Marvel’s Recent Struggles

It’s no secret that Marvel Studios and its catalog of movies and tv shows have been dominating the space for the last almost-two decades now, raking in millions upon BILLIONS of dollars in revenue from all over the world. Yet, Marvel and Disney as a whole have been slowly dwindling in popularity over the last few years. For example, films like Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and The Eternals were met with public scrutiny for not being up to Marvel’s standards. As a marketing professional in the industry myself, I’ve seen this scenario happen many times with fellow movies and film studios earning a negative reputation after only one or a few bad films. Marvel’s case is seemingly special because we have never really seen this kind of negative energy surrounding them before. With their backs against the wall, Marvel really needed to gain the loyalty and trust of the fans back, and what they did with Avengers Doomsday, really did just that. 

Viral Marketing Isn’t Just Luck

It is said very often in the marketing world that to make viral content, you have to intensify the emotion you are trying to invoke to a degree high enough that people will share it to others, but not so high that it overwhelms the audience. I agree completely, however I also believe that viral marketing is very situational, meaning that while, yes, there is a bit of luck involved, if you understand your surroundings and the landscape of the market and industry you’re in, you can take advantage of it and really be behind the steering wheel.

Avengers-Level Marketing

When it comes to ethos, pathos, and logos, Marvel heavily relied on ethos, or the intent to pull some strings to make the viewers feel the emotion they were intending. To summarize, Marvel began releasing one trailer a week during the theatrical release of Avatar: Fire and Ash. Here’s what each trailer included in summary:

• First trailer: Revealed Chris Evans’ unexpected return as Steve Rogers.
• Second trailer: Revealed Thor’s return, featuring a very well-written speech.
• Third Trailer: Revealed the original X-Men’s return.
• Fourth Trailer: Revealed the Fantastic Four and the Wakandans are together

All trailers combined earned over ONE BILLION views. Marvel capitalizing off the need for these old characters helped them have more control over the virality of the campaign.

Why It Worked?

Nostalgia sells.