new tools on Twitter that allowed brand managers to keep an update at the top of the stream, in this case an update containing the movie’s trailer.

The studio also ran an effort on Twitter and Facebook that promised fans that with people using the #mission hashtag at a sufficient volume they could unlock an exciting new clip from the film.

Advertising and Cross-Promotions

TV spots like this one started running that promised the audience a rip-roaring good time. There’s lots of action sequences and lots of humor. We get the basic outline of the story – that a mission has gone so sideways that the entire IMF team has been disavowed and must now seek out the truth behind what happened – conveyed mostly through big explosions and more.

BMW signed on as a cross-promotional partner with co-branded ads running to play up the carmaker’s inclusion in the movie. Toshiba and Coke Zero were also promotional partners though their programs didn’t get quite as much press as BMW’s and less information was available on what exactly they were doing.

30- and 60-second spots were run with the NHL, another promotional partner, where it was also the leading sponsor of some special events by the league.

Media and Publicity

After all the news of casting and who would direct the movie had died down and production begun the first real bit of press came when the movie’s full title, a departure from the numeric structure of the previous sequels, was announced (Los Angeles Times, 10/28/10) though not everyone was a fan. At the press conference where that news broke Cruise said no numbers was always his goal but I’m guessing it had more to do with the overall trend of subtitled sequels that feel more like chapter installments than anything else.

It would be a little while before more press activity picked up, with marketing filling in the gap. But when it did it was in the form of interviews with Bird (LAT, 11/4/11) on how he wanted to go back to some of the spirit that the first movie had with this new entry and get some more inspired performances out of the cast.

Some decent press was generated around activities on Facebook, specifically the launch of a game there (THR, 11/21/11) that was meant to appeal to those who were no longer tied to video game consoles and the studio’s decision to make the previous three films available to rent on Facebook to appeal to those who were looking to no longer be tied to traditional rental outlets.

Brad Bird’s involvement as director generated a lot of news stories as they focused on this being a departure for the guy (NYT, 12/11/11) who usually helmed Pixar-created family friendly fare. Other stories, though, drew the line between those movies and this one in terms of Bird’s flair for visual storytelling (Wired, Dec. 2012)

When the movie opened in IMAX a week before it did in regular theaters audiences were treated to a “prologue” of footage from 2012’s The Dark Knight Rises, a promise that had some wondering of the film’s opening weekend would have a “Batman bump” (LAT, 12/19/11) from people who bought a ticket for the movie for the sole reason of seeing the Batman preview, something that would be noticable in the second week.

I’m sure the cast and crew also made sufficient rounds to the talk show circuit in the weeks before release as well.

Overall

It’s a pretty good campaign that, like the push for the last movie and even (if my memory is accurate) the one before that has zero interest in making sure the audience remembers the first one. There’s no winking at the previous installments or anything like that in the marketing that requires people to know what happened before, which is the case wiht the movies themselves in addition to the campaigns.

Everything works pretty well here. It’s nice to see Simon Pegg back in the same role from the third movie since he’s always welcome on screen. The trailers certainly make it out to be a big action movie and I like the way there’s a consistant touchpoint in the form of the sequence around the big tower break-in. That lets everyone know exactly what the movie has to offer in a clear way, marking this film as some holiday-season escapism.

Movie Marketing Madness: Hugo

One of the many things that can keep parents awake at night is the question of what we’re leaving behind for our children. Not just material or financial but also emotional. If we should pass away before our children are grown – or even if our passing is after they’re older – we want them to be prepared for the rest of their life and we also want to leave them something tangible that they can use, that reminds them we were there and part of their lives. We want, in short, to be sure of our legacy.

The book The Invention of Hugo Cabaret, now the inspiration for this week’s new release Hugo, is about just that type of question. After his father (Jude Law) dies Hugo (Asa Butterfield) struggles to survive in a London train station. One day while evading the strict police man (Sacha Baron Cohen) he encounters a young girl (Chloe Moretz) who surprisingly seems to hold a very literal key to a mystery about his father that Hugo has been trying to figure out for some time. This leads to a journey of mystery and wonder, all seen through the eyes of a child.

The Posters

The first poster for the movie works in a lot in a single image. The primary image of a boy hanging off the hand of a large clock (an homage to a Buster Keaton movie in spirit if not intention) shows that we’re on some sort of child-like adventure of imagination, while the snow that’s circulating around him gives us the time of year that the story is set in, which just so happens to coincide with the time it’s being released in. At the top is the biggest thing, though, as it’s noted the movie comes from a legendary director and tells a huge story. The fact that Scorsese isn’t name-dropped at the top isn’t surprising since his name carries certain assumptions that the studio obviously doesn’t want to weigh the film down with.

The Trailers

The movie’s first trailer is kind of fantastic even if it doesn’t look anything like what you’d expect a Scorsese movie to look like. It starts off with a father showing his wide-eyed son an intricate model that’s been built and which he’s found and which has a keyhole in the shape of a heart. We then learn the father dies and the boy is to taken into another’s care. He runs afoul of a policeman while at a train station and is chased around until running in to a young girl. He shows her he still lives in the place with the figure and they discover she has the right key for it. The machine starts whirring around and that’s when things start getting fantastical as trains run off their tracks, dragon floats appear and more.

It’s certainly sold here as a big adventure and something that shows the spirit of friendship between the two kids and the love he keeps for his father. Like I said, this is nothing like what a Scorsese film traditionally looks like but does look visually rich and intriguing.

The second trailer starts us off in the middle of the action, as Hugo is already on his own and thinking about his father in dreams. We then get more of the backstory of the character played by Ben Kingsley and see that their two stories are very connected. But from there on out it’s just about selling the movie as an adventure from one thing to the next for Hugo and his gal-pal as they try to piece together what the mysterious message is he believes his father is sending him and how all the things he encounters are connected to that. I don’t think it works quite as well as the first one aside from those additional character details it fleshes out but it also, I don’t think, does any damage.

Online

The official website for the movie opens by playing one of the TV spots and then, when it’s finished, encourages you to share it on the social network of your choice.

The first section of content is “Video” which is where you’ll be able to watch two Trailers, two TV Spots, a behind the scenes featurette and a Q&A video about the movie.

The “Story” section has a synopsis that isn’t so much a plot summary as it is an exercise in hyperbole as well as Production Notes that go into, in the barest detail, the making of the movie.

“Cast” lets you read about the actors involved and “Filmmakers” does likewise for Scorsese and the rest of the behind-the-scenes talent.

In the “Gallery” you’ll find, by my count, about 30 stills from the movie. “Downloads” then has Wallpapers and IM Icons you can save. “Partners” talks about some of the companies that are helping promote the movie and “Reviews” has pull quotes from early reviews of the movie as well as a “Certified Fresh” badge from RottenTomatoes.com, which is something I haven’t seen on an official site before.

The Facebook page for the film has publicity and press updates along with photos and videos but it’s not nearly as tricked out as some of the pages I’ve seen for other recent movie.

Advertising and Cross-Promotions

Lots of TV advertising was done with commercials that emphasized the magical and wonder-filled elements of the movie and made the case for it being a great family adventure for the holiday season. Those spots also played up the fact that it was coming in 3D, which is I guess a major selling point.

Two promotional partners were listed on the official site: Audible.com, which was promoting the audio version of the source novel and the American Library Association, which was offering a promotional poster of the movie.

Media and Publicity

The movie first started generating buzz when it was revealed to be the “mystery movie” at the New York Film Festival, appearing there as an in-progress cut that wound up getting pretty good, though not universally positive, word-of-mouth.

After that it was a while before the press started to pick back up with stories about how Scorsese opted to make this movie (New York Times, 11/4/11) and what it was about the story that attracted him to it when it was so far outside his normal wheelhouse.

There were also interviews and stories about the director where he talked about how his experiences as a parent (Los Angeles Times, 11/20/11)  informed his decision to make the movie and his approach while doing so. There were also stories about him that covered his entire career (Hollywood Reporter, 11/21/11) as well as the inspiration behind the new film.

Overall

I’m honestly not sure what to make of this. I like the campaign a lot but I’m not sure what audience it’s being sold to. There’s too much wonder and fantasy here for it to be aimed strictly at adults, but there’s too much emphasis on the story about an absent father to be aimed strictly at kids, who may not be interested in that kind of thing. It’s not that it’s a bad campaign – it’s not – but I think this may be a case of trying to reach multiple groups and failing to reach anyone. It also has the problem of coming out against The Muppets, which is more clearly a kids flick with definite adult crossover appeal and that may draw away anyone who’s curious about this movie.

But that’s not my concern – the campaign presents an interesting movie that, for adult fans of the director, presents something interesting he’s obviously trying that may need to be checked out. I hope it succeeds simply because I like it when directors and storytellers zig instead of zag and I hope Scorsese and others do more of just that.

Movie Marketing Madness: The Muppets

If you ask me it doesn’t get much better than good old fashioned Vaudeville. Marx Brothers, Hope and Crosby, Burns and Allen…even one of my favorite Billy Crystal movies is Mr. Saturday Night, an homage to that era of comedy. It’s all about the writing and the timing with this sort of comedy and that’s what works for me. Talented performers delivering superbly crafted word-play is just about as good as it gets. It’s why I always preferred Looney Tunes to just about every other sort of animated short – it was just a cartoon version of a Vaudeville routing, with the funniest bits coming from Bugs and Daffy’s verbal sparring as opposed to any sort of elaborately setup situation.One of the clear spiritual descendants of the Vaudeville tradition, at least in their original incarnations, was Jim Henson’s Muppets. Especially on “The Muppet Show” but also in what are considered the three canonical films – The Muppet Movie, The Great Muppet Caper and The Muppets Take Manhattan – these characters were always at their best when it was simply about a zinger of a joke or a bit of deft word-play.

Now these characters are back after decades of secondary status in a new movie The Muppets. Written by and starring Jason Segal, best known from his role on “How I Met Your Mother” and an avowed fan of the characters, the movie seeks to revitalize the franchise for a new generation. To do that Segal and his collaborators have created a story that has Kermit, Fozzy, Gonzo, Piggy and the others having gone their separate ways years ago after some rough times. But now Walter (a new Muppet character created for the film), the roommate of Segal’s character and the world’s biggest fan of the Muppets is trying to get the group back together to save the historic theater where they first became famous. In the best tradition of those classic films this new one features lots of star cameos and more and, quite frankly, looks awesome. Let’s see how this reintroduction of some beloved characters is being sold to the families of 2011.
The Posters

The first teaser poster wasn’t all that revealing, with the image being just that of Kermit, Piggy and a few others walking (their entire bodies are shown, not just their torsos and heads) toward the camera in a very determined fashion with the copy “They’re closer than you think” at the top reading just a tad ominously.

After that a couple fun posters that were along the same lines as some of the early trailers appeared, with Kermit decked out like Green Lantern just before that movie came out, Sam the Eagle dressed as Captain America just before that movie was released.

The next poster was a more theatrical-esque version that showed Segal and Adams in front of the mob of Muppets like they’re trying to hold the crowd back. Again it’s not all that much but it does show to the audience that the entire cast of characters will be featured, something that should have lots of appeal to those who enjoyed the earlier movies as kids and have been looking for a quality newer movie to use as an introduction for their own children. It’s quite good on that front and makes the movie look like a lot of fun.

Four more posters were later released, three of which showed extreme close-ups of the eyeballs of Kermit, Animal and Piggy with the fourth pulling the camera out a bit and showing those three along with Beaker and Gonzo.

The parody aspect of the campaign that had primarily been confined to trailers (see below) spilled over into the posters toward the end with a series of one-sheets featuring Kermit, Piggy and Rolf as characters from the Twilight movies.

The Trailers

The first teaser trailer debuted in front of Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean earlier this year but both the real-life and online versions of it took a very fun approach.

The trailer starts out like it’s selling a romantic comedy starring Segal and Adams. The two are very much in love but he messes up and has to try and make it up to her and so on. It’s only when the voice over guy starts introducing the cast and gets to Kermit and Piggy that we realize this is a Muppet movie. The studio went all in with the conceit, initially releasing the trailer under the name “Green With Envy,” which is how it appeared on Apple’s trailer’s page – complete with poster – and was used for the YouTube channel and Facebook page as well.

Outside of that bit of good natured bait-and-switch, the trailer doesn’t show very much. We get that there is a romantic story in here and that there will be lots of singing and big production numbers, which should be fun, but not much else. That’s alright since this is just about announcing the movie and not much else. So it works very well.

Another one followed shortly thereafter that played kind of like a parody of The Hangover, with scenes of chaos and fake quotes from fake publication about how funny these movies occasionally are.

The next one would use the just-about-to-come-out Green Lantern as its source material, with Kermit reciting a variation on that character’s iconic oath, before there were actually a couple of plot points revealed, the first such indicators in the campaign to date. There was also a winking at the audience about how long the creators are going to milk this parody hook before they get to the real marketing. As with the others this is kind of great.

Finally the trailer marketing began in earnest with a spot that outlines what the plot of the movie is, at least in general. Kermit is working to get the whole gang back together again after some hard times have fallen on the franchise. While we see plenty of Walter, the new character that’s introduced in the movie, we don’t get a proper introduction to him here. There are challenges put in the groups way that lead to hijinks and all in all it looks very clever, funny and charming. While it does indeed play more straight than the previous trailers in that it’s not an outright parody of something else that doesn’t mean it’s any less meta, with lots of inside jokes and winks to the audience, but that’s all good since it comes off as being very funny. The only fear here is that all those jokes are in the trailer here so when they’re put into the context of the movie as a whole they could land more flatly than they really should.

After that there was another parody trailer created that, in my opinion, was the best one yet. This one took on the trailer for The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, featured an awesome song and lots of winking at the audience via on-screen text.

Then there was a “Fan-a-Thon” trailer released that had Piggy making a personal appeal for people to Like the movie’s Facebook page in order to get an early advanced look at the movie. Fozzy, Kermit and Gonzo would also appear in similar videos.

The next trailer – not a parody or spoof – gets even more into the story by introducing Segal, Adams and their little friend – as the troop’s biggest fans. We see that they’re not exactly welcome in Hollywood anymore and that their name recognition isn’t what it used to be. So they have to pull themselves up by the bootstraps and prove themselves all over again. We get lots of scenes from the show they eventually put on and everything else and it continues to look like it’s just a lot of fun all around.

The meta circle was complete with one that started out by having a little bit of fun by creating a parody of their own trailers while also working in some nods to Paranormal Activity, Happy Feet, Twilight and more. It was more or less exactly what was needed to put a bow on this effort, especially since this one included a “Thank you, internet” note as well as one at the end saying this completed that part of the campaign. Good stuff.

Online

The official website for the movie opens by playing one of the later, non-parody trailers.

After that finishes or you choose to skip it the first thing you can do either by clicking the “Characters” menu item or just by selecting one of the images that’s presented on screen is dive into the characters of the movie. Each one of those sections has information about the character as well as Wallpapers, Buddy Icons, games and film clips that are specific to them.

The next section, “About the Movie” has a Story synopsis that goes into the adversity the Muppets have to overcome to regain success as well as a Cast section that’s still more about the characters and a Crew section that is still labeled as “Coming Soon.”

“Video Clips” has most of the trailers, both parody and non-parody as well as other videos, some of which are the great Muppet song covers from the last couple years, some of which are Disney channel coverage and then a bunch of other stuff.

There are about 14 stills in the “Gallery.” “Products” has information on the stuff you can buy, from the soundtrack to a mobile game to various toys and more.

There’s then a link to the “Fan-A-Thon” that’s been mentioned before. “Games has some fun casual games featuring different characters.

There are plenty of Wallpapers, Buddy Icons and a Screensaver in the “Downloads” section. “Activities” stuff to make that ranges from a theater playset to instructions on making candy with the faces of Kermit and the others.

Finally there’s a link to the “never-ending  manna manna phenomena” that asks you to make your own video with those famous lyrics, which will then be inserted in a never-ending stream of clips, which is kind of a fun idea.

That last feature is the first thing you see when you hit the movie’s Facebook page, though there are of course lots of tabs with links to the various trailers and more along with plenty of updates on the Wall that track the movie’s publicity activity.

The @muppetstudio has been been taken over by Statler and Waldorf, who use it to sling their usual barbs at the the other Muppets and discourage people from seeing the movie. The Muppet Studio YouTube page, which has been the hub of Muppet activity for the last couple years, has all the trailers and clips and other video snippets.

The Muppets were also one of the first brands to get a Google+ Page, which has been used to share videos and other updates.

Advertising and Cross-Promotions

A new Marvel-published comic was announced that would act as a reintroduction to the characters who, in the story, trying to revitalize their careers.

The return to the big screen also came with some promotional partners, including Wonderful Pistachios, which produced a commercial with Kermit promoting the naturally green snack.

The Muppets would also appear in a promotional video that also served as a message to not talk or text while at the theater. The spot was produced specifically for AMC Theaters and presumably ran during their pre-show entertainment blocks.

In addition to that there was a campaign that partnered the characters with Underwriters Labortories for a household safety based effort. There was also a cool partnership with Threadless that offered some nice custom designed t-shirts featuring the characters.

Media and Publicity

The film certainly got a dramatic launch. After rumors and reports had been circulating for a few months that Segal and others, avowed fans of the Muppets and such (see the inclusion of the puppet vampire musical in Forgetting Sarah Marshall) were circling a Muppets project and may have even been signed to create a new movie. Then at Disney’s D23 fan conference in September of 2009 the movie was officially announced and a title revealed, officially kicking off the buzz campaign for it.

It then continued to solidify its hipster credentials with the announcement the film would be directed by James Bobin, one of the co-creators of “Flight of the Conchords,” which also served the purpose of giving the film some musical bonafides to fall back on. That was followed by news that not only was Segal helping to write the script but that he would star in the film as well.

A steady amount of buzz around the Muppets in general was created through the release of a steady stream of videos featuring the characters singing songs such as “Bohemian Rhapsody,” “Dust in the Wind” and plenty of others. The idea behind these – all of which were fun and many of which bordered on brilliant – was to get the Muppets back at the top of people’s minds well in advance of the movie’s release so that when that time came the audience was large, multi-generational and comfortable with the idea of once again spending time with these characters.

Much like the Tron sequel, the movie benefited from some insights from the Pixar crew, with reports the script was taken to Pixar HQ for a table read (Hollywood Reporter, 7/21/10) that was intended to solicit feedback from the Pixar “Brain Trust” and get their thoughts before filming started.

After a period of silence, a new round of publicity started with an Entertainment Weekly spread that featured Segal surrounded by the characters, including Walter, the new Muppet that is the audience’s main point of entry into the story. This contained not only a good look at the characters but also the clearest and most official synopsis of the plot to date.

Later on there was news that Disney was putting a Toy Story short, the second or third that’s been produced, in front of the movie, something that got everyone talking once again about the Muppets and also made going to see the film even more attractive.

The movie was one of several that Disney brought to the CinemaCon exhibition trade show, where footage from the film was shown to attendees and Segal and Adams appeared (THR, 3/29/11) and talked about the film, including the challenges Segal faced in writing the movie(Los Angeles Times, 3/29/11) as he tried to stay true to the spirit of the franchise, the financial restraints he was operating in and just the logistics of shooting, all of which forced him to come up with inventive solutions to various problems.

There were also feature stories (New York Times, 4/11/11) about how this was the franchise’s big bet on a revival and how previous efforts in the last 10 years or so have all hit some sort of roadbump that’s killed them. So Disney is betting on a big, star-studded motion picture to finally kick things off in a manner befitting the characters and finally see some value to owning the characters.

Two years after its first appearance there the movie returned to Disney’s D23 fan convention (LAT, 8/17/11). There the studio put on a brief presentation with Segal and Kermit showing some clips from the movie that, much to her dismay, did not involve Miss Piggy.

Unfortunately the next bit of press would not be completely positive, as many of the “old hands” that were involved with the Muppets in years past and other “purists” started to question whether the movie was a worthy entry into the canon or something that distorted the characters they loved or were involved with (THR, 10/20/11). Odds are good, though that those fears are overblown and that while maybe not the movie *they* would have made it’s still respectful of the characters while also bringing them into a new generation that’s only been exposed to the lackluster straight-to-DVD entries of the last few years.

Closer to release things turned around with profiles of Segal (Wired, 11/1/11) and assurances from him that there would be lots of zany antics (LAT, 11/4/11) and how the mood on the set was generally upbeat (LAT, 11/6/11) with everyone having lots of fun. Further positive press stories would be scored that talked about how hands-off Disney was during the creative process (NYT, 11/20/11) despite the risks and potential rewards there were to be had by bringing the characters – and the franchise – to a new generation of moviegoers. There was also plenty of general stories about reviving the franchise (Fast Company, Nov 2011) and so on.

The Muppets also joined Segal in the opening of “Saturday Night Live” when he was hosting just before release.

Overall

Hey, what’s not to like here? This is a big campaign, that’s for certain but there’s something here for everyone, from those of us who grew up with “The Muppet Show” on TV every week and saw all the three original movies in theaters to those who are the kids of folks my age.

The main thing, at least the component that has garnered the most press attention, is the part of the campaign made up with the parody trailers. And while those were fun and all I’m more excited about the other stuff, the parts that sold the film more directly since they showed a movie that seems to be very much in line with the spirit of the original incarnations of this franchise. So the posters, trailers and website are what have me anticipating the film.

But it certainly isn’t a small effort. Disney is obviously hoping this is the kind of relaunch that it can capitalize on for several years on a number of fronts and has given it a campaign of suitable size. But again it’s the talent of those involved and the promise of a good-natured time at the theater that has most broadest appeal here and that comes through loud and clear.

Movie Marketing Madness: Puss in Boots

(Brief programming note: Yeah, this came out last week. But I was 85% of the way done with it and just had it on my calendar wrong so have decided to break a rule and publish it anyway. Take any complaints up with the management.)

There’s a real danger when you’re trying to spin off a character from one franchise into their own. Mostly that comes from the notion that a character who has worked in a supporting role can manage to hold the audience’s attention all on their own, without the others there to help them along with that. Taking a secondary character and giving them their own story always contains an element of risk that it will be the equivalent of when a drummer from a band that’s broken up tries to put out a solo record. No one wants to be that guy.

But here we are looking at Puss in Boots, the new movie starring the character of the same name, a character that’s been a supporting player in the last three Shrek movies at various levels. Voiced by Antonio Bandaras, the new film sees him starring in his own adventure. Along with him in his solo outing – something involving gold at the top of a beanstalk – are a female cat that has her own eyes on that gold (voiced by Salma Hayek) and a whole new batch of fairy tale type characters. But while there might be a lot of similar themes when compared to the Skrek films this one seems to be less about pop culture references that are already dated and more about telling a funny story. Let’s see how that plays out in the actual campaign.

The Posters

The first teaser poster just shows Puss from the back, his sword drawn and his eyes darting behind him toward the camera. It’s a little dark, something that is obviously meant to convey mystery, and features one of the character’s signature catchphrases, “Beg for mercy” at the bottom.

The second one-sheet isn’t all that much more informative, just showing Puss walking toward the camera this time with a fireball coming behind him as he walks majestically toward us.

After that a motion poster was released that had Puss standing heroically until a small dot of light appeared on the street in front of him, taunting him until he gives in and pounces on it before finally recovering his composure and standing back upright. That’s a scene that’s essentially pulled right from the second trailer so is already likely to be familiar to audiences.

The next one kept that same heroic stride but moved Puss to a village street, flanked by the supporting characters including Humpty Dumpty, the female cat that he encounters along with a few villagers. Not all that different but its primary purpose seems to be to finally show off the film’s look and feel, appealing to people who will recognize that look and feel from the Shrek movies.

The third poster goes back to showing Puss solo, with him standing in profile to the camera as the copy says “Looking good never looked so good.” It’s funny on the same level the others are should work to bring people’s interest around but it’s not terribly original or interesting.

The Trailers

The main purpose of the first teaser trailer is simply to announce to the audience that the character is back and starring in his own feature. So we see him strutting down a village street casting off his cloak, throwing away his sword and so on before jumping in his signature way onto a rock and announcing that all he needs is his boots. That’s about the extent of it and it’s not even clear whether this footage is in the movie or was created especially for the trailer, which is kind of what it seems like.

The next theatrical trailer starts off by making it clear that we’re looking at the backstory to the characters here, learning where the legend began. Then we start to get into the plot, which involves some vague threat that’s now possessed by a wizard or someone and which could destroy the world. Enlisting the help of Humpty Dumpty, Puss is teamed with a female cat adventurer who’s his equal not only in talent but also in attitude and it’s that dynamic as well as the promise of lots of thrilling carriage chases that the audience is asked to see the movie based on. It’s kind of funny and entertaining if you were a fan of the Shrek series though this seems far less referential of current culture and old fairy tales than those movies, at least based on this trailer.

A third trailer starts off with Puss intimidating some folks in a small tavern before we get to more scenes from the film. There’s not really a narrative here until halfway through, when we see he’s after a treasure hidden in a castle in the sky. We see some of those he goes up against and some of the dangers he encounters. All in all it kind of adds up to the most effective – at least the most all-around entertaining – of the trailers that were released.

Online

The official site opens with a few stills from the movie interspersed with some quotes from critic’s positive reviews of the movie. You can watch the trailer there or you can enter the site. Let’s do the latter.

First dealing with the main menu options at the bottom the first section there is “Video” and there you’ll see both trailers as well as a big old link to the movie’s YouTube channel, which has a bunch of additional video.

“Characters” lets you read a brief description of each of the main characters as well as view pictures of them.

Links to the various apps that are either directly or as a result of a cross-promotional deal designed to market the movie are found in “Mobile.” Next is “Games” has a buck of casual-type games you can play as well as a Coloring Book to download and information on the console-based game.

“Partners” has information on the companies that have been good enough to sign on to help out in promoting the film. And finally “Downloads” has all sorts of stuff – from Ringtones to Twitter Skins to printable craft projects – that you can grab.

There’s lots to do on the movie’s Facebook page as well, though a good amount of it is just ported over content from the official site. But there’s enough here that it doesn’t feel like a tossed-off effort but like the folks behind it were really going for something here.

Advertising and Cross-Promotions

The studio created a mock commercial featuring the title character promoting “No Pants Pants” that had a little bit of extra dialogue and then a lot of footage that was pulled straight from the trailer. Another spot cast Puss as “the most interesting cat in the world,” a take off on the popular beer commercials and then another had him doing his own version of the Old Spice guy.

There was some outdoor advertising done as well as I saw some bus ads that had Puss preening and asking if it was hot out or if it was just him, a line made all the more funny because they started appearing in Chicago in October, a time when the word “hot” is rarely used in relation to the weather.

The movie got a tie-in with the popular mobile game Fruit Ninja, where the title character was inserted into a new level of the game of trying to slash fruit while avoiding falling bombs.

HP and Intel were both on board as promotional partners as well as they are with most all Dreamworks Animation films since they’re the studio’s technology partners. In addition to that there were tie-ins from McDonald’s (Happy Meals), Friskies, Sun-Maid, Avacados from Mexico, Great Day Farms (all co-branded packaging), Save Mart Supermarkets and Marsh grocers (free movie ticket with $15 of qualifying purchases).

Media and Publicity

The movie was one of several brought by Paramount to the CinemaCon trade show, where it apparently (Hollywood Reporter, 3/29/11) got some decent reactions from the theater owners in attendance.

Some more press came later (Los Angeles Times, 9/4/11) on that focused on the involvement of Guillermo del Toro, who came in and helped the other filmmakers shape the story a little bit and work out some plot points they were stuck on.

Overall

I like this campaign a lot. That’s mostly because it seems to have been created with the mindset of not just playing off the audience’s fondness of Shrek (something I think declined with each subsequent installment) but by presenting a product that appeared to stand on its own and was more or less an original item. So everything has a fresh sort of energy that’s no longer dependent on us finding Mike Myers’ Scottish accent amusing or not.

As much as that there’s a good consistency to the brand positioning here that helps the audience feel comfortable with all the different components of the campaign, which come together nicely into a single whole. I was really expecting to not like this at all but it won me over more than I was anticipating.

Movie Marketing Madness: Real Steel

Setting a story “in the not too-distant future” is kind of a great narrative get out of jail free card. You can still do whatever you want, really, but also don’t have to create a whole new world in order to tell the story. Cars are likely still cars and houses are still houses. And it’s possible to take something that’s widely accepted now and push it out a few years (whether or not you disclose how many is up to you and your tolerance for news stories when that year is reached about how wrong you got it) to where it’s not or some such and you’re pretty much golden.

One such movie that’s set just a few years out from our own is this week’s Real Steel. The movie stars Hugh Jackman as Charlie Kenton, a down-on-his-luck former fighter who’s barely been making ends meet since they outlawed human boxing and the sport shifted to giant brawling robots. Yeah, you read that right. One day at the very bottom of his fortunes he reunites with his estranged son Max (Dakota Goya) and the two work to piece together a hard-scrabbled fighting robot that just might be Charlie’s ticket back to the big time.

The Posters

The first teaser poster sets up the movie’s premise to a pretty decent extent, showing just a robotic hand coming up and grasping the heavy metal ropes of a boxing ring. You don’t see the entire robot but you do get some copy that promises “Champions aren’t born. They’re made.” It’s pretty good and looks kind of cool.

The next poster at least showed the primary human star of the movie. Jackman appears in the foreground in a boxer’s pose with a large robot behind him mimicking his movements. The copy at the bottom “Courage is stronger than steel” gives us the hint that the story will cover an emotional arc of Jackman’s character that ties in to the part of the story involving the huge machines. It’s not bad but just looks kind of odd because of the manipulation of Jackman’s photo. Other than that it’s alright.

Four posters hit next that featured four of the robots from the movie, including Atom – the one that Jackman and his friends build – and three of the bots that it will presumably go up against.

The Trailers

The first trailer introduces us to the idea behind the movie’s world, which is that the sport of boxing has evolved to no longer feature human beings but instead has people using massive robot surrogates to fight in the ring instead.

That’s about all the information you’re going to get from this spot, though. Jackman’s character is obviously known in the professional robot boxing world but why that is doesn’t get explained. And while there are lots of shots of robots doing the fighting it’s difficult to tell if Jackman is actually controlling any of them and why he’s doing so. Still, it’s a decent first teaser that gives a look at the robots and is probably effective at generating some excitement among some audiences.

The next trailer is much more informative. It opens with Jackman’s character ducking the phone call of someone he owes money to. We then meet a woman and her kid as she tells him about the great fighter Charlie used to be, though now he’s obviously fallen on harder times. The boy convinces Charlie to help him find a robot and teach him to box and he does so, but with a robot that’s not designed for all out fighting. Eventually, though, the two of them turn out a winner despite the robot not being a traditional fighter.After a series of losses things turn around and we see this is, ultimately, a redemption story for Charlie and everyone else involved.

Online

The movie’s official website starts by playing the trailer in full-screen video. After that finishes or after you click to skip it you’re taken to the main site, featuring the poster key art.

The first section in the left-hand navigation menu is the “Gallery,” which kind of tells you right off the bat the emphasis is on the visuals of the film. After that is “Downloads” which has several Wallpapers, a Screensaver and some IM Icons to save if you’re so inclined.

“Story” has a pretty decent overview of the movie’s plot. “Video” has the Teaser and Theatrical Trailers as well as a Featurette on the making of the movie. “Cast and Crew” has career biographies of the major players involved in the film’s making.

You can listen to snippets of songs featured in the movie in the “Soundtrack” section as well as buy it on iTunes.

After that is a link to “Join the WRB,” which there’s more information on below. Then there’s “Video Game” that takes you to the site for the official tie-in game. “Paper Models” is just what it sounds like – instructions on making your own paper version of the movie’s robots.

The Facebook page for the film brings over a lot of the official site’s features but adds some additional extended clips and more video as well as updates on the publicity and marketing.

An online-based ARG kicked off at the PAX East gaming convention, where attendees were given a paper version of the controller that’s used in the movie for the boxing matches. Each of those had a code on it that could be entered on the soon-to-be-launched site for the fictional World Robot Boxing organization. When the code was entered an achievement was unlocked and the user was prompted to register on the site to save that achievement, something that hinted at further tasks to come down the road.

The site did indeed continue to evolve, with more information (that you could unlock with additional codes, which were shown on the site) on the history of the WRB and how it was founded, became the most popular sport in the world and more.

That ARG continued into the E3 gaming conference where robot fighter trading cards were handed out that prompted people to visit a new branch of the WRB site where they could design their own robots.

After a brief period of inactivity things ramped back up in early September as more mailings were sent out that included cool movie swag as well as instructions on how to create their own robot avatars on the WRB site.

Advertising and Cross-Promotions

TV spots started running in early September that of course focused on Jackman and his journey toward career redemption by building a plucky, less than sophisticated fighting robot that he would use to get back in the game. There’s nothing about the kid or any other relationships here, just lots of flashy visuals showing robots beating up on each other.

Outdoor advertising was done as well, with billboards that featured four of the robots from the movie with arms outstretched. And while other outdoor ads that were placed on the sides of buses were also run nothing matched the scale of having a Virgin America A320 plastered with an image of Atom.

There were a bunch of companies that were on board as promotional partners. HP, Virgin America and Bing were such companies, though the details on their partnerships are unclear. Partnerships with Del Taco and Royal Purple were more clear, the former running a sweepstakes giving away either restaurant or video game related prized and the latter running co-branded TV spots.

Media and Publicity

Some of the early press outside of marketing materials and such came in the form of a piece (Los Angeles Times, 1/28/11) that was meant to position the movie as a heartfelt and human drama and not just a sci-fi, robotic boxing movie that was more about the special effects than any sort of meditative story. Whether or not that positioning is accurate with the finished product remains to be seen but it’s an interesting early salvo in the press effort for the movie.

At the 2011 CinemaCon trade show for exhibitors Jackman and director Levy were in attendance to promote the film (Hollywood Reporter, 3/29/11) as part of Dreamworks’ overall presentation to attendees.

Stories began to circulate eventually that had the star and director talking about the tone of the film (Entertainment Weekly, 5/10/11) and how it’s not actually about the robots, who are just there to help the human characters along on their story.

Rumors began to swirl that Jackman would make a surprise, unscheduled appearance at Comic-Con 2011, something that did indeed happen (Los Angeles Times, 7/21/11) as he worked a crowd of folks that gathered in a parking lot to talk and answer questions.

The robots got some press in a piece (LAT, 9/1/11) that looked at the virtual fighting they engage in.

Overall

There’s a nugget of a great campaign here but I don’t feel like it’s fully realized. There’s some nice consistency between all the elements – it certainly feels like a nicely unified campaign from a branding perspective – but I just can’t shake the feeling that there’s no follow-through here, no final push to bring it home and put a bow on it.

But that’s not to say that there isn’t a lot of energy thrown into the marketing. Everything comes off as very high-powered, something that’s exemplified by Jackman and the way he, as is usual, goes full throttle on promoting anything he’s involved in. Even that, though, can’t overcome the feeling that this is a summer movie that’s being marketed in the early fall, something that may wind up coming back to bite the film with audiences.

Movie Marketing Madness: The Smurfs

There’s a whole tradition of Saturday morning cartoons that kids today just aren’t familiar with. Back in the 80’s my younger brother and I would wake around 6AM (earlier than that and the news was still one) and bounce between CBS, NBC and ABC at various times to catch the best animated shows of the era. That included, at any given time, “Snorks,” “Thundar the Barbarian,” “Pac-Man,” “The Real Ghostbusters” and countless others. If available breakfast would be cold pizza from the night before and more than likely we would be arranging our Star Wars, G.I. Joe or Transformers figures while enjoying the best (a loose description) commercial broadcasting had to offer between 6AM and 10AM.

But the rise of cable channels and the increased insistence that all children’s programming be educational soon pushed these fun, though certainly commercial, programs off the air.

One of the stalwarts was certainly “Smurfs” and the characters from that series and the preceding comic strip have now graduated to the big screen with the appropriately titled The Smurfs. The story is pretty familiar while also catering to the latest trends in semi-animated kid’s fare. While trying to escape from Gargamel (Hank Azaria), a band of Smurfs falls through a portal that dumps them into present day New York City. There they latch on to two humans (Neil Patrick Harris and Jayma Hays) who help to hide them while the three-apple-high visitors try to find a way back home.

The Posters

The first poster is every bit as simple as the first trailer. It just has Papa Smurf, Smurfette and the other Smurf looking away from the camera and over the cityscape of New York with the copy “Where the Smurf are we?” attempting to be clever by inserting “Smurf” in place of another word.

The next poster wasn’t a whole lot different, showing a bunch of Smurfs caught in a New York subway door and looking back at the camera. The fact that their little Smurf behinds are the main design component here should let most people know which direction the humor in the movie is coming from.

A series of character-specific one-sheets, each featuring one of the main cast of Smurfs, was released that had some sort of saying that doubled as a character description. Many of these were also later repurposed for outdoor and other advertising.

The Trailers

The first teaser trailer showed almost nothing. After an introduction in the Yahoo premiere from co-star Harris, the spot starts off with narration about something big coming to our world that’s accompanied by shots of world landmarks such as the Sphinx, The Eiffel Tower and Mount Rushmore all of a sudden turning blue. Then we cut to Times Square where three little Smurf heads pop up and just as suddenly duck back down from the screen. Finally we see the three of them hanging on for dear life to the roof-top ad on top of a cab, with the ad showing the movie’s web address. It’s an extreme teaser so it’s not like much was expected and it delivers along those expectations.

The first full length trailer doesn’t go much into the plot (whatever there might be of it, mostly just telling us that the Smurfs’ arrival is heralded by lots of mysterious lights over New York City. We’re quickly introduced to the humans they latch on to. We get a couple shots of Gargamel that show Azaria might be the best thing in the movie but mostly this one is about making a bunch of jokes using the word “smurf” in place of various bodily functions. Not much to go on here but anyone who really couldn’t get enough of the Chipmunks movies will likely find this right up their alley.

The next theatrical length trailer gives the audience a bit more information. We start out in the Smurfs’ village and see their idyllic lives which are interrupted by the presence of Gargamel, who’s finally found what he’s been searching for. All the Smurfs scatter, with one group falling through some sort of rift and winding up in our world. There they cause all sorts of problems in the lives of the humans who find them but still must continue to elude their nemesis who has followed them through to this dimension as well.

In addition to a bit more about the actual story (such as it is) this trailer also shows off how “hip” and self-aware the movie is, with jokes – primarily from Harris – about how they can’t just use “smurf” as a replacement for all sorts of words or how annoying their little song is. It’s not a terrible trailer but you definitely get a sense of the movie’s attitude so your perception of it will be based on your tolerance for this stuff.

Online

The movie’s official website opens by asking if you’d like to watch the trailer again. There are also promotions there for the Smurf Dance Party video game, the Smurf Village iPhone/iPad app and other Sony DVDs. There’s also a link to BeSmurfed, which lets you dress up a Smurf of your choice and then attach a message to the image that you can send to a friend.

Once you Enter the Site the navigation there is actually quite fun. You can access most things from the menu at the top but you can also control a Smurf and have him run or walk to the left or right to hit all those content areas as well.

First up is “Videos” which has both all three Trailers to watch and there are a whopping nine options to choose from in the “Games” section that range from regular games to quizzes that will test your Smurf knowledge and help get you informed.

“About” just has a synopsis to catch up on the plot. Then you can see what actors voice what characters in the “Cast and Crew” section but not view anything about them. Nine stills from the movie can be found in the “Gallery” and “Downloads” has Wallpapers, a Twitter Skin, a Soundboard of audio clips from the movie and Profile Pics that are really just the movie’s posters all collected.

The Facebook page for the film invites you to Like it in order to access the same sort of stuff you can find on the official site and in addition has a Wall full of publicity and marketing updates as well as various media assets. Twitter is similar with the updates.

Advertising and Cross-Promotions

TV advertising began in earnest in mid-May with a spot that ran during the penultimate episode of the current “American Idol” season and which was, obviously, heavy on the singing components of the movie’s story. It also showed there’s a Katy Perry “inside” joke that makes me want to smack someone around quite a bit.

A couple different approaches were taken with the outdoor advertising. On the one hand there were pretty traditional ads that showed one or more of the Smurfy characters. On the other there were bus-side and other ads that looked like warning signs, letting people know the Smurfs were on the loose and not to be distracted by their cuteness, a line that’s stolen from the trailers.

One of the first bit of hype-building promotions was announced way back in December of 2008. Cosmetics company Too Faced launched a line of Smurfette-branded style products for women  to enjoy either straight-faced or in ironic fashion.

Macy’s was also an early promotional partner, announcing that Smurfs would be a big part of their 2010 Thanksgiving Day Parade and that stores would feature exclusive merchandise as well as signage for the movie.

Media and Publicity

Aside from a few “leaked” design mock-ups of the characters that had appeared now and again the first major volley in the publicity campaign was a story in USA Today (6/16/10) that gave readers an overview of what the movie’s story would be, what situations the characters would find themselves in and when the first teaser trailer could be expected. That story also included the first official publicity still from the movie, giving people their first sanctioned look at the Smurfs as they would look in the movie as well as making it clear the story took place in modern day New York City. Of course the secondary explosions around this story on various movie blogs likely dwarfed the scale of the original media hit so this definitely got people talking in advance of that trailer.

The tie-in toys and other products for the movie were also among those debuting or otherwise making a big show at the annual Toy Fair convention (Hollywood Reporter, 2/10/11).

As release neared the studio tried to get the fans involved in the marketing a bit by declaring June 25th Global Smurfs Day (New York Times, 6/12/11) and encouraging those fans to gather in cities across the country dressed as Smurfs in an effort to set a world record for such an activity.

Smurfette even took on the role of high fashion model in a spread for Harper’s Bazaar (June, 2011). And the Smurfs became the focal point of a new campaign from New York’s tourism company, which announced “Smurfs Week” with activities at retailers and other locations throughout the city.

Overall

What strikes me most about this campaign is that it’s almost 100% geared toward kids and not at all toward people of my generation who grew up with the cartoon. Unless you count by proxy as the studio seeks to make sure parents know that this movie is basically the same as Alvin & The Chipmunks from a few years ago and so, depending on your parenting decisions, suitable for the little ones.

Other than that it works so hard to be inoffensive that it winds up being just the opposite, with the only redeeming factor apparently being Azaria’s scene-chewing performance as Gargamel. There’s little here for anyone above the age of 12 to latch on to or find interesting aside from that, not even from a morbid curiosity perspective. It’s almost identical to not only Alvin but all the other recent movies featuring humans interacting with computer-animated cartoon characters and so holds little interest to anyone who knows any better.

PICKING UP THE SPARE

• 07/28/11 – NBC Universal signed on for lots of Smurfs-related promotions, inserting characters into shows on NBC and the variety of cable networks it owns and running other Smurfy stuff.
• 07/29/11 – Apparently the movie is also the latest McDonald’s Happy Meal tie-in.
• 07/29/11 – Christopher Campbell at Spout looks at the rampant product placement in the movie, including for what looks to be the biggest shill for New York itself.

Movie Marketing Madness: Cowboys and Aliens

Ever since 1991′s release of Unforgiven the Western movie genre has been forever altered. All of a sudden the stakes were higher, the emotions deeper and the overall gravitas just that much greater. Eastwood’s movie took a genre of film that had been a symbol for the American male ideal of stoicism and grit and showed its dark, painful underbelly. Westerns since then have also been, to varying degrees, about showing the emotional impact actions have on characters and not so much about the simple virtues of defending the weak and doing what’s right.

That’s not to say filmmakers can’t still have a little fun with the genre now and again.

Based on the graphic novel by Scott Mitchell Rosenberg, Cowboys & Aliens is a mash-up of the traditional Western with elements of science-fiction/fantasy, something you can probably get from the title alone. The story follows Jake Lonergan (Daniel Craig), who awakes one day to no memory of who he is or where he’s been but with a strange glowing blue gauntlet around one wrist. Stumbling in to town he eventually crosses paths with Col. Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford), a wealthy rancher who more or less runs the town and who has long-lived gripes with Lonergan. As Dolarhyde is about to take him away to exact his revenge, alien ships appear in the sky. It’s eventually reasoned that these ships have something to do with the mysterious disappearances of folk in the area and may hold the key to unlocking Lonergan’s memory. Together with Ella Swenson (Olivia Wilde) the two rivals must work together to solve the problems that plague both men and maybe do a little good in the process.

The Posters

The first poster certainly let the audience know what it would be in for even while the specifics were still vague. A lone gunman stands in the desert with his back mostly turned to the camera, a Winchester rifle in one hand and some sort of crazy blue-glowy high-tech thingamajig wrapped around his other forearm.

It’s a nice and atmospheric teaser poster that is all about making it clear the audience that the story is a mix of two genres, Western and science-fiction. Oddly, none of the movie’s stars are listed anywhere on the one-sheet though at the top of the poster we are told this is coming from “The director of Iron Man,” so it’s clear that it’s being sold based on the public’s affinity for that movie in lieu of this being a franchise entry itself.

The second poster took the more straightforward approach of trying to sell the movie based on its stars. So Craig and Ford are front and center, this time facing the camera and looking above it into the far distance, with cowboy hats on both of them and the weird glowy gun strapped to Craig’s wrist. It too highlights the fact that this comes “From the director of Iron Man” and looks consistent with the first in how the design and colors are used as well, making it a nice second entry into the poster aspect of the campaign.

A final poster would include Wilde and for some reason opt to ditch the cowboy hats, something that results in Ford’s hair looking kind of ridiculous. It’s an odd choice that seems to be about downplaying the Western aspects of the story, but not fully since Wilde is clearly in Western garb and the two guys are still sporting old fashioned pistols. It’s the weakest of the bunch, unfortunately

The Trailers

The first trailer for the film starts out with a jolt as Craig’s character comes to in the middle of nowhere, a strange object around his wrist. When he’s accosted by a group of ruffians he dispatches them handily before heading in to town, where he encounters Wilde, who he doesn’t remember, and the law man who’s looking for him. Also looking for him is Ford and his group of men. And that’s when things get weird as what appears to be a spaceship appears in the sky and starts blowing things up.

We eventually see Craig take down one of those ships with the doohickey that he’s wearing but the rest of the trailer is a little back and forth. The action cuts between the showdown in town and what appears to be a journey Craig and Ford have to go on since we see a couple shots of them on their own.

What the trailer does well is make the audience say “Wow…that looks cool.” There’s just enough of a story to get people interested but not enough to ruin anything. And there are just enough special effects to sell the movie as an action film. Some of the story’s conflict is established and overall it’s a very effective teaser.

The second full trailer (which debuted during an episode of “American Idol”) once again opens with an amnesiac Lonergan waking up in the desert, unsure of who he is, where he comes from and what that glowing thing on his wrist is. He’s thrown in jail and Dolarhyde tries to take him, which is when the alien ships start to fly around overhead, with the mysterious glowing wristband seeming to be the only thing that can shoot them down. The ships capture some of the townsfolk and the two, along with Ella, decide to work together to try and rescue them. Finding the survivors becomes not only the primary mission but also seems to hold the key to Lonergan unlocking his memory problems and discovering who he really is. So we get lots of shots once again of fast-moving ships in the sky as horses ride along the ground and we’re told there won’t be any survivors.

This trailer has a little more story background in it but it’s still primarily about showing off the movie’s cool visuals and playing up the slick sense of humor that the film seems to have, something that’s most clearly displayed in the last sequence that’s shown. It’s fast moving and has the same sort of rock-and-roll beat that Iron Man’s first trailers did, so it’s clear that the trailers are making the same sort of appeal that those did.

A third and much shorter – just over a minute in length – trailer was released that only hinted at the mystery of the story in favor of lots of shots of alien ships, including what I think was the first look inside one of the ships as the cowboys try to find the people who have been abducted.

Online

The movie’s official website loads with,as the primary element, an invitation to watch the TV spot that debuted during the “Spike Guys Choice Awards” (more on that later) or view some Images, Video or Downloads right from the front page here. There are also prompts down at the bottom to do all sorts of things, including play a Coke-sponsored game, download an iPhone game or the special movie-themed Hipstamatic Facebook app and more, including an invitation to check out the conversation unspooling on Socialrama, an aggregation site.

Once you go ahead and Enter the Site the first section of content (after the alien ship crashes to earth) is “About the Film” which has a pretty good synopsis in The Story, lots of information about the people involved in “Cast and Crew” and then more information you can download in the “Production Notes.”

“Videos” has both the Theatrical and Teaser trailers, the Spike TV spot exclusive as well as a few other TV Spots and a featurette to watch. There are about 15 stills in the “Gallery” from the film’s production. A collection of Buddy Icons, Wallpapers and even a Twitter Skin can be found in the “Downloads” section.

The “Games and Features” has two things: The Landscapes, Lawmen and Outlaws feature is just another way to grab some wallpapers for your desktop while “Absolution Training Grounds” is a shooting game that has you taking out various alien ships.

There was also a tie-in site launched that let people send an old-fashioned telegram for free to someone with a customized message, something that’s a nice twist on the idea of encouraging people to mention a movie to their friends and which usually takes place on social networks nowadays.

The movie’s Facebook page ports over a lot of the official site’s features to its front page along with lots of graphics promoting some of the corporate marketing partners like Coke and 7-Eleven. Outside of that there are plenty of photos and videos and marketing updates, many of which are also published to the movie’s Twitter profile.

Advertising and Cross-Promotions

The movie was one of the first to be pegged as being supported by a commercial during 2011′s Super Bowl, news that broke when Favreau announced on his Twitter account that he was cutting the spot.

That Super Bowl spot was pretty cool. It starts off in much the same way as the trailer, by showing Lonergan being confronted in a bar. After dispatching those who would arrest him the aliens start appearing and we see lots of ships flying overhead and snatching people up. It certainly plays up the action aspects of the film, which isn’t surprising. It’s fast-paced and all that, showing off to the broad audience that tuned in for the game a movie that looked like it was trying to live in two worlds. What’s unsure is how that then translates to audience interest.

Further TV commercials would play up the action aspects of the movie while still hinting at the missing identity story, with the first one even giving one of the first looks at the mysterious aliens that make up the movie’s title. More commercials would continue in this vein, including one that ran during the much-watched season finale of “American Idol.”

Then another, this time debuting during the SpikeTV “Guys Choice Awards” would make the movie look tougher than some of the previous had, with more footage of Craig’s character actually being the badass that everyone around him seems to think he is, something the previous trailers and spots haven’t emphasized very much.

There was quite a bit of outdoor advertising done as well, mostly with images of Craig aiming his wrist gauntlet gun, something that obviously became the most recognizable image of the campaign.

On the promotional front there was a partnership with 7-Eleven (MediaPost, 7/5/11), which developed a new “Alienade” flavor of Slurpee and offered “Wrist Blaster” cups that actually lit up with the same mysterious glowing light from the movie and featured the three main characters. The promotion there was supported with radio and other media advertising.

Coca-Cola also was a sponsor of a movie-themed augmented reality game that awarded $5,000 in gold to the winner of a related sweepstakes. And photo app Hipstamatic offered a movie-specific version to users for a limited time.

Media and Publicity

Outside of the casting news, the first bit of news came (as was the case with Iron Man 2) from director Favreau tweeting out a picture from the set, in this case an image of Craig in costume, though he’s heavily backlit so you can’t make out his face or many other details.

A fuller view of Craig in costume came when the movie appeared at Comic-Con 2010, an appearance that included director Favreau’s bringing out both Harrison Ford and Craig, neither of whom had been announced and neither of whom had been to the convention before.

The release of the first poster and trailer generated the next swell in publicity about the movie, though with that came a bit of discussion about the movie’s apparent confusion-inducing nature. It seems audiences at some screenings where the trailer was shown started laughing (New York Times, 11/30/10) while the trailer played, seemingly thinking the title “Cowboys & Aliens” meant some sort of genre-mixing spoof or comedy. That audience confusion (initially noted by Aris at AdAge) was, in some respects, expected and much of the media outreach that’s been done has been to convey the fact that there are no tongues in cheeks in the film but instead that it plays both genres as seriously as possible, something Favreau has noted in numerous interviews.

A good chunk of the movie, about 40 minutes, was screened at the 2010 installment of Harry Knowles’ Butt-Numb-A-Thon festival, where it picked up some mixed and some fantastic buzz for its look and feel as well as its performances. That screening even produced legitimate press stories (Los Angeles Times, 2/5/11) about how Favreau, Howard and others considered that screening the “Iowa caucus” for the film, especially since the property itself was coming in with pretty low public recognition in the public.

A panel for the movie was held at WonderCon (THR, 3/31/11), the little brother to the bigger Comic-Con, where Favreau held forth on the film for the assembled geeks and press and showed off about 10 minutes of the film to the assembled crowd. The cast and crew continued to talk to the press (LAT, 4/25/11) about the tone of the film, how Ford was brought into the project and more about the crossing of the genre streams. Chats between the filmmakers and the press continued when Favreau dropped in to the Hero Complex Fest and continued to establish his geek credentials.

While it was certain that the movie would have some sort of big presence at 2011 Comic-Con it was nonetheless big news when it was announced (THR, 6/13/11) that the it would have its world premiere at San Francisco.

Overall

I can’t stop thinking of the campaign for Inception from last year whenever I’m looking at the marketing for Cowboys & Aliens. In both cases the movie itself is an original story (Yes, C&A is an adaptation but it’s not a sequel, superhero movie, franchise reboot or some such like that). But also in both cases the marketing has emphasized the fact that it comes from the director of a popular franchise, thereby attempting to create some sort of familiar ground for the audience. “You liked Iron Man so you should feel right at home here” is the message that’s being conveyed by making Favreau so prominent in the campaign in various ways.

Aside from that this is a fun campaign that, even with stars like Ford and Craig, still has a long way to go to convince people it’s worth their time and money to see. Genre mash-ups are notoriously hard to pull off and can confuse moviegoers who may not be completely on board with the conceit of the film, finding not enough staples of either kind of movie to fully latch on to and writing off the whole shooting match as too confusing. While film critics might love it and completely get what it’s going for because they are down with all those conventions the average moviegoer may just want to be entertained.

That being said, I think this campaign does a decent job of making sure the focus remains squarely on the adventure components of the film’s story, making the case that regardless of what genre talk there might be that this is a fast-paced ride with a mystery at its core, something that’s more understandable to the larger audience and therefore hopefully more attractive.

PICKING UP THE SPARE

• 07/29/11 – Again we have Mashable taking a look at the use of social media in the campaign.
• 08/02/11 – 7-Eleven was also chosen as a promotional partner for the movie’s tie-in video game.

Movie Marketing Madness: Captain America

Very few comic book characters have reached “icon” status. Sure there are some that are well-known and the past few years have proven that even those who hover just below the A-List can become popular among audiences who aren’t constantly evaluating whether or not X title still belongs on their pull list or if a series of creative misfires have made rendered it no longer worth regularly reading.

While he’s never been as instantly and universally popular as his Marvel Universe cohorts Spider-Man and The Hulk, Captain America is certainly an icon of the comics world. Created during the Second World War as a Nazi-smashing figure of the American fighting spirit and then revived during the 60’s as a central component of Marvel’s burgeoning character line-up, Cap has since been a character that not everyone might be completely schooled on but they are certainly aware of.

Now he’s taking his place in the cinematic version of the Marvel Universe in the new movie Captain America: The First Avenger. The movie, unlike the other films Marvel Studios has produced recently, is a period piece that rightly places Cap – first just scrawny Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) – in the 1940’s. Desperate to do his part for the war but constantly turned away because he’s so undersized, Rogers is eventually recruited into a super-secret program to turn soldiers into the perfect fighting machine. But when Hydra, the science division of the Nazi army, destroys the formula and the process right after Rogers goes through it he’s left as the only one. It’s up to him, then to take down the Hydra’s leader The Red Skull (Hugo Weaving) and save the world.

There have been allusions and references to Cap in just about all the previous movies from Marvel (I don’t know about Thor since I haven’t seen it), including glimpses of his shield in both Iron Man movies and the prominent role the Super Soldier program played in The Incredible Hulk. But Marvel is clearly setting the table for next year’s The Avengers and the role Cap will play in it with this movie’s subtitle.

The Posters

The first poster, which debuted just days before the first TV spot ran during the Super Bowl, presented a gritty portrait of the character. Cap is standing there in the middle of the design with his head bowed and holding his shield in a moment of serious contemplation.

Across his chest is the word “Avenge,” a clear allusion to his future inclusion in the super team of that name. Dirt flies all around him as if in battle, which ties in nicely to the filmmaker’s desire to make this a war picture as much as a super hero movie.

The image is pretty similar to one originally appearing on the cover of Captain America #4 from 2005 and so is clearly meant to appeal to the comics readers in the audience.

Nowhere to be seen on this first teaser is the subtitle “The First Avenger,” though the “Avenge” here does foreshadow that. Presumably that will appear later in the campaign but on this one it’s not just downplayed but non-existent.

There was a promotional poster that was created for the crew of the movie and featured a 40’s-era type of design aesthetic. It was kind of so awesome that I almost don’t want to say too much about it for fear of getting in to a neverending rant on why this kind of cool design concept can’t be used for the actual movie marketing efforts instead of being consigned to this sort of behind the scenes promotion.

The second official poster gave us a better look at Evans as Cap. He’s right up in front of the camera looking off to the side as if evaluating some new threat, his shield taking up most of the lower half of the image space. Evans still isn’t sporting the cowl here, which makes me think that there’s something telling the studio that putting him in that mask is turning people off in some manner. There’s no other reason not to have Captain America fully decked out on the posters for the movie. Aside from that, though, this is still quite good and continues the gritty look of the first one but in more of an action sequence than before.

A final theatrical poster was released just a week before release that brought the whole cast into the picture. Cap stands there (still sans cowl) while Peggy Carter, Col. Phillips, the Howling Commandos and Bucky Barnes are arrayed around him as the Red Skull scowls in the background and explosions fly around everyone. It’s very much a traditional type of super hero one-sheet and indeed is remarkably similar to posters for other heroes like Iron Man and more but gosh darnit if it doesn’t work. It’s also nice to see the poster campaign finally catch up to the rest of the marketing in highlighting the rest of the cast, something that’s been a constant theme of the trailers and TV spots while the posters have just been focused on Cap.

The Trailers

The first full length trailer is kind of fantastic. We meet Steve Rogers as a scrawny, undersized would-be volunteer in the army who’s rejected over and over again. As we see his hard-scrabble life as the kid who’s always picked on (including getting into a fight where he grabs a garbage can cover for protection) we also hear the exposition from Jones’ officer talking about a new “super soldier” program. The footage then shifts to Rogers being put into the capsule that facilitates his transformation into the perfect soldier, including a brief shot of Howard Stark.

Finally we begin to see Captain America in action, barging into Nazi/Hydra outposts (with the Howling Commandos, which is all kinds of awesome in and of itself) and throwing his shield at the bad guys. We get a similar shot of the Red Skull as we saw in the earlier Super Bowl spot and plenty of action, especially in the last half of the trailer.

This trailer is very, very cool. it shows the look and feel of the movie (including the computer-assisted shrinking of Chris Evans) as being something that seems akin to Johnston’s The Rocketeer while also having the action ramped up a bit. It also pulls off the tricky task of selling the movie as being a pretty good straight action flick while also selling it as a fantastic comics adaptation with lots of tips to the mythology of the character. Just great stuff.

The second trailer starts with the setup as we meet Steve Rogers and see what kind of character he has as well as how he’s finally accepted in to the Army. There’s a key scene on this front where Jones’ character throws a dummy grenade in a group of recruits and Rogers jumps on it to try and save the others, a moment that tips the scales in terms of his being selected for the Super Soldier program. We then see his transformation, which is followed by Hydra destroying Erskine’s lab.

Then the action shifts into high gear as Cap starts taking the fight to Hydra and their Nazis, taking down their bases and hitting lots of them with his shield. We finally, at least in this part of the campaign, get to hear the Red Skull speak as he confronts Cap about what makes him so special, to which he replies “Nothing…I’m just a kid from Brooklyn,” a line that bookends the trailer nicely and brings it back to his humble beginnings.

If anything the trailer works even better than the first, showing a more complete and more linear story arc and really selling the all out action of the film while still very much making it a character-driven story. There are a few bad jokes in there but that’s alright.

Online

When the official website first loads you get one of those “site lite” sort of deals. You’re prompted to watch the Trailer and view a Story synopsis. The Video section here has both trailers as well as the Super Bowl commercial and finally there’s a bit over a dozen stills in the Images section.

Finally Entering the Site things load like the beginning of a filmstrip showing some sort of military program.

The first section there is “About the Film” and there you’ll find a short Synopsis of the movie’s story as well as Cast and Filmmaker bios and Production Notes – at least those sections are listed there despite the fact that each one is currently (less than a week from release) still tagged as “Coming Soon.”

The same 14 images that were on the front page are here in the “Gallery” and the “Videos” section also just has the same three videos. “Downloads” then just has Wallpapers and Buddy Icons.

The “Experience” (which is also universally accessible via the “Dossiers” navigation on the right) has information on all the major characters and organizations in the movie, ranging from Cap himself to Hydra to the Howling Commandos.

The movie’s Facebook page has updates on publicity, promotions and marketing as well as video and photos and more.

Those watching the trailer online and then later seeing the movie could check-in to GetGlue and earn exclusive stickers. There was also an iPhone/iPad app that featured a 24-level game where Cap had to kick the hinders of Hydra agents and other baddies.

Advertising and Cross-Promotions

Marvel, as they’ve done with other films of theirs, created multiple lists of essential readings and other comic promotions to take advantage of how the character is (hopefully) at the top of people’s minds. There was also, as many had been predicting, a relaunch of the main Captain America title that included not only a new #1 but also the new #1 that featured the return of Steve Rogers to the shield, thereby not confusing all those new potential readers with a Cap who’s not Rogers.

The comic tie-ins also included a prequel digital book that was set in the world of the movie and filled in some of the story elements from the film, giving readers a sneak peak into that story.

There was, of course, a video game that’s being released around the same time as the movie that doesn’t necessarily share a plot or tie directly in to the film but, again, is part of the overall spotlighting of the character that’s being done across all platforms.

The first look at any actual footage from the film came when Paramount ran a 30 second commercial for it during Super Bowl XLV. It starts off by showing us skinny, scrawny Steve Rogers (what appears to be a heavily computer-modified Evans) who is then placed into a chamber and emerges a moment later much taller and much stronger. We then see him in full uniform and with his shield leading troops into battle, swinging through an enemy stronghold and more. It ends with a bit of humor as Peggy Carter proves that the shield works in a very effective way. The spot includes mention of this being our introduction to the first Avenger and, most importantly, shows that the costume looks pretty darn cool on screen and in motion, which was my and others biggest fear.

Further TV commercials would play up the transformation of Steve Rogers from a frail weakling who’s beat up in city alleyways into the super soldier who takes on the bad guys single-handedly, with some showing the transformation sequence and other just hinting at it while showing lots of footage of Cap throwing his shield at various things and otherwise plowing through the enemy ranks. More commercials would feature more character moments and even feature the first look at on-screen dialogue from the Red Skull and more.

Some TV spots such as this one would include footage of Cap being found in the modern day, frozen in a block of ice, something I didn’t think was going to make it into the movie. That’s a pretty big reveal of a pretty major part of the movie and I’m more than a little surprised it’s shown so prominently here. I had kind of assumed that if this

Out-of-home standees were placed in theaters that reproduced the movie’s key poster art.

Despite the period setting of the film there was some activity on the cross-promotion front as well.

Norton security software was on board, not only with product promotions but also with a video they produced called “Behind the Shield” that featured interviews with Evans, Johnston and some of the Marvel creators and executives talking about the character and its history, focusing of course on the creation of the shield for the movie. That video premiered on Norton’s Facebook page and required people to Like the page to view it, though how Norton thought they would convert comic/movie fans to customers I’m not sure.

Dunkin’ Donuts and Baskin-Robbins engaged in some retail promotions of their own, with star-shaped donuts being available at the former along with red, white and blue Coolata drinks and the latter offering lots of new tri-colored and movie-themed ice cream treats. There was also an “Unlock the Lab” feature on the Dunkin’ website that featured exclusive movie content and chances to win prizes ranging from a trip to the premiere to movie soundtracks and other swag.

Media and Publicity

While people had obviously been talking about this movie for a while – mainly about casting and costume design but also speculating as to tone and story – the reality started to kick in around Comic-Con 2010. Not only was Evans in attendance there but just prior to the convention a very cool and artistic piece of concept art was released that showed the character in battle in WWII. Also in attendance at Comic-Con was Cap’s shield from the movie, giving everyone their first real-life look at the prop and serving to get people excited when combined with the brief bit of footage that was shown as part of the movie’s panel presentation.

Also right around the time of Comic-Con director Johnston made it clear that the story was about one man’s character and his quest to remain a good person as opposed to be a “flag-waver” (Los Angeles Times, 7/21/10) who was unquestioningly patriotic but was still a guardian of America and her people. While some people read a lot in to this, it’s clear Johnston is simply saying they had to come up with a definition of the character that would fit in the movie, which doesn’t have the luxury of changing writers in six months.

In terms of mainstream press coverage, one of the first major salvos came when the first official photo of Evans wearing the uniform and carrying the shield – but still not sporting the mask – appeared on the cover of Entertainment Weekly (10/28/10) with more photos and an interview with the star on how he overcame his fears around taking on the role inside. This first look, of course, got picked up everywhere and discussed in countless blog posts and other stories, which is exactly what the studio was hoping for.

Early interviews with Evans would focus on how he was excited to be part of the character’s history, the obstacles he knew he’d have to be overcoming and how he’s dealt with fan reaction both positive and not-so-much about him donning the flag as well as how he saw the larger Marvel Universe playing out on film.

Entertainment Weekly continued to be a significant source of early looks at the movie, later on debuting the first decent picture of Captain America in full uniform (EW, 1/13/11), including the helmet.

Atwell also become the focus of some press, even if it was just a photo shoot (Esquire, 8/11) that emphasized how beautiful she is.

The tie-in toys and other products for the movie were also among those debuting or otherwise making a big show at the annual Toy Fair convention (Hollywood Reporter, 2/10/11), an event Evans was in attendance at to check out toy-afied version of himself and so on.

Johnston spilled quite a few details about the plot in an interview (EW, 3/3/11) that also featured the first full look at Weaving in full Red Skull garb. And he continued talking about the thematic connections the movie does and doesn’t have to Raiders of the Lost Ark (LAT, 3/29/11) and how that movie was used as an initial template when they were outlining the story.

This was one of the movies Marvel/Paramount brought to the CinemaCon trade event, showing off about 20 minutes of the movie in a couple different segments to the theater and exhibition executives in attendance.

In the wake of reactions to the first full trailer that were generally positive but which did include some skepticism as to the quality of the effects, particularly those that involved turning Evans into a scrawny youth, the actor came out and talked about how those effects had improved (LAT, 4/27/11) and that everything was looking really good and would be in great shape by release.

The movie was one of those brought to the Hero Complex Fest, where Evans was able to do some glad-handing and the second full trailer debuted to the receptive audience, which was a mix of industry players, press and comics/movie geeks.

A feature length profile of Evans (GQ, June, 2011) seemed to be more about how charming and charismatic the actor was as opposed to anything movie-related, but that was probably the goal all along since it could potentially have the effect of bringing more female attention to a comic book movie.

There was a lot of speculation and mulling done in the early days of the movie’s production that the title would be changed for international markets where the idea of someone who is 100% American cheerleader might not be such a great idea. Ultimately, though, the decision was made (New York Times, 7/3/11) to retain the full “Captain America: The First Avenger” title in all but a handful of countries where such sentiment was most virulent since brand recognition was seen as being more important than anything else.

While the movie is opening *during* Comic-Con 2011 and no panel was being planned reports began to surface (THR, 7/5/11) that there would be some sort of presence there that would likely involve Evans. Eventually it was revealed that a special Comic-Con screening of the movie hosted by Evans would be taking place so that the assembled geeks could see the movie while they were in San Diego for that event.

Shortly before Comic-Con the theme returned to Evans’ wrestling with the decision to play the character in the first place (NYT, 7/10/11) and how he got over his nerves and jumped on board.

Overall

I’ll admit right off the bat that I’m completely in the bag for this movie. During my early comic-reading years I was always a huge Avengers fan and since Cap was an integral part of that he was constantly on my radar. I never read his solo book with any regularity (outside of a brief time around ‘88/’89 or so) but always more or less knew what was going on.

So with that being said this campaign works really well for me. The posters, the trailers and everything else come together very nicely and create something that makes me want to see the movie even more than I did before.

Even more importantly there’s nothing here that is actively discouraging me from seeing the movie. So many times these movies have built in audiences like myself that are 98% likely to see the film and the only thing that is going to turn off their desire is a campaign that shows the movie just completely botches the character, even if that’s not the case in the full film. But there’s nothing here that dampens any enthusiasm and that might just be the biggest hurdle that the campaign had to clear.

PICKING UP THE SPARE

• 07/21/11 – Wired has some details on what exactly the movie’s Comic-Con promotions amounted to.
• 07/22/11 – Both the LAT and the AP have takes on the challenges of selling this movie outside the U.S.
• 07/22/11 – Christina Warren at Mashable goes a little overboard in trying to make the case that social media was a big part of the movie’s campaign. By that I mean “using YouTube” and “having a Facebook” page doesn’t exactly signal great marketing innovation in 2011 from my perspective.

Movie Marketing Madness: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2

There’s always risk when you launch something new. There’s the oft-cited statistic that X number of all new restaurants that open are closed within a year and similar figures can likely be found for any category of business or other venture. While you can say the same about movies – that this or that percentage are going to bomb each month/year – there are even bigger risks involved when you’re discussing the launch of a potential franchise. Especially one that’s already proved to be popular in another medium.

Such was the case 10 years ago when Warner Bros. launched the first Harry Potter movie based on the first entry in the popular book series. If it had bombed – and we can look to adaptations of books like The Golden Compass and others – then it would have been more than just the failure of one movie; It would have meant the studio didn’t have the weight to make movies based on any of the subsequent books and a major franchise would have been, for all intents and purposes, stillborn. It would have been years before it could have tried again with a different approach.

But it didn’t bomb and in fact went on over the next decade to be one of the studio’s most successful franchises.

Now, though, we’ve come to the end of the line. While each of the first six books from author J.K. Rowling has been the subject of a single movie the last novel was split into two films, a decision likely made for equal parts artistic (it’s a big story and too much would be cut in a single two-hour feature) and monetary (two tickets is twice as much as just one), and now we’ve come to the release of the second part of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. The quests and missions begun in the first part of the story are now nearing their completion as Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny and all their friends and family come ever closer to the final confrontation with the evil Lord Voldemort and his armies of darkness. That will culminate in final battles both grand as masses of wizards battle for each side and personal as Harry confronts once and for all the monster who killed his parents and wants him dead now as well.

The Posters

The first poster for this half of the larger movie showed the main point of the movie, which is the final duel between Harry and Voldemort. So the two of them are shown in the extreme close-up staring each other down, both clutching a single wand between them and both of their faces marred and dirty from the fighting that’s already taken place. The copy at the bottom promises that “It all ends 7.15.”

The next teaser used a similar approach as that of the first movie, showing a close-up of Harry looking just slightly off-camera, his face dirty and bloody as sparks and such flew around in back of him. Similar posters were created for Hermione, Ron, Neville, Snape, Draco Malfoy, Bellatrix and Voldemort.

 

An even bigger batch followed that of action shots of the above characters with the addition of McGongagall, Griphook and Fred and George Weasley.

A huge banner was released that showed the Gringotts-guarding dragon that the characters encounter and which plays a rather large role in the story. While this is interesting it’s also slightly odd that such a specific plot element would be portrayed in the marketing like this when everything else is more focused on the characters and the final, bloody confrontation.

Another banner would get more on-point, with the good guys on one side and the bad guys on the other and streams of magic meeting in the middle and creating a huge flare.

The assembling of armies on both sides would be a theme that continued in the next set of two posters that were released, with one showing Harry at the front of his group of classmates, teachers and friends and another with Voldemort running point on his band of miscreants and minions. Both of these continued the “It all ends” copy theme and be similarly grimy and blood-soaked, as if we’re seeing but a pause in the middle of a larger battle.

Yet another series of one-sheets showed Harry, Ron, Hermione and Voldemort standing more or less still but still with the fire and dirt swirling around them.

The Trailers

The first trailer for this installment starts out mysteriously, with all sorts of odd images being shown before Voldemort starts taking the scene and things get serious. Explosions at Hogwarts, people being thrown around by magic and more. There are shots of armies marching and snakes crawling and people looking very, very emotional over what’s going on. The last 45 seconds or so kicks it into overdrive, with one battle sequence after another being shown as people run and scream. With all this going on the focus does occasionally come back to the final showdown between Harry and Voldemort before prompting the audience to go finish the sage in 3D.

The second and final trailer, which came just a few weeks before release and followed a ton of TV advertising, is the most violent and epic of them all for either half of this final installment. It starts out by retracing Harry’s life and pointing out that everything he’s done has been in preparation for this final moment, which he must now face with his friends and teachers. There’s not much story laid out here but there doesn’t need to be. This campaign, and this trailer in particular, is all about selling the massive scale of the final battle between the light and the dark and the relationships that go into each side, even if it all does ultimately come down to Harry and Voldemort facing off against each other with wands at the ready.

Online

The official website opens with the final theatrical trailer, which you can skip if the player makes your entire computer freeze up and crash.

In “About the Movie,” the first content section in the main navigation menu, you’ll find the usual assortment of information like the Synopsis, Cast and Filmmaker biographies and downloadable Production Notes.

“Video” has just the Teaser and Theatrical trailers, a small selection that’s surprising considering the number of TV spots, featurettes and retrospectives that were produced for this final film installment. There are 14 stills in the “Photos” sections and “Downloads” has Wallpapers, Buddy Icons, Posters and a Screensaver.

You can listen to portions of the score in the “Soundtracks” section and find a list of sites doing giveaways in “Sweepstakes.”

Things start to get a little more interactive with the “Parseltongue Translator,” where you can enter a message to hear spoken in snake-speak. The “Muggle Hub” is just a sub-site that has many of the same features and media as the main site. “The Quest” is a game where you can answer questions and win points to redeem for prizes and recognition among your peers.

“Shop” and “The Videogame” are just interested in selling you things while “Spells App” takes you to information on the iPhone app you can use to trade spells with other users and “Part One” takes you to information on the first part of the final movie.

Lots of stuff from the official website is ported over to the Facebook page, which also then adds more media (including a full collection of TV commercials and other video that was missing from the main page) to the mix along with the usual stream of updates about the movie, the cast and general fan exclamations about how excited they are.

Advertising and Cross-Promotions

TV commercials began running in mid-May that, like the first trailers, made it clear this is the final confrontation between the two rivals. It’s the same voiceover of Voldemort taunting Harry over the death of his friends while he has remained safe but it’s pretty good, even in 30 second form. Some started off much more gently than others, with the drama slowly building and others took viewers right into the action but almost all of them ended with the promise of a huge battle involving all the characters we’ve seen to date but which ends with Harry and Voldemort going toe-to-toe.

A huge in-theater standee was created that mimicked one of the banners mentioned above, with the forces on each side of the battle shown as the two primary characters faced off in the forefront.

Media and Publicity

One of the first shots from the publicity effort for the movie was the announcement that a sneak peak from the film would air during an ABC Family marathon of the earlier entries in the franchise.

The movie also got some promotion at 2011 WonderCon (Hollywood Reporter, 3/31/11) where several minutes of footage was screened for the crowd of both exhibition executives and trade press.

There was also the continued travels of “Harry Potter: The Exhibition,” an exhibit that’s been touring museums across the country for a couple years (New York Times, 4/5/11) now showing off some props from the movies and other wizarding memorabilia.

The film was one of many to get some promotional time at the 2011 MTV Movie Awards, where Watson appeared and debuted a new clip (Los Angeles Times, 6/6/11) but where it failed to pick up any awards.

There was a lot of retrospective press going around, a trend that was epitomized by a story in Entertainment Weekly (6/30/11) that looked back at the histories of each of the actors, the production designers and some of the other talent involved in the film as they reminisced on their involvement with the franchise and how things have evolved over the 10 years since the first movie hit theaters.

Overall

I’m trying to figure out if there’s any one consistent theme that the campaign was hung on…I’m just not sure if there’s one phrase that was used over and over again on all the posters and in all the trailers to let the audience know that this was a big event or the end of the film series.

Oh wait…that’s almost all the campaign was; a constant repetition of the fact that this is where “It all ends.”

Aside from that this is a decent campaign that stands in stark contrast to the marketing for the previous movies, which contained bits of story that moved us toward the conclusion but which were also more adventurous and whimsical in nature. As with any finale the marketing here has to be bittersweet in part because this is the audience – and the studio – saying goodbye to these characters and this world for the foreseeable future.

Movie Marketing Madness: Transformers: Dark of the Moon

What’s the opposite of clearing the bar? When something or someone attempts to follow-up a great success the usual commentary is that they set the bar high the first time and now will need to clear that in order for the second thing to be seen as being as successful or innovative as the first one. But occasionally despite the financial success something might enjoy the consensus is that artistically the first entry was a piece of garbage. So it’s not like there’s a bar or hurdle to be cleared…it’s more like there’s a pile of some sort to be added to with subsequent attempts.

I’ll be the first to admit that I liked the first Transformers movie more than I had any right to. No, it wasn’t quite the same version of the story or characters that I had grown up with and yes a little LaBeouf certainly goes a long way. But the movie moved along at a good clip, took itself completely and utterly seriously and featured enough bullet points of a story that the computer-generated action sequences hung on them were more or less enjoyable. When I finally saw the sequel, Revenge of the Fallen, I found it to be almost completely incomprehensible so stopped trying after about 15 minutes and, while certainly cognizant of its shortcomings, didn’t hate it. Both movies did pretty well at the box-office even as they were – especially the second one – roundly crucified by critics.

Now we have the third entry in this franchise, Transformers: Dark of the Moon. In this entry (and again the story is almost completely irrelevant) the big effing robots are back for mayhem. This time the Autobots, still working as some sort of covert ops unit ferreting out latent Decepticons around the world, discover that the U.S. government wasn’t fully upfront with them about the history of giant robots on this planet. This comes at the same time the Decepticons rally around a new push to conquer the world. Shia LaBeouf returns as the human the Autobots are most attached to but Megan Fox is out (more on that below) and has had her role as Sam Whitwicky’s arm candy replaced by Rosie Huntington-Whiteley. The two of them, of course, get caught up in the mayhem and violence that breaks out, violence that this time is centered in Chicago, specifically North Michigan Ave. Well…I guess world domination has to start somewhere.

The Posters

The first poster for the movie tells the audience just about everything they need to know about the story. The real estate is dominated by Optimus Prime, who’s standing defiantly along North Michigan Ave. in Chicago (just south of the river at the intersection with Wacker Dr. if the perspective on the Crain’s building (the slightly curved one over his shoulder on the right) is any indication) with what appears to be a Decepticon under his feet. The two humans are standing in front of him looking into the middle distance worryingly and there are a couple of menacing constructs coming in from the sky behind him.

A second poster focused on the IMAX release of the movie and featured Prime in a similar location along Michigan Ave., though this time he’s by himself with his glowing sword thing about to strike, with one of the mysterious pod things hovering above the skyline in the background.

Character one-sheets featured Bumblebee and Optimus Prime up close and personal with the camera with enemy ships and fighters flying through the sky in the background.

Special interactive posters were released that worked in conjunction with an official movie app that first let you find what theaters these posters were located at and then unlocked exclusive augmented reality content that included a game and other experiences.

The Trailers

The first trailer was a lot like the teasers for the first movie, which showed a Martian rover encountering something huge and mechanical. This time, though, we’re taken back to 1969 and the first moon landing. Instead of being a purely scientific mission, though, we see that its true hidden purpose was to explore the wreck of a huge spaceship that had crashed on the dark side of the moon and which we eventually see still has at least one huge freaking robot occupant. The footage here is reportedly also in the movie itself unlike that used in the first movie’s teaser so this is likely some of the stage-setting that’s done in the first moments of the film.

The first theatrical length trailer starts off with something crashing on the moon as McDormand warns LaBeouf that talking about anything could lead him to be charged with treason. That’s about all the plot development as we then kick fully into battle mode as a bright beam of light ascends from the Chicago Loop and things start to blow up all over the place. Chicago is later seen with smoke rising from across the city and it’s clear that something about the Decepticon attack is different this time. We see lots of familiar faces, both human and machine, running and attacking and running and attacking. It’s good but it’s not like there are major plot points unveiled here other than the attack on the earth is pretty serious.

That theatrical trailer was repurposed for 3D promotions and could even be viewed online in 3D after buying a Hasbro unit and downloading a free app for iPhones or iPod Touches.

Just before release another trailer was released that was pretty short – just a minute in length – and was all about showing the destruction that rains down on Chicago, with lots of shots of giant robots wreaking havoc and destroying buildings. Not exactly subtle but subtlety isn’t going to put hinders in seats.

Online

There’s all sorts of stuff going on when the official website first loads. There is (as of Tuesday evening) an invitation to watch the movie’s livestreamed premiere, a prompt to download the movie’s official iPhone app and stream the previous two movies somewhere online. There’s also a couple things relating to Linkin Park and their offering on the soundtrack; First a video of their playing at the Moscow premiere and then the news that if you pull out the Shazam app and use it during a commercial for the movie you can get a free download.

Once you enter the site the first two things that are offered, prompts to either watch the trailer or a featurette on the “wing man” stunt that is featured in the film.

The first section of content is “About” and has a very brief synopsis as well as Cast, Filmmaker and Notes sections that are still labeled as “Coming Soon” despite the fact that the movie opens in roughly 48 hours.

“Video” has the two trailers, the Super Bowl TV spot and a couple of featurettes. “Downloads” has Wallpapers and Buddy Icons and the “Gallery” has just eight stills from the movie.

The movie’s Facebook page has updates on the movie’s marketing and publicity efforts as well as lots of video and an emphasis on the recent red carpet premiere. The Twitter profile has similar updates sans all that multimedia.

Advertising and Cross-Promotions

The first ad push came in the form of a co-branded spot with promotional partner Chevy that was aired during the 2011 Super Bowl. The spot doesn’t show any movie footage but instead appears like a local car dealership commercial that’s being filmed, only things go more than a little wrong when the car that the owner is walking around opens up and is revealed to be Bumblebee.

There was also a straight movie spot during the game. That commercial showed exactly what it needed to show, which is lots of computer-animated robots completely trashing each other on the streets of Chicago, recognizable to anyone familiar with the city or who caught all the buzz around the movie’s filming around here. The spot looks to be entirely made up of footage from the last couple of reels of the movie and is all action with no setup or anything like that. We see the returning human characters as well as Sam’s new love interest in Huntington-Whiteley but the rest is all destruction and mayhem.

More regular TV commercials would begin running a few months later, mostly showing the destruction of Chicago and the harrowing situations the human characters are put in. There were, in many of them, hints as to the back-story of the Transformers having some sort of secret history here on Earth but that’s not explored very deeply in these 30-second spots, which are more about showing the spectacle than anything else. The movie would also be among those advertised during this year’s MTV Movie Awards.

As the TV advertising progressed and release date approached the commercials would begin getting much more specific about the plot, spelling out not just the action and humor but also the idea of a global conspiracy that is leading to the Decepticon’s plans to take over the world once and for all.

Outdoor ads began being a few months before release that did little but show the audience that the movie was going to feature Optimus Prime kicking some butt and that it came out on July 1st. Later variations on the same idea shows Bumblebee and Shockwave as well. Further banners would feature other new characters whose identities weren’t immediately apparent.

Some form of partnership with NASCAR was evident with news that a couple stars from the movie would be serving as Grand Marshals at the Daytona 500, a race that would also feature the first public appearance by the modified stock cars that are featured in the film. A commercial that aired during that broadcast didn’t cut a lot of new ground in terms of footage shown compared to the Super Bowl commercial with the exception of a couple of good shots of the cars that have NASCAR paint jobs.

The robots were also again part of Chevy’s presence on the auto show circuit, with models of Bumblebee and presumably others appearing alongside their car forms. There would also be co-branded commercials run both on TV and in theaters featuring Bumblebee driving around evading his enemies. Of course the partnership with Chevrolet ran pretty deep and included the casting of the carmaker’s top cars only as good guys (THR, 6/22/11) in the movie and involved the company picking out makes and models it was looking to promote. Chevy also announced (MediaPost, 6/28/11) that it would be making and marketing a special Transformers-edition Camaro for 2012 for everyone who ever wanted to actually own Bumblebee.

Media and Publicity

While there was plenty of speculation about what robots would or wouldn’t appear in the movie, the biggest bombshell came when reports were published that Megan Fox would absolutely not be in the movie (Los Angeles Times, 5/19/10), likely the result of her public fueding with Bay during the publicity tour for the second movie. That set off a ton of speculation as to why and who would be replacing her as the love interest in the new entry.

That speculation ended when it began to be reported the Victoria’s Secret model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley would be cast. While there was a significant gap between the first reports along these lines and any official announcement, confirmation of a sort did come when Victoria’s Secret itself released a video congratulating her on getting the role.

A later story covered that but also went more into what the movie’s plot would be, the first glimpse that was given along those lines. The story (USA Today, 6/11/10) revealed the plot revolved the Transformer’s role in the US/Russia space race of the 1960′s and would feature Shockwave as the main bad guy. In there Bay also promised less goofy humor, blaming some of the second film’s shortcomings on the stress of the writer’s strike from 2008, as if anyone believed there were writers on that movie.

The tie-in toys and other products for the movie were also among those debuting or otherwise making a big show at the annual Toy Fair convention (Hollywood Reporter, 2/10/11). Shortly after that there was news (Forbes, 2/17/11) of special 3D glasses that came in the form of Autobot helmets you could wear to the theater and really let your fandom show.

First looks at some of the new robots in this entry came via the press, including a glimpse at Sentinel Prime on the cover of Empire.

The press for the movie included Bay making a sort of artistic mea culpa about the quality of the second movie, which he claimed (Hollywood Reporter, 3/7/11) was due in large part to the writer’s strike that happened just prior to that film’s shooting.

Huntington-Whitley became part of the news when it was announced (THR, 3/25/11) that she was being named Female Star of Tomorrow by CinemaCon, something that really is a testament to the power of Paramount’s publicity department since not only has she not acted before but this debut outing is in a Michael Bay movie, something that’s not generally known for its level of acting prowess. She was also later put in the #1 slot on Maxim’s Hot 100 list.

The movie itself was back in the press when some extended sequences were shown to the press, producing the very sort of “this is absolutely nuts” (EW, 4/15/11) reactions that you would expect while also showing very little of the movie’s plot.

Some press was generated by virtue of the movie’s promotional partnerships, particularly the car-based ones (AdAge, 5/3/11) since it was one of several big movies to feature substantial automotive support.

Overall

It might just be me but I feel like, with the general opinion of the second installment so very, very low there was more of a press effort for this movie to generate some goodwill in the audience. That’s shown most distinctly Michael Bay’s pseudo-contrition tour, where he joined in the chorus of people calling Revenge of the Fallen a not very good movie.

Once again the campaign here is nicely laid out, with teasers to build anticipation and then payoffs that really only *feel* like payoffs but aren’t really, because with movies this simplistic it’s best to leave lots of information (including vast swaths of the supposed story) out of the campaign so as not to give anyone the impression they’re going to have to follow anything. There’s also the desire to actually get people to talk about how “cool” the movie is, so the more the campaign can keep from showing the more potential talking points there are after the fact.

Also once again it doesn’t really matter how well the campaign works or not. Simply by creating awareness there’s a substantial percentage of the general moviegoing public that will choose this movie this weekend just because it’s there. So actually judging the effectiveness of the marketing becomes an exercise in futility since it’s all about, as I said, awareness and message repetition.