Scrolling on Golden Wings
A Social Media Marketing Strategy for the Release of the Film Wonder Woman 1984
When one thinks of the 1980s, what comes to mind? Big hair, eyeshadow, shoulder pads, bright colors and MC Hammer? The 1980s bring a wave of modern nostalgia. It is beyond the free love of the Vietnam War era, past the vintage rose-colored glasses of the 1970s, and the first step in living color toward the world in which we live today. Computer terms become part of the everyday vernacular, music is digital and auto-tune lofts through the radio airwaves. The decade is easy for current audiences to latch onto, yet still smells of a different time. So why place the iconic Wonder Woman in this time period? Director Patty Jenkins states, “I was curious to collide our Wonder Woman into the height of our current modern belief system, and what kind of villains come out of that, and see what happens,” (Cinema Blend, 2019). The world is ready to see that too. In fact, the world has been ready for over a year. Wonder Woman 1984 was originally set to release November 1, 2019. It was then moved to December 13, 2019, moved again to June 5, 2020, and with continued closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic, delayed yet again to debut on August 14, 2020. However, that’s not where the date changing dance ends: the film was again moved to October 2, 2020 until finally settling on the now wildly anticipated date of a December 25th, Christmas Day release both in theaters and on HBO Max (Inverse, 2020).
What does this mean for the social media marketing department? The public needs to be informed of the final release date, and they need to believe that the date is not going to change on them again. This means brand awareness, date awareness, viewing information, and reminders. By combining the nostalgia of the Wonder Woman franchize with the nostalgia of the 1980s and mixing those with the exciting modern day developments of social media, marketing can grow the fanbase and inform fans of the film’s release details.
Marketing will follow the guidelines of SMART goals: Specific, Measureable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound goals to help get the word out about the movie. As mentioned earlier, the main goal is public awareness. We will work with HBO Max to provide high accessibility. We saw that a streaming release worked with both Hamilton and Mulan on Disney+ as many households subscribed to the streaming service in order to see the debut of the movies. We are expecting the same with Wonder Woman 1984.
Specific: Although it will be hard to beat the $821 million box office gross of 2017, there is still no reason why Wonder Woman 1984 should not be the most viewed major release of the year. We are expecting 12 million households to view the film. We can do this by following a marketing campaign that is relevant and expands awareness of the release on social media platforms. The public spends most of their day looking down at their phone screens, connecting with friends through social apps, so we have a perfect opportunity to inform the audiences of the Wonder Woman 1984 release. Theater tickets will be a bonus as we cannot expect much of the public to feel comfortable leaving their homes in the time of a pandemic.
Measurable: There are multiple ways to measure that our campaigns are working. We will create campaigns that we can follow through hashtags, bitlinks, discount codes, and analytics to ensure that we are on the right path.
Attainable: Since it will be hard to match the theater box office numbers, we can take our cues from the Hamilton and Mulan releases earlier this year. For Hamilton, 2.7 million households viewed the Broadway screening — that’s more than ever saw the show live (Next TV, 2020). Nine million households paid an extra $30 to view Mulan (The Playlist, 2020). Wonder Woman 1984 has a much larger fanbase than a Broadway musical, and a Disney princess story. Plus, viewers may see Wonder Woman 1984 without an added subscription cost. With a larger fanbase and no added premium, proper marketing can make it absolutely attainable that we can expect at least 12 million households to view the film.
Relevant: We will be taking advantage of the pandemic and still give our audience a feeling that viewing the film is a special event. With stay-at-home orders still present, and much of the general population uncomfortable being in enclosed public spaces for long periods of time, the people are desperate for excitement and a reason to get out of their sweatpants. We will plan a marketing campaign that leans into what we have, and what the public desires. We will prove to our audiences that they can be safe, watch the premiere at home, and still have an exciting experience by seeing how the stars of the film are being safe while watching the premiere in their homes.
Time-Bound: These campaigns are all leading up to the theatrical releases that will happen in the United States on December 25th both in theaters and HBO Max, followed by a strong presence during the release day, and a continued social media presence in the following weeks to ensure viewership throughout the month.
The number one platform to be used in this social media marketing strategy will be Instagram. This is because the film’s target market is humans in the age range of 24–35, which is the same as Instagram’s major audience: Millennials (Statista, 2020). Instagram has many features that we can seamlessly incorporate into the multiple aspects of our marketing plan. Instagram is the best place for eye catching movie posters, short funny trailer clips, hashtag challenges, and story lenses. This is also the best platform in which to follow hashtags and engage influencer marketing, utilizing cross promotion with the movie’s stars and product partnerships. Stories can be used with the swipe up feature to share trackable bitlinks leading to HBO Max subscriptions or early ticket purchases.
The second platform to concentrate on in this marketing plan is Facebook. Facebook is still widely used by Millenials and it will provide the perfect location for longer form videos such as trailers (Statista, 2020). Videos over three minutes long are shared more in the algorithm, so where shorter action shots will best perform on Instagram, Facebook is where the trailers will shine (Facebook, 2020). Fans of the movie can easily comment on these trailers as well as tag and share with friends. Facebook also has the unique feature of creating Events. Events will come into use with local theaters to inform their audience that the film will be available to screen, and broader events hosted by DC Comics or Warner Brothers can serve as a main area to gather all information pertinent to the film such as release dates and links to an HBO Max subscription. We can use trackable bitlinks to follow and see how many people are gaining a subscription through this platform. Cross promotion will also come in handy in tagging major players such as Gal Gadot, Chris Pine and Kristin Wiig’s fan pages that have large followings.
The next platform we will explore is TikTok. Here we can ride the wave of viral challenges to spread awareness of the film’s release in a fun and modern way. The idea will be to partner with popular TikTok influencers to get the challenge started, and then add in our celebrities with which TikTok nation will duet. This will extend our reach beyond Millennials into Generation Z, who own the TikTok world (Omnicore, 2020).
Lastly, we will follow a useful marketing strategy from Wonder Woman 2017, and raise awareness through the ever popular Snapchat filters. This is paid advertising that will put the Snapchat user into the soon-to-be iconic golden-winged helmet of Wonder Woman, or give the user the face of a Cheetah to emulate Kristin Wiig’s character in the film. These filters can go onto the user’s Snapchat story and the background will have the information of the premiere date, spreading awareness. Using Snapchat is another way to expand the fanbase into the younger generation (Sprout Social, 2020).
The voice of the campaign that we will use can be described as epic. Wonder woman is an epic adventure. The trailers use a deep and powerful narrator and we want to emulate this in our social media captions. This is the last of the big movies for 2020 and we need to live up to that and hold the standard. A caption example would be, “It’s time for a hero. See #WW84 in theaters and exclusively on @HBOMax December 25” (Facebook, 2020).
The hashtags to be used for the campaign are as follows: The broader hashtags shall be #WW84 and #WonderWoman. These will be the umbrella hashtags that will help us measure mentions and popularity. Then, specific hashtags to go with campaign social media challenges shall be #my84 and #wwpowersuit. These marketing campaigns and challenges will be outlined below.
When it comes to partnerships and influencer relations, we will learn from the past. In 2017, Wonder Woman partnered with the protein bar, thinkThin. This did not go over well with fans and as Vanity Fair states, the snack “seemed, to many, weirdly out of touch with Wonder Woman as an image of Amazonian strength,” (2017). Wonder Woman is an Amazonian Princess. This is a perfect opportunity to partner with Amazon, especially for the holidays. We can use a discount code to track how many people are following the campaign. If Amazon is not interested in a discount code, then a good idea would be a code for people to donate a portion of their purchase to a female non-profit, such as BeYOUtifully Designed, that helps adolescent girls with positive self-image (BeYOUtifully Designed, 2020). This is in the Christmas spirit of giving, and makes both Amazon and the Wonder Woman franchize look good.
On top of the natural influences of the stars of the movie, we will partner with influencers like Loren Gray and Zach King to create relatable and shareable content. They are both very creative TikTokers with millions of followers (Loren at 49.9M and 2.7B Likes, and Zach at 53.2M and 636.5M Likes). They will be sure to come up with their own content, but we will also provide them with content and challenges to spread awareness about the film. We will also encourage fans and followers to duet with Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, and Kristin Wiig as they outfit change into their 1984 best. To not seem like the studio is starting the trend, it will be best to partner with TikTok influencers, and then have the celebrities join onto the trend.
Please find Content Examples Below.
Interviews
- Instagram is a great place for short sound bites and fun clips of our celebrities on talk shows, and Facebook is good for the entire clips. Since none of these talk shows are live this year, we can repost clips from 2017–2019, and also post Zoom or Instagram Live interviews.
Behind the Scenes
Obviously this photo has already been released, but there is sure to be a vast array of behind the scenes content that is ready to be posted. Great examples would be Wonder Woman putting on her famous golden crown, or the soon-to-be-iconic golden wings. Another post would be a photo or reel of Gal Gadot and/or Kristin Wiig getting hooked up to the sensors that help with green screen and special effects. People love behind the scenes (also known as BTS) footage. They like to feel involved and that they know more than the people they surround. This is very shareable content, and as we have already expressed, our top priority is awareness, so sharing the content is important. Small clips like this also brew anticipation. We want to show an exciting and visually awesome scene from the film, without showing too much. This will drive interest in the content and make the viewers want to see the entire movie to put the scene or photo into context. The target market for posts like these are WonderWoman and DC comics fans, film buffs and technology nerds. This post is aimed more toward our target audience of millenials.
HBOMax Information / Ticket Information
- Include a trackable link that we can follow through the Linktree on the Wonder Woman Instagram page, a swipe up through Snapchat and Instagram features and a link that we can post on Facebook.
- The target audience of this post will be millennials. They are the demographic that have the money to subscribe to HBOMax and we want Wonder Woman to be the reason. These advertisements will also be targeted towards millennials and GenZ persons in cities that have movie theaters open to help sell advanced tickets.
Outfit Change
- Posting a Reel/TikTok of an outfit change from modern to 1984 fashion, set to the Hans Zimmer Wonder Woman soundtrack with the hashtag #my84 and/or #wwpowersuit.
- The purpose of this post is to take the Generation Z fad of outfit change transitions in TikTok videos (that have now spread to Instagram Reels) and use it to our marketing advantage. Once a fad goes viral, it is free user-generated content. We will be able to measure how well the post is doing by how often the Wonder Woman 1984 theme song is being used, and following the hashtags. We can get this going by partnering with popular TikTok influencers. Many people who use TikTok just end up reposting their actual TikTok footage to Instagram, so hopefully this will result in a double user-generated promotion. See screen shots from an outfit change example below (TikTok, @msrebeccablack, 2020).
Below see an example of content asking fans and followers to show their 1980s power suit, or 1980s fashion of their choice that they plan to wear to the premiere.
SnapChat Filters/Instagram Lenses
- Here we see an example of the 2017 SnapChat filter for Wonder Woman. This was a successful marketing strategy because it connected the individuals to the product, while providing information. You will see the user generated content paired with the release date of June 1st. For Wonder Woman 1984. We would update the costume and include the release date of Christmas Day, December 25th.
When the event day finally arrives, we will begin the social media push at Midnight on Christmas Eve, when the film becomes available on HBO Max. The goal of this phase is to drive people to watch the movie and subscribe to HBOMax within the month. HBO will be pulling the movie after the first month to allow the second month of the film to be in theaters only. This is an agreement that they have with Warner Brothers when the companies decided to partner for the release (The Verge, 2020).
It is imperative that content does not stop, to remind people that they want to be the first to view this exciting new film. Reposts and stories will be important, especially because every time a new story is added it goes to the top of the story-viewing cue. This will continuously remind our audience that if they have not seen the film yet, they are missing out!
Content Examples:
- A photo of Gal Gadot snuggled on her couch to watching her movie at home! In the background, HBOMax is on the television.We do this to humanize our main character. Let people know that even our hero is watching the premiere from her couch. You can be just like her!
If we want Gal to keep her status and not completely humanize our superhero, this is a great time to bring back the 1980s fashion and have her in an ’80s power suit in her (sure to be amazing) apartment with HBOMax in the background. Either way, this is showing that she is watching her movie premiere on her television set. Things may be different this year, but good entertainment is here to stay. This post will target all fans, women, and people who look up to Gal Gadot. This is also a social call to action to stay home and to keep friends and family safe. If Gal Gadot is doing it, then so are you.
An instagram “live” video of each star talking about the differences between an in-person premiere and an at-home premiere, as well as conversation about the movie’s response. Again, people love the BTS and the feeling that they are in on Hollywood secrets. This reminds fans that they should go and view the film before it is too late.
- A trailer with the information, focusing on TODAY.
- One last push to get people to sign up for HBO Max.
After the premiere it is imperative that we keep the buzz going about the movie. This is not one single event, but a campaign that lasts a month while the movie stays on HBO Max, and then beyond in the theatres. The big push will be this month.
- Posts with words such as “Don’t miss out” and “The biggest hit of the season” and “Only available until the end of the month”
- In the last week of January, multiple posts going out that say “ONE MORE WEEK.” This will engage those last few that have been holding off on an HBO Subscription, and remind those who have it that they only have a week left to view the film before it disappears. Posts can continue a countdown every few days until the last day.
- Posting of reviews
- Continuation of reposting user generated content
- Continued posting of interviews
In conclusion, most of the work and planning for this marketing strategy is strongly weighted for the beginning, and we reap the benefits and continue with the plan through the release and beyond. Although we will use our campaigns to build anticipation for the film, many of our events such as the clothing challenges and interviews can continue to take place once the movie has been released. Instagram will be the most successful for the marketing of Wonder Woman 1984 because it allows us to incorporate any and all of the content that we want to post. From timeline posts, to stories, to reels, from Instagram Lives to short clips to full trailers with IGTV, Instagram provides a space where fans and interested parties can go for information, and to have fun with the premiere in an interactive way. With its built-in fanbase and the wave of nostalgia that the film brings, Instagram will give us everything that we want to create an event in the time of a pandemic. We will use the stay-at-home orders to our advantage and create a world where our fans and followers have a communal online experience watchout the film. This is a film for everyone, and the release on HBO Max has made it a film accessible to everyone. We have planned fun, interactive, and informative posts on all platforms that will ensure a successful social media campaign for the biggest movie of 2020, Wonder Woman 1984.
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