Cannes Lions
ZENITH, Los Angeles / FOX INTERNATIONAL / 2017
Awards:
Overview
Entries
Credits
Description
Tracking from the theatrical release, and Nielsen movie theater exit polls, showed that part of Deadpool’s unique appeal was his fourth wall-breaking relationship with the audience. By bringing audiences in on the joke, Deadpool became more accessible than the average superhero adaptation. To convince audiences to embrace the Home Entertainment release, we needed to play off of and expand upon this community-based, inside joke feel; supported with tactically strong media movements.
We had to ask one question: What Would Deadpool Do? Channeling Deadpool’s voice, we leveraged our greatest ASS-et, and turned the media campaign over to the character. All media touchpoints were considered through the WWDD lens – if it wasn’t true to the base, lewd, self-deprecating personality, it didn’t make the plan. What happened next was groundbreaking, insanely fun content that promoted digital, DVD/Blu-ray sales, engaged audiences, and gave our superhero one massive ego stroke. (That's what she said).
Execution
Our social strategy was simple, create what people want to share, and be mobile centric. With funny, thumb-stopping, and shareworthy fodder, we:
- Took over iTunes store and inserted Deadpool into the main pages of other movies ;X-Men films Alien 3, Taken, and Batman were photobombed by Deadpool, who encouraged visitors to ditch those lame titles and pick him. An industry first.
- Conducted a Facebook Livestream panel discussion with over 1 million fans.
- Got Reddit to change to Deadpool’s signature image – a first for the site.
- Encouraged purchasing a “hard” copy of the film with “Deadpole,” an elaborate parody of male enhancement ads.
- Used Snapchat to give fans an inside look into Deadpool's daily ventures. Our story chronicled (with hilarious detail) everything Deadpool does, hitting the gym, getting groceries, and an occasional bathroom break.
- Got Deadpool to appear in his own Honest Trailer.
Outcome
While the campaign was humorous, the results were serious. Deadpool is Fox's best-selling Digital HD title EVER, and the # 1 selling Marvel title EVER. How’s that for a “dying industry”?
Look at the numbers:
-200MM: earned impressions
- 53MM: impressions on Snapchat
-18MM: Online views of "Deadpole," 2nd most Facebook video EVER!
-13.5MM: Views of the Honest Trailer
-5MM: Views of Livestream shared across Facebook's "Celebs and Movies"
-2MM: Unique impressions on Facebook Livestream
Numbers aren't your thing? How about fancy words? We received massive coverage on E!, THR, CNET, Huffington Post, MSN, AOL, Uproxx, Perez Hilton, Moviepilot, Slashfilm, Nerdist, BroBible, and more.
Oh, and then there's all the records broken:
• Most Pre-Ordered Fox title on iTunes and Amazon.com
• Fastest selling superhero Digital HD ever, with 1M transactions in its debut week
• #1 Marvel title to date
• Fox's best performing Digital HD title to date
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