The Hollywood studio giant is enjoying a blockbuster summer, with an irreverent superhero movie “Dead pool & Wolverine” will become his latest film to surpass $1 billion at the global box office this weekend.
Speaking at Disney’s D23 fan convention on Saturday, chief brand officer Asad Ayaz attributed a large part of that success to stars Reynolds and Hugh Jackman expanding the boundaries of traditional marketing.
The celebrities appeared in character in the “Chk Chk Book” music video with Korean pop sensation Stray Kids and joined a YouTube cooking competition with Gordon Ramsay and his 22-year-old daughter.
They also took their world tour to a European Championship football match in Germany, a London chicken shop (for a popular online comedy series) and got soaked at a water balloon festival.
“We were very lucky to have talent… who are willing to do things that sometimes actors don’t want to do, like doing things within their characters,” Ayaz told AFP. Generation Z, who are aged 12 to 27, has been particularly difficult for Hollywood and movie theatres to reach in recent years, setting off alarm bells in the industry. But the unusual stunts “catch” young viewers who pay more attention to their phones, social media, YouTube influencers and video game commercials than traditional TV ads or movie trailers, Ayaz said.
Much of the focus is on generating original content that spreads quickly online.
A highly suggestive popcorn bucket for the film, supposedly “designed” by Reynolds’ innuendo-loving character Deadpool, was intended to go viral worldwide (and it did).
Reynolds and Jackman also filmed a pre-movie message warning moviegoers to turn off their cell phones, playing up to their witty superhero personas.
“Put your phone on silent,” Jackman’s aggressive Wolverine growls in an expletive-laden threat to the camera that has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times on YouTube.
“That was an example of how we produce unique content with Ryan and Hugh… in full costume,” Ayaz said.
Meme-ready marketing
“Deadpool and Wolverine” was particularly suited to the gonzo approach because the character of Deadpool repeatedly speaks directly to the audience throughout the film.
Reynolds’ foul-mouthed hero frequently pokes fun at parent company Disney, even making jokes about “saving” Marvel’s superhero franchise, which has endured a relatively mediocre few years.
But the innovative approach is becoming more common.
Last year, rival studio Warner built a real-life “Malibu DreamHouse” to promote “Barbie,” which went viral after it was put up for rent on Airbnb.
Another recent Disney hit, “Inside Out 2,” deals with issues like anxiety and depression, which Gen Z often discusses online.
Analysts have warned that many widely shared movie memes feature pirated footage or clips illegally filmed by audience members in theaters.
But Disney made custom clips and digital toolkits for “Inside Out 2” available to TikTok and YouTube creators, who quickly spread memes about the film, Ayaz said.
“This is an audience that is highly dependent on their devices. Their media consumption is very different” from that of previous generations, he said.
“Making sure we’re on the platforms where Gen Z spends the most time” is key, Ayaz added.
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