Marketing Lessons from Deadpool: How to Deliver Great Campaigns

While many have hailed Deadpool as a ground-breaker in the world of movie marketing, its campaign actually proves to be an exemplary case that brings out a few fundamentals that should drive any company’s marketing.

The Marvel anti-hero character has successfully gotten people “chimichangas” over him, churning up close to US$133 million in box office sales on its opening weekend in the USA alone (Source: Box Office Mojo). Much of its success has been accredited to its marketing efforts, which has by far, made all the right moves.

Armed with a slew of content across digital and traditional media, Deadpool’s marketing has simply been incredible, surpassing anything that recent superhero movies have done.

Here’s what the Merc with a Mouth has to remind us about marketing:

1. Listen to and Respect your Customer’s Stake in the Brand

Deadpool’s leaked test footage was the unofficial but amazing start to its marketing campaign. It riled up excitement in fans who have long awaited a Deadpool movie – excitement that was enough to get movie studio Fox to withdraw its decision to shelve Deadpool and ultimately bring the movie to screen.

Fans got the sense that they had a stake in making the movie happen. This, as with any product that successfully encouraged customer involvement, increased audiences’ bond towards the movie. This also meant that audiences were ready to embrace a new kind of hero, paving the path for the ostentatious promotional content that came after.

Sure enough, the promotional content that followed, as well as the movie itself, stayed true to the personality of Deadpool in the comic books, giving audiences the R-rated, humorous version of the character that they adored.

This lesson did not come easy for Fox – it left many fans furious by botching the Deadpool character (sewing his mouth shut for starters) in the 2009 movie X-Men Origins: Wolverine. In many ways, this movie was Fox’s ultimate comeback from its previous flop.

In a sense, it reminds brands to listen and act according to what their advocates know and clearly love about the brand.

2. Entertain, and People will come

In today’s world of non-stop advertising, people must want to look at your marketing.

The comic book source material helped by giving the marketers for Deadpool a golden trove of inspiration to work with. The character’s outrageous and R-rated personality allowed marketers to publish posters with racy puns and comedic stills, which caught attention and was extensively shared online.

There’s no new rule here. Genuinely entertaining content get people excited to share and talk about it, even if they are advertisements.

Particularly, Deadpool’s knack for breaking the fourth wall by interacting with his audiences, gave the studio more freedom in marketing. Its viral Halloween video, featured lead actor Ryan Reynolds suited up as Deadpool going out in the streets to teach children how to fight crime.

The movie also leveraged trends in social media like memes and emoji to get their message across. One of its billboards spelled out Deadpool with two emojis of a skull (representing ‘dead’) and poo, complete with an L at the end. It was enough to attract attention, make the message memorable, and create conversation.

3. Provide Variety and Surprises to Renew Interest

Deadpool has released promotional content across many formats. Traditional ones include billboards and posters; while its digital outreach spanned across videos, images to ingenious tweets by Reynolds. Every piece of content was witty and humorous, but yet managed to offer something different every single time.

The best content were the ones that were completely unexpected. For instance, Deadpool was creatively paired up with testicular and breast cancer awareness campaigns, complete with the hashtag #touchyourselftonight to encourage people to conduct frequent self-examinations. The message brought across the tongue in cheek trademark of Deadpool, while increasing awareness about cancer. The video on testicular cancer generated over 2.1 million views just 3 weeks after its release.

Consumers were kept interested and on a constant lookout for new promotional material, wanting for more. With such a variety of appealing, entertaining content, critics’ concerns of having ‘too much’ were quickly doused.

4. Stay Consistent to the Brand across all Channels

Above all, the ingenuity of the campaign also hinged heavily on the fact that the content stayed staunchly consistent in communicating Deadpool as a snarky, unpredictable and rogue character. Deadpool’s personality was clear and in unison across the entire campaign, the movie and the comic book. It promoted the Deadpool character, not just the movie, which sets up a perfect foundation for future endeavors for Deadpool be it in the gaming, comic book or movie scene.

In many ways Deadpool opened up our perspective of superheroes, and movie marketing. But it has also shown how important certain fundamentals are to your marketing campaigns. Brands, not just movie studios, should take a leaf out of Deadpool’s marketing book.

Reynolds commented in an interview that some people felt sad that the movie was released, simply because they wanted to continue seeing new Deadpool content. It’s true, and I count myself amongst the fans out there who hope that the Merc with a Mouth keeps talking.

Image sources:

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