4 Guerrilla Marketing Campaigns of popular movies you love!
This happened a week ago.
IT looked much like how the savage beast thrust the doors of a cargo hold in the climax of The Lost World: Jurassic Park.
IT prompted many among the passersby to double-check on what they saw.
IT made the commuters click photos and share them on social media.
Thereby, IT spurred a series of conversations from netizens… and a sequence of interpretations from media houses.
IT…IT…IT…IT…What was IT?
IT was a giant replica of a dinosaur breaking out of a container on a boat, which floated on River Thames in London.
IT appeared like the ‘recreation’ of the below scene from Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.
This event, presumed to be a stunt for Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, is unusual… unusual in the case of movie marketing. By that means, it serves as an ideal example of Guerrilla Marketing.
This occurrence made me recall few Guerrilla Marketing campaigns… campaigns implemented for certain movies. In this article, I present them to you.
‘Ant-sized’ bill boards for Ant-Man:
It was way back in 2015. Marvel Cinematic Universe superhero, Ant-Man was about to launch his first feature film. By then, Mr. Glasses (an Australian experiential marketing agency) pitched in to promote Ant-Man among the Australian audience.
For promotion, they launched a ‘miniature campaign’. As part of the campaign, they created 200 mini billboards. In other words, they shrunk traditional billboards… like how Ant-Man contracted in size in the film.
The boards contained the name of the movie, production house and the movie’s release date. The boards were then placed in areas where they could garner much audience attention. They got placed across Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.
This promotional activity created a sensation. The campaign got mentioned in a handful of world renowned newspapers and magazines. As a result of the surge in the popularity of the drive, Marvel booked mini billboards worldwide.
The campaign done on a budget of $22K yielded the well-set launch pad for the movie, Ant-Man.
Marketing Journo
‘Scary’ drive for IT:
In 2017, Village Roadshow deployed a weird drive to promote the horror flick, IT. This promotion is yet another brain child of Mr. Glasses.
The campaign included two activities. First was to create hand painted murals. The agency made street artists to create murals depicting their versions of Pennywise. They did so as they had restrictions in using the imageries of the clown that appears in the movie. The artists splashed their artworks on the walls of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. The drawings contained texts such as ‘YOU’LL FLOAT TOO‘, movie name, release date and the hashtag, ‘#ITMOVIE‘.
And, second was to tie red balloons to storm water drains. Alongside the drains was the message, ‘IT IS CLOSER THAN YOU THINK. #ITMOVIE IN CINEMAS SEPTEMBER 7.‘.
This marketing by the agency went viral globally.
The red balloon has been prominent not only in the movie, IT but also in its marketing as mentioned above.
Both activities sound striking despite the very tight budget (as mentioned in the website of Mr. Glasses) of the client.
Blu-ray packaging stunt for Deadpool:
Among the many innovative marketing of Deadpool 2 is this one, which happened in Walmart. It was business as usual for Deadpool. Once again, he broke the fourth wall and got into the act of the movie’s marketing.
People were in for a surprise to see Deadpool taking over the endcap of Blu-ray movies of which he is not a part of. Some of the movies that Deadpool took over are Predator, The Terminator and Logan. In specific, the packaging stunt involved movies affiliated with Fox Home Entertainment. And, those which were iconic to a degree and had a noticeable art.
The stunt appeared as bizarre and witty as the nature of Deapool. Fox Home Entertainment‘s in-house team along with Neuron Syndicate (Los Angeles based advertising agency) pulled off the stunt.
Conclusion:
All the above mentioned advertisements got placed in unusual and unexpected locations. And, the methods used by them were unconventional. Also, the strategies should be the first or the only ad executions of this kind (or should be so for a period of time). Thereby, they serve as perfect illustrations of Guerrilla Marketing.
What other movie marketing tactics you sense to fit the bill? Let me know in the comments!