#deadpoolmarketing

[heatherlire]

Buying M1's graduation present and we find this. Deadpool has a very healthy ego. #deadpoolmarketing

[lodegrezia]

Deadpool’s Marketing Strategy Broke Box Office Records

DEADPOOL. The movie that hit theaters this past weekend starring the “Sexiest Man Alive,” Ryan Reynolds demolished box office records in the first 3 days of release. How did Fox do it? MARKETING! Fox was able to market this movie in the most effective and strategic ways making this movie a sensation before it was even released.

20th Century Fox flooded numerous platforms with Deadpool GIFS, memes, comic strips, clips, interviews, clever billboards, and promotional pictures. Some might say Fox went a bit overboard with its publicity for the movie, which had started in March 2015. However, Deadpool’s shareable content has gone viral all over the internet/social media world. Thus, building a high level of anticipation for almost a year before the film’s release, and 20th Century Fox has numbers to prove it. $132 million in domestic (300 million worldwide) box office sales and biggest opening ever for an R-rated movie.

Yes, Ryan Reynolds with his perfect genes and charismatic personality gave Fox a huge boost with his willingness to help with marketing stunts, advertising with appearances, and his pure enthusiasm for the film. Reynolds has been trying to get Deadpool in production for 11 years and he was finally granted the opportunity. Ryan Reynolds made appearances both as himself and in costume to promote the character, Deadpool. Marc Weinstock, president-domestic marketing of 20th Century Fox stated in an AdAge article Inside the Over-the-Top Marketing Strategy for ‘Deadpool’:

"We had a fantastic superhero movie on one end and a hilarious comedy on the other and we knew if we did our job right we could bring in both audiences."

Deadpool’s R-rating gave Fox more of a challenge to reach out to adults rather than teenagers for a Marvel movie. However, along with Deadpool’s R-rating came more gory fight scenes and dirty jokes. The family friendly humor we usually see in traditional Marvel films was eliminated. This news gained an audience that may not have even heard of Deadpool before its marketing campaign and have now become instant loyal fans.

Deadpool Marketing Strategies:

Keep the Movie’s Content a Secret

Flood Social Media

Use Holidays to your Advantage

Create Original Content

#1 Keep the Movie’s Content a Secret

Have you ever seen so many movie trailers prior to its release and once you see it on opening weekend you had already seen all the best parts? ME TOO! It’s the worst! Movie trailers are becoming so long and detailed that the audience has seen all the action and laughed out all of the funny parts of the movie before seeing the whole thing! Deadpool was very careful to advertise the movie by advertising Deadpool’s character rather than movie clips.

This method draws an audience in by identifying with Deadpool’s sarcastic/ raunchy sense of humor. People connected to the character and built a personal liking for him. The humor displayed on advertisements that revealed NOTHING about the film won over new audiences just because it made them laugh.

#2 Flood Social Media

Deadpool’s advertisements continued to pop up on social media platforms, such as Tinder, TV spots, talk shows, and videos that went viral. Ryan Reynold’s has also personally marketed the film by making appearances, which aided the circulation of fan earned media and word of mouth advertising on social media platforms. Ryan Reynolds made an appearance at Super Bowl 50 selling Deadpool’s favorite food, chimichangas from a food truck! Ryan Reynold’s and co-star T.J. Miller also went to an unnamed bar that appeared in the movie as Sister Margaret’s Bar to play darts, serve drinks, and of course spread the news of Deadpool.

Not only was Fox focusing on advertising the movie with this guerrilla marketing approach, but advertising the character himself. Soon people were seen wearing Deadpool masks before the launch of the movie! Talk about customer loyalty..

For those you who are familiar with Deadpool’s personality at all, you’d know that he has an incredible sense of humor full of sarcasm and sexual innuendos. Fox took advantage of his strong personality and used it to be leading the storyteller to their social media based marketing campaign. Mark Weinstock said:

"This reaffirmed my faith in social media. There's a lot of debate as to whether or not social media can really open a movie…and this proves it can."

The photo that started it all.....

#3 Use Holidays To Your Advantage

Deadpool created viral content that could be shared on various platforms mostly using humor as their targeted emotion. Their content marketing took advantage of holidays, which not only boosted awareness but shares throughout the holidays…

April Fool’s Day:

Deadpool is going to be PG-13.... NOT!

Mother’s Day:

Halloween:

On Halloween night, Ryan Reynolds dressed in the Deadpool costume and went to “recruit” some superheros for his team. This isn’t exactly a kids movie... but Reynolds Interacting one-on-one with kids unrehearsed in support of his film is SHARABLE! The video is cute, funny, and the fact that those kids will never forget the Halloween they met Deadpool is an amazing marketing stunt.

Thanksgiving:

Valentine’s Day:

Deadpool opening weekend numbers beat last year’s 50 Shades of Grey Valentine’s weekend box office numbers at 85 million.

#4 Create ORIGINAL content

President of domestic marketing for 20th Century Fox, Marc Weinstock, comments how crucial originality is when coming up with content for a marketing campaign in Entertainment Weekly’s article, How Deadpool became a record-breaking viral sensation:

“Originally always wins. Audaciousness always wins. When you show something to the audience that they’ve never seen before, they get excited.”

Some of the original content themes were creating their own comic illustrations of the Deadpool character….

Deadpool themed #foodporn…

Clever ads using the voice of Deadpool’s raunchy persona….

I saw Deadpool this past weekend and LOVED IT! Laughed the entire time and thankfully had only seen one or two quick scenes of the movie prior to watching it. Making the rest of the movie experience even more hilarious. And of course, Ryan’s body wasn’t a bad view either.. But if you don't trust my opinion, maybe you’ll listen to Betty White’s….