The Street: Thor Beats X-Men in Movie Marketing Smackdown
C3 Metrics COO Jeff Greenfield is interviewed by The Street in Thor Beats X-Men in Movie Marketing Smackdown
Thor was introduced to America in just about the broadest way possible: Through a $3 million, 30-second ad during Super Bowl XLV.
From there, the marketers jumped aboard as Acura announced that its vehicles would appear in Thor as the official car of super spy agency S.H.I.E.L.D., which already appeared in Hulk and Iron Man films and likely means more partnerships for films leading into The Avengers. 7-Eleven, meanwhile, jumps on with Marvel for the eighth time to provide 10 Thor-themed Slurpee cups. Burger King, true to form, will pack Thor toys into kids meals, while Dr. Pepper will feature the Norse god on its cans. Visa(V_), meanwhile, is being a little more adult about its comic book business and letting Visa Signature cardholders get ticket deals through Fandango.com. Sega, meanwhile, already released a video game for the film earlier this week, while Hasbro has released a line of Thor-themed toys.
“You can’t pay money to be in a films like these, but what these companies can do is pledge their media dollars,” says Jeff Greenfield, chief operating officer and co-founder of media analytics group C3 Metrics, describing Marvel’s peculiar approach to merchandising. “If you’re a car company and you plan to spend $20 million this quarter on a campaign, if you spend $5 million of that to integrate Thor into it so that part of the ad has ‘Be sure to see Thor, opening in theaters Friday’ at the end of it, in return they’ll do big things for you, like exclusive footage for ads or licensing deals for in-store promotion and purchases.”
“There’s always a risk of a sponsor getting lost in the mix, but there’s a greater risk,” Greenfield says. “The biggest issue is not being lost in the white noise, but a product breaking my suspension of disbelief even for a moment, like in music videos where the screen pauses on an object to get it more screen time.”
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