Avengers Assemble - Promotional campaign analysis

BTEC EXTENDED DIPLOMA – CREATIVE MEDIA PRODUCTION (TV & Film)

 

Unit 26: Film Studies

Assignment 1 of 1

 

Avengers Assemble - Selling out!

 

On the 26th of April this year, marvel released their newest movie, and probably their biggest block-buster hit yet! Avengers Assemble. This movie brought together an all-star roster, including the character of Iron-man, captain America, Thor, and the big green man himself!! The movie was directed by Joss Whedon, and was also co-wrote by him, alongside Zak Penn. The film is also known as “The Avengers” or “AA”. The premise of the film is pretty simple. Nick Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D. assembles a group of superheroes to save the earth from the evil god “Loki” and his army.

          The target audience for this film is very broad, as it is pretty much a film for anyone. It has the very colourful “Superhero” characters, which appeal to the younger audience. It contains a lot of action and a decent storyline; it also brings together the fans of each of the movies that the characters are in.

          When it came to advertising The Avengers. The hardest part of the job (building up hype) was already well under way… In May 2008, “Iron Man” was released. Along with “The Incredible Hulk” being released in June of the same year. This is when the advertising for the Avengers really started, as between then and the release of AA. There has also been the release of Iron Man 2 (2010), Thor (2011) and Captain America: The first Avenger (2011). This already started a massive fan-base of each movie. These fans would already be hyped for The Avengers which meant the numbers that followed just needed to be increased.

          To help with advertising, the makers of AA created an official website for the movie. The website is very well put together and includes many interesting sections for fans and followers alike. Including Videos, Characters, Downloads and an about section, which explains the movie in more depth, including the categories of Story, Cast and Crew. The Characters section contains mini Bio’s, and pictures of the ten main characters of the movie, which would have created an awful lot of hype for people visiting the website.

          A lot of big companies collaborated with “The Avengers”. This opened the audience of the movie up even more and allowed even more people to know about it and want to see it. These included:

 

Harley Davidson: The famous Motorcycle Company created a competition surrounding the avengers. As the winner would be illustrated, with their motorcycle. In an up and coming marvel digital comic. And they would win a custom designed H-D Motorcycle of your choice. This was a good way to advertise the movie to

    

  Hershey’s: The American Candy Company also held a competition with revolved around the Avengers. This had a top prize of a “5 film set”. It contained Iron man, Iron man 2, The Hulk, Thor and Captain America. This is a good way to advertise the movie to children, but also to parents,

as they may buy the sweets for their kids. 

 

There were also many other companies that compiled with The Avengers. Including Dr. Pepper, Visa, Norton, Acura and more. This was a great way of promoting the movie, as fans/users of each of the companies would get to know of the movie, and get interested in it.

Also, the typical users of each of the companies are very different in gender, age, etc. and because the movie will target almost everyone. This means that the advertising campaign was great because it was targeting as many of the target groups as it possibly could.

          The Avengers also had a TV spot during the super bowl which would have caused so much hype as so many people watch the super bowl. . Also, once again the audience watching the super bowl is very widespread and varies, which means a lot of people would be interested in the movie.  This would have been one of the biggest parts of the promotional campaign. There was also multiple TV spots and trailers released to create hype for the film.

 

 





A BBC News article talking about The Avengers, and it's box office smash





          Overall, The Avengers had a very successful promotional campaign. . The reason it was so successful was because the movie slowly built up a lot of hype and attracted a very wide audience. This is the main reason why The Avengers had such a good turn-out at the box office, The Avengers is now the #1 box office opening of all time.