The Marvel Cinematic Universe has dominated itself as one of the most celebrated pop culture around the world!
They have a unanimous presence today. I mean can you point out a single soul who hasn’t seen or at least heard about Avengers: Endgame?
However, one of the things that we don’t often talk about is the way Marvel marketed their films. It took so many years to create the legacy they have created today, but it all started with Iron Man in 2008 after.
After Kevin Feige became the President of Marvel Studios in 2007, the whole marketing game changed for the club!
Kevin is responsible for a worldwide gross of $26.8 billion through the films he produced.
Since we love films, you will be awestruck to know the length they have gone to make Endgame a phenomenon!
For today we will stick to Phase 1 which includes- Iron Man 1 & 2, The Incredible Hulk, Captain America: The First Avenger, Thor & The Avengers.
Iron Man 1 & The Incredible Hulk
One of the most celebrated Marvel superheroes, the world got a sneak peek about the film in 2006, two years before the film released at San Diego Comic-Con.
The poster only had the classic red suit & the whole offline campaign like posters, Slurpees & even LG limited edition phones were introduced to make enough noise.
And the BIG advantage of Iron Man was – Robert Downy Jr. His charisma, charm & the fact to completely blend into the character of Tony Stark worked for the film. It was as if he was born to play Tony Stark!
They dropped some video games, action figures & big brands like Burger King, who actually gave out Iron Man toys. Audi & Oracle were other major promotional partners for Iron Man. It’s estimated the marketing budget for Iron Man ranged somewhere from $50 to $75 million.
Marketing for The Incredible Hulk was a little hard because of its previous darker version by Ang Lee in 2003. So the makers tried to distance the 2008’s version away from Hulk (2003). This one marketed as a summer popcorn superhero movie.
The Incredible Hulk was released in the same year as Iron Man 1, so it was an instant connection. There were online contests to win Hulk Smash Hands if you followed the movie’s Facebook or MySpace page.
7-Eleven kept up with Marvel to feature special Slurpee cups and a whole new limited-edition flavor: Radiation Rush! And then, of course, there were Burger King toys.
This whole campaign was done to ensure that the audience knew that this hulk was different. The movie was made of $150 million budget & grossed around $263.4 million.
Iron Man 2 & Thor
Iron man 2 was pretty easy to market. The character was already established.
They introduced a new character, War Machine! And that’s what most studios miss. Marvel introduced the characters one by one. This way the audience focused on each new character & builds a better connection with them, creating a separate fan base for each character.
Audi debuted another car in this movie and LG attached their phones again, even though Tony Stark uses a fake Stark Industries phone in the movie. They used around $100 million to market the movie& they checked all the boxes.
It was time for another superhero- Thor!
Thor was not our usual superhero. He was from a different world, he was a god! Thor’s marketing technically began at the end of Iron Man 2’s credits. Thor was not a human, so the makers had to introduce a whole new world to the audience.
In the beginning, Thor had a whole bunch of posters, almost like they couldn’t figure out what the final definitive image for the movie should be. But later, the used their iconic ‘character poster’ & it worked!
They sold the movie as a clash between the two worlds- Earth & Asgard!
For offline marketing? Well, check this out!
Clever right?
Thor made $449.3 million off a $150 million budget, outperforming The Incredible Hulk!
Captain America: The First Avenger
By this time, Marvel had already had a rising fan base around the world. So, selling a character from World War II, with severe moral rights was not at all easy.
Also, by now people knew that The Avengers was coming & he was the last piece of the puzzle, a very important one.
To get the marketing right, the team did a survey to find out how familiar people were with Cap. In Russia, South Korea & Ukraine who was unaware of Captain America, they simply titled the film as The First Avenger. And for the rest of the world, they marketed it with his original name.
Keeping the tag as “The First Avenger” simply connected the dots directly.
They made sure to market the poster without Cap’s helmet, as Evans was still not a popular face among the audience.
The Avengers
Marvel played it smart.
They already had Spiderman & X-Men series from their universe who had created a dramatic record.
So Marvel Studios had to break the big screens-without losing the superheroes.
On the other hand, they had to compete with DC.
For The Avengers 2012, the studio started building stories with individual stories from 2008!
It would have been easy for Marvel to throw all of their remaining characters into The Avengers and make a quick buck. Instead, they opted for brand building to bring more audiences to the Avenger. And it played out just like that!
The Avengers wasn’t marketed like it was a movie, it was marketed like the cultural moment it eventually became.
Marketing for this one was already done. All they had to do was throw in a bunch of shots where the characters interact with each other to build excitement. For brands, you may ask? They had every brand with them!
Starting from Harley-Davidson motorcycles, Audis, Dr. Pepper, Hershey chocolate, Oracle, to even Norton Anti-Virus!
The Avengers made $1.519 BILLION out of $220 million budget!
On a strategic level, Marvel didn’t just aim for big bucks right away. Instead, they took slow & steady to let the brand grow & let ENDGAME happen!
Currently, Marvel has its movies mapped out until 2028, and that foresight is what makes their success possible.
We hope you understood how Marvel invested in their marketing in Phase 1. Don’t worry, we will cover the other phases as well! For now, check out our other blogs here!
