Pronet Advertising

Marketing 2.0: Warner Brothers entices MySpacers

Superman is a popular character. He has had his own TV show, movies and commercials. He has a large audience that follows him wherever he goes. On June 28 his new movie, Superman Returns, is coming out and Warner Brothers have been promoting it like crazy. One of the unique ways that I have seen Warner Brothers promote the film is through MySpace.

A couple of days ago, the MySpace homepage was changed to fit Superman into the design...

Modifying the MySpace design to have a Superman look is a great way to promote the upcoming movie. MySpace is currently the 5th most popular site in the world and has a young demographic that goes to the movies quite often, when they aren't downloading them. This campaign is far more effective then just a standard banner ad, and probably cost a lot more money too. There are tons of ads on MySpace, but how many of them do people even notice or click on? With this campaign they effectively modified the design of MySpace's homepage encouraging your eyes to look at the background and characters in the movie. The background is like eye candy thus creating an effect that makes you want to find out what all the fuss is about. This emotion will most likely end in a click on a Superman ad.

Warner Brothers also did a creative ad with Shaquille O'Neal during Game 5 of the 2006 NBA playoffs. They tied an ad for Superman Returns with Shaq and made him part of the commercial because Shaq is also known as "Superman".

Warner Brothers used some creative ways of marketing the movie compared to the usual conventional means that are available. By leveraging the new mediums and using Marketing 2.0 they have created a lot of hype around the movie. I guess the opening numbers will be the judge of how successful this campaign will be, stay tuned.