Spider-Man 3 releases this weekend and internet ticket sales are already booming, fueling the fire that is the Hollywood beast. I admit that I enjoy a blockbuster movie from time to time. What can I say? I love car chases. I even enjoyed Spider-Man 1; number 2, not so much. I don't care much for comics but the archetypal superhero personality has its own appeal: psychologically scarred from some past wrong, intensely obsessive and secretive, an all-around societal misfit, really creepy and weird, when it comes down to it, but you can't pick a beef with a guy who devotes his life to fighting injustice. (My favorite superhero: the Incredible Hulk, of course. I relate to his rage.)
Speaking of injustice, insiders say that Sony spent $350 million on production and another $150 on marketing for Spider-Man 3. $500 million dollars! They expect to draw in at least as much as Spidey 2's $800 million in ticket sales. Plus, sales of related merchandise and DVDs will send profits even further over the top.
The method in which Hollywood makes and markets blockbuster movies is disgusting, but what's particularly infuriating in this case is that Spidey 3 is getting tepid reviews. How can you spend that much money and make a movie that disappoints?
Actually, what's more infuriating is the $150 million marketing campaign. $150 million dollars! If you manage to block out the constant media hype, you still have to contend with tie-ins courtesy of Target, 7-Eleven, and others.
Anyway, check out some of these excerpted nuggets from a story in the Hollywood Reporter. The quotes from the marketing execs, making an earnest effort to talk intelligently about their idiotic ad campaigns, are pretty hilarious.
"Spider-Man 3" has cast a superhero-size $100 million promotional web with four of the film's seven tie-in partners -- General Mills, Kraft, Burger King and Comcast -- airing custom spots, many of which were produced in-house at Sony Pictures with the help of the studio.
According to George Leon, executive vp worldwide consumer marketing at Sony Pictures, the dedicated spots reflect the same "aspirational" themes of the movie and the studio's own multimillion-dollar marketing campaign. "We worked hand in hand with our partners to create these spots," he said. "It really helps us meet our own objectives, too. The custom-made spots are all about the consumer aspiring to be Spider-Man. A lot of our creative took that tone. We encouraged our partners to really look at the aspirational values of our movie and interpret that within their own world."
Comcast's commercial features a man dressed in a Spider-Man suit (minus the mask) sitting in his apartment decorated with framed Spider-Man posters, action figures and busts interviewing a prospective roommate. There's even a dog donning a Spider-Man mask and garb.
General Mills' commercial for Trix cereal features the Trix rabbit dressed up as Spider-Man, with kids following him around until they unmask him and discover he's really the Trix rabbit.
And Kraft's spot for Cheese Nips shows two boys watching "Spider-Man 3" in a theater, shooting webs back and forth to grab the Cheese Nips box from each other until a web darts out of the movie screen to grab the Cheese Nips from both of them.
"When we talk to consumers about why they like Spider-Man, it really is this idea of an ordinary guy who can do extraordinary things," said Putney Cloos, senior associate brand manager for Cheese Nips. "Showing kids shooting webs is a great way to bring that core consumer insight to life," she said, noting that the Cheese Nips spot was created by ad agency Ogilvy & Mather.
Burger King's five-week adult-targeted promotion, which launches Monday, also reflects the aspirational themes of Sony's marketing campaign, taking it even a step further by giving customers the chance to choose between traditional red-and-blue Spidey and the new black-suited Spidey from the latest film in the franchise.
The Burger King campaign centers on a "Which Spidey Suits You?" scratch-and-win game in which customers choose to reveal what's behind either red-and-blue or black Spidey. Customers have a 50% chance of winning every time they play, with a prize behind one of the two scratch-off areas on each game piece. Top prizes include a $1 million American Express gift card and a 2007 Maserati Quattroporte Sport GT.
"Our goal was to create a game that would deliver the excitement of 'Spider-Man 3' directly to our guests," said Brian Gies, vp marketing impact at Burger King. "It takes the thrill of Peter Parker's own internal conflict and his struggle to choose between his classic red-and-blue Spider-Man suit or his new black suit and puts that choice right into our guests' hands to then have a one-in-two chance of winning millions of prizes if they choose correctly."
2 comments:
I have no interest in Spoderman 3. I saw 1 and liked it OK - I liked the first 1/3 of the movie, where he is first realizing he is Spiderman, but then it just went on and on and on. So I had no motivation to see 2 and have even less motivation to see 3. And that's saying a lot, given that I think Tobey Maguire, Topher Grace, and James Franco are all extra cute.
Over a month ago I took E. to Acme and almost every packaged food on our list had a version w/ Spidey on it (microwave popcorn, yogurt, cereal ). Being pathetic, I didn't even know Spiderman-3 was coming out. I couldn't understand why he was plastered everywhere. Of course, the 3-year old was mindlessly begging for the items that featured Spidey. They don't market food to children like this in Europe.
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