Deadpool: Master Assassin, or Master Marketer?
There are no spoilers in this blog post.
The new Deadpool movie was officially released on February 12th, 2016. It came with blood, swearing, a studly movie star, and everything else that sells well in the advertising industry. People knew about the coming of the movie for a while before the studio had even released any official trailers or ads. Whether that leak was an accident or not, who knows! But it generated some talk, which really got the ball rolling for our beloved, red-suited antihero.
You probably have already seen the movie, and if you haven’t you must’ve already seen some of the ads for Deadpool! And if you haven’t, there are some right here! (source: Wired).
The Fourth Wall
The thing about Deadpool is that even since his debut in the Marvel comics, he’s had the most amazing ability to break the fourth wall. This means that he periodically speaks to the camera, or us, to put it another way. This allows the audience to take Deadpool much less seriously, and at the same time feel like we’re a part of what he’s accomplishing! Even if that’s involving disemboweling someone with his swords!
All jokes aside, Deadpool’s fourth-wall break was one of the greatest marketing tools any movie has been able to use.
Traditionally, movie ads (you’ve probably seen a few) always have snippets of the movie to give you a taste of what the greater picture will be like. With Deadpool, it’s an entirely different game!
We’d give you an example here, but even the ads are kind of R-rated, and we want to keep it PG. But if you don’t believe us you can just search Deadpool commercials and see what comes up.
Deadpool Ads aren’t your Average Ads
Unlike other movie commercials, where you watch the main characters stare into each other’s eyes deeply, embrace one another, and COMPLETELY IGNORE YOU, Deadpool actually speaks to his audience. This kind of marketing strategy means that instead of the marketers for Deadpool having to try and target scenes to audiences that they think it would appeal to, they can simply have Deadpool do all their dirty work for them (no pun intended). He can legitimately – and with reason – speak to certain groups of people.
Since the release date for the movie was so close to Valentine’s Day, it only made sense for them to target the movie towards women. With the majority of males already planning to see Deadpool, marketers had to think of a way to bring in a larger female audience. They attempted to do so using Ryan Reynolds body, and ads like this:
(source: Digital Spy)
This poster has a ‘Notebook’-esque look to it, and was undoubtedly targeted to bring in more women. But the goal was not to try and trick them into seeing a movie that they thought would be a romance, but to appeal to their humorous side. After all, women love action movies and comedies just as much as men do!
Back to the Marketing
Even if all their efforts were for naught, and nobody took a liking to the ads, at least they were enjoyable to make!
Ryan Reynolds states how much fun the marketing was with this movie. In an interview with IMDb, he states that “one thing that’s been great about Deadpool is that the marketing machine has been an extension of the film.” and then goes on, “with Deadpool, he breaks the fourth wall … He’ll say and do anything.”
The lesson learned here is that — like Deadpool — we shouldn’t be afraid to break the rules every now and then. Try to take calculated risks with your advertising, and keep in mind that you could be missing out on audiences that could highly benefit your business.