By the end of Phase 3, Marvel Universe became a giant in terms of movie phenomena.
Each & every movie was destined to be a blockbuster with staggering numbers!
We have already discussed the marketing strategy of Phase 1 & Phase 2 in our earlier blogs, today we will discuss Phase 3.
Phase 3 had Captain America: Civil War, Doctor Strange, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol- 2, Thor Ragnarok, Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War, Captain Marvel, Avengers: Endgame, Spider-Man: Far From Home previously. But two more movies were added later; Ant-man & The Wasp & Spiderman: Homecoming!
Let’s start with our good old Cap!
Captain America: Civil War
There was a dilemma about the title of the movie. In fact, Kevin Feign changed the titles of nearly every movie in phase 3!
Civil War was initially titled Captain America: Serpent Society.
By this time Marvel started using Twitter as a tool for movie marketing. They started using a tagline “Who’s side are you on?” Team Cap or Team Iron Man? For the promotion to give it a game-like feel.
Then came the trailers & Super Bowl spots. The chanting of “United We Stand” vs. “Divided We Fall” draws on the history of, you know, the actual civil war.
In 2014, a bunch of emails related to Spider-man movie tie-ups with Marvel Studio got leaked. People were eventually excited for the grand entry of Spider-man in Marvel & all of a sudden, Spidey was in Civil War!
The trailer broke the internet.
On twitter #TeamCap and #TeamIronMan started making rounds creating hype for the movie along with emojis of from the movie. Also, if you use the hashtags for quite some time of the actors would call you out by the name! It was a mind-blowing idea!
All the major brands like Pizza hut, Pringles, Audi, Harley Davison 7 even Skittles joined the team. Kelloggs even released Civil War based cereals.
Civil War made around $1.153 billion, off $230 million budget which was a no-biggie by this time with Marvel movies.
Doctor Strange
New character, new genre all over again!
Also, Doctor Strange revolved around magic & had a psychedelic aura around it. It was not exactly ‘cosmic” like Guardians of the Galaxy which meant that marketing for this movie wants to engage more with the concept of itself than with its title character.
As many people were unaware of this particular genre so the team sold Benedict Cumberbatch instead of the character itself. Marvel very well knew the craze of Cumberbatch among the youth because of his Sherlock portrayal!
Even with the posters, Benedict overpowers the plot with his presence.
Next game the trailer, it was so good with all the reality changing stuff!
The brand tie-ins were kept minimal for this film. But of the coolest marketing, I noticed was an egg-marketing by Google where it was showing Sanctum on the Google Maps!
Doctor Strange made about $677.7 million off of about a $165 million budget.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol- 2
Time for some cosmic fun again!
Guardians of the Galaxy was a risk, it’s sequel was the opposite. People already loved the goofy nature of the characters.
The team used Baby Groot for most of the campaign.
The production was amazing, from the color palate to the VFX everything was so on-point that the marketing team had an advantage here.
Baby Groot personally popped up in commercials for Geico and Ford. A raccoon who was not rocket popped up in an M&Ms commercial. Dairy Queen got in on a marketing tie-in with the movie. Even Doritos jumped in which really showed the potential of the film.
Guardians Vol 2 made around $863.8 million off of about a $200 million budget.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 was immediately put into development with James Gunn attached to write and direct again.
Spider-Man: Homecoming
He is one of the favorite superhero from Marvel.
So establishing character hype was not a problem.
Since Spider-man is still owned by Sony, his solo movies are Sony productions and are marketed by their marketing team.
They pumped up Tony Stark’s presence as much as possible. The best parts are the teen comedy stuff.
The tie-ins were the usual Pizza hut, Synchrony Bank Goodwill and Dell.
For the NBA finals, they released a series of ads, essentially a short film about Peter Parker attending Tony Stark’s party.
Spider-Man: Homecoming cost around $175 million & made $880.2 million dollars.
Thor: Ragnarok
This movie was a bit different.
It dealt with a very dark subject but it is one of the most hilarious Marvel movie ever!
Thor: Ragnarok, made about $854 million off of a $180 million budget.
For the promotion, they started from the Civil War, released a short film tie in showing what Thor was up to at that time.
Then came the trailer & posters which were so freaking good!
This bright, colorful, psychedelic totem pole of a poster hits so hard.
For brand tie-ups, they kept it minimal. The studio was so confident by this time that they knew their movies could stand entirely on the power of their brand. And they were right! You saw the numbers.
Black Panther
Black Panther was a much bigger event than a movie. It was as a cultural moment, not just a piece of entertainment, and it absolutely earned that position.
The marketing positioned the movie about more than the superhero, it’s about Wakanda.
Everything about the movie screamed about pan-African aesthetics and that attention to detail gave Black Panther even more credit.
Synchrony Bank was a promotional partner in this movie.
People went out of their way to buy tickets for underprivileged Black kids. Saudi Arabia made this the first movie in years they allowed to screen. Panther made $1.347 billion off of a $200 million budget & was nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards.
Avengers: Infinity Wars
Marvel started campaigning for the Infinity War from February of 2017.
After nine months, they released a trailer teaser of the movie framing it around the fans who made Marvel what it is today. They used footage of excited reaction videos from their past movies to once again build on that idea of culmination. It’s a nice way of saying this franchise belongs to its fans.
The marketing tie-ins included Quaker Oats, Ziploc, Yoplait & Go-Gurt, and some admittedly stylish Coke cans, Samsung, Audi, Quicken Loans & so many more!
Even Fortnite managed to put Thanos in their game. Fortnite is free and played by Marvel’s exact target demographic, this was a great marketing move.
Infinity War was made around $316 million & made $2.048 billion dollars.
Ant-Man and The Wasp
This movie had a major challenge in front of them.
The end of the Infinity War was pretty dark. Now how do you follow up with such a massive movie when you aren’t continuing with the story? Marketing tie-in was much less during this time with only Dell & Hyundai pitching in.
Ant-Man and The Wasp did about as well as the previous movies making around $622.7 million off $162 million budget.
Captain Marvel
Captain Marvel posters were on-point. It was the first movie with a sole female protagonist. The Captain Marvel super bowl spot was pretty simple with chanting her tagline, “higher, further, faster” to show here power.
Brands like WNBA, Synchrony Bank, Dave & Busters tied-up with Captain Marvel.
It made around $1 billion off of about a $152 million budget.
Avengers: Endgame
This was a phenomenon!
We all know what exactly happened with Endgame & how great it was as a movie so we will leave that out.
Just with the marketing, Endgame had Coke, Stand Up to Cancer, General Mills, Ziploc, Hertz, Geico, and Fortnite. McDonalds & whatnot.
An interesting fact is that the name was decided much later during the trailer probably because Marvel couldn’t settle on a perfect name.
Endgame made around $2. 7 billion dollars out of $356 million dollars budget.
Marketing wise, MCU was set. They knew that the hype was already created & the film was going to make history.
Spider-Man: Far From Home
This one came as a big surprise!
Everyone thought Endgame would be the end of Phase 3 but nope, Marvel gave us one more film to end the phase.
Far From Home shattered industry records with it’s massive $288 million dollar marketing budget.
Far From Home touts the largest multi-tiered promotional campaign ever compiled for a motion picture.
The wide-ranging campaign promotional partners have activated their support via multiple channels, such as 40+custom TV spots, stunts, social, activations, and more.
They created a 360-degree lifestyle experience for the fans to promote the movie.
The film made $1.3 billion dollars in the box office!
Wow! That was a huge one to write!
I hope now you have a comprehensive idea of how movie marketing works? If you have suggestions or funny bits about Marvel movies, or your favorite hero comment here!
And for more blogs read here!
