[UPDATE] How Was The Ant-Man Marketing Campaign?

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[UPDATE] While I have this concept originally as a review, I decided to "rebrand" it per se as a case study look at the Ant-Man marketing campaign In future, anything marketing related will be used as a case study while film or television projects will be titled as reviews.  

While I have written some various articles focusing on the marketing activities from various companies, I did think I would try my hand at doing something a little different by combining it with something I have already done before. Yes, I am actually going to try and review the marketing campaign that was used to market Ant-Man and see its success with the current Box Office numbers being released for its opening weekend. What is the point of this? Well I may just be a little selfish as I want to learn myself how exactly a marketing campaign surrounding a film works and so I am taking a look at a film I have been following up to this point and I can’t really offer a review of the film itself, as I won’t be able to see it until next weekend. So let us start

Creative Media
Ant-Man is certainly a unique character to sell and also allows for some creative ideas and concepts to cement the character into the public eye. Marvel Studios took the concept and came up with a rather interesting idea. They spread out miniature versions of billboards with the Ant-Man logo on top of them throughout Australia, most notably in Brisbane, Melbourne at bus stops or parks.[1] This wasn’t even the only thing they did, as they also created small bus stops that would have their own miniature posters for the upcoming film.[2] Quite an interesting concept to use as it fits the film’s “Size Doesn’t Matter”, but it sadly is questionable if people will pay attention to them. The sad thing about humor in advertising in general is that humor commonly only has an effective the first time around, as knowing the joke it loses its punch. Also, it could be easy to overlook these billboards due to their size and it is questionable if they lose their effect.



Trailer
The theme of “ant-sized” advertising certainly didn’t stop their creativity just with miniature-sized advertising on the streets. As we were slowly going to get our first look at the film with some footage we actually received a small teaser, which was advertised as a teaser for ants. The 17-second teaser was to build up attention to the actual trailer that is released after ABC’s Marvel’s Agent Carter back in January 6 and certainly proved that one can even use the trailers in a creative way.[3]



Shortly afterwards we actually ended up receiving the actual trailer that was met with some rather mixed reviews. Some believed that after their rather creative stunt the actual trailer would be more similar to the first one from Guardians of the Galaxy, but took itself a bit more serious in contrast. Each subsequent trailer actually showcased some more comedy and builds up the fact that this is a bit more of a drama show in contrast to most Marvel films, which are very action-oriented.



Once again out of the trailers there have been quite a handful of TV spots that build up towards the release of the film. One of them actually spoilers a cameo in the film, which in some sense might seem a bit desperate by Marvel to make the Avengers connection or to at least sell upon it. This could probably be the result of Guardians of the Galaxy already focusing on selling itself as a “ strange” concept so that they didn’t want to simply repeat the same marketing campaign. Furthermore, it seems that they know that even if it might be strange to sell a talking raccoon, it is even more difficult to sell the concept of a man who can control ants. So proving why he would even become a part of the Avengers might make sense in a way to cement his future with the hero team. It’s a double-edged sword, as it builds a connection for the general audience, but at the same time does slightly seem a bit forceful to cement this connection.

Posters
There are still the official posters left over from the campaign and it seems they actually took a lesson from Daredevil’s marketing campaign by utilizing motion posters. The first poster was a plain white one featuring a small version of Paul Rudd in the Ant-Man costume, which was once again ant-sized. Yet later on they released a full-sized variant alongside a motion poster of him growing, which is a fantastic idea especially considering the way the character shrinks and grows.



The official posters for the show are yet sadly a bit simplified. It is the classic Phase 2 poser variant of showcasing all the important characters in a rather dramatic variant and a symbol that shows where it all takes place. These seem to be a overall design choice to keep a consistency between all the films and making a subconscious connection for the viewers. 


Well, the before-mentioned Avengers influence wasn’t only used in the trailer, as they creatively utilized this fact with their additional posters as well. Using the three most famous characters from the universe, Thor, Captain America and Iron Man, they added a tagline that included “No Shield. No Armor. No Problem” or a variation of it depending on the character used. It is a strategy they certainly can use to draw in younger viewers that enjoy the joke of seeing a miniaturized hero on the shoulder of Iron Man. Yet maybe they underestimated the power of the Minions that opened the week earlier that certainly pulls in a younger audience in general.


Afterwards they actually were actually a bit more creative for the titular character using his size as a way to create some interesting poster designs, either having him flying an ant while dodging bullets or a recent one showing a shadow of a small man, who was able to take out a group of people.
 
Missed Opportunities?
The film is going to be compared to the surprise success of Guardians of the Galaxy, which was a fluke hit of the last year. 2014 was a very quiet year for the Box Office, so as a result the film stood out the most, but this year was quite saturated with Age of Ultron, Jurassic World, Minions and Mad Max: Fury Road. Especially with Age of Ultron just being released a few months earlier it would make sense to try to tie in the films together, but they have never fully utilized this connection. They made the decision not to include a post-post credit scene in the film, which was due to them feeling they couldn’t find something worthy for the spot.[4] Yet it would have been a smart decision to include a Ant-Man post-credit stinger to help boost the film’s success, which I feel to be their biggest missed opportunity.

Was It A Success?
Yes, with this weekend’s release it seemed like a perfect time for the review of the marketing campaign in general. I would say with the film being probably one of their riskiest, especially considering its production history, but they seemed to have made the safest marketing decisions. After going all out with Guardians of the Galaxy, it was an interesting choice to market this film the way they did. Trying quite hard to ramp up the connections between Avengers and Ant-Man are quite understandable. It is quite difficult to sell people on a character with the name of Ant-Man. 


The film was able to pull off quite a solid $58 million in the opening weekend going up against quite a strong competition. The younger viewers were drawn in to the Minions, while the target audience that usually watches Paul Rudd’s films was drawn to Amy Shumer’s Trainwreck. Considering the competition it is quite impressive that the film was able to nag the first spot and it truly is a difficult sell for audiences even if it went below early expectations by around $2-7 million. Furthermore, this film actually has the biggest Box Office opening for both Michael Douglas and Paul Rudd and has already earned $56 million worldwide in 37 markets. That is around 44% more than Captain America: The First Avenger and 23% more than Thor did.[5]

Was it a flop? No, not at all, it may have underperformed, but our expectations for the films are simply too high and Guardians of the Galaxy was such a surprise hit that we almost expect these films to make around $80 million at least. Yet we tend to forget that not only is Ant-Man a rather obscure character and concept to sell, but also that even the Marvel brand doesn’t sell a film alone. If that were the case, every single Disney film would be able to sell itself, but Disney’s film Million Dollar Arm starring Jon Hamm was a flop back in its opening release.[6] This proves that a film must sell itself through the concept, the stars and its marketing campaign with the brand only adding a little boost.

Considering the target demographic was more of a younger audience, Minions simply was too much of a competitor and took a great bite out of its numbers. The marketing was strong, but safe in a way. Even if they were trying to add some creative elements, it was still too difficult for a film of this small caliber to truly prove itself in the market without taking some hits from its strong competition. Minions was simply too much of a surprise hit that the estimates couldn’t be reached. With a $130 million production budget it is the cheapest Marvel film to date and can make its money back and still bring in a profit making it a success for Marvel. One has to respect that the marketing team was able to pull this off, something I am not the only one who agrees on this matter.[7]

What are your thoughts on the film’s marketing campaign? Leave a comment below!

[1] Cf. Berenson (2015): http://time.com/3829397/ant-man-billboards/, Dated: 19.07.2015.
[7] Cf. Simanton (2015): http://www.boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=4086&p=.htm, Dated: 19.07.2015.

1 comment:

  1. UnknownJuly 19, 2015 at 4:14 PM

    Nice article, thanks. I'm personally a bit underwhelmed by the posters for the recent Marvel films. Considering the amount of money they spend on advertising, you think they could get a decent artist to paint a cool poster, instead of using the tired old photoshop collage things. Avengers and Ant-Man have been lackluster imho.

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