Calling all Wyld Stallyns, Bill & Ted have returned.
By Kassandra Lopez, Global Strategic Communications graduate student at the University of Florida
Here’s how I’d market that.
Overview of my Marketing Strategy
The continuation of the Bill & Ted saga almost markets itself. The cult classic in question has an established fan base and audience eagerly awaiting its arrival. While it may seem more logical to advertise this movie like a typical release, and marketing the movie itself and showcasing its entertainment value. Since in this instance, the entertainment value is pre-established (due to it being a popular franchise) I believe that focusing on nurturing the relationship with that established audience will be more fruitful. To do so, a more niche approach would be taken to the marketing plan. In place of fancy photo shoots, user-generated content such as parody clips, memes, art and fan comments will be exceedingly valuable to this campaign. Focusing on advertisement platforms where this target audience resides, instead of watering many half-dead plants on other platforms. Partnerships are also useful to this marketing plan, as they serve to get new people interested while encouraging already established viewers. As the audience is a bit older, offline mediums are good as well. A thoughtfully placed billboard could earn the movie lots of traffic as well. Lastly, leveraging the community in place will make for easy marketing.
Goals of this Campaign
Specific — Create a consistent online conversations about the upcoming project and maintain a vested interest in the project.
Measurable — Engagement in relation to our following count can be measured, we seek it to be around 5%.
Attainable — A “high rate” is considered to be “between 3.5% and 6%” (Finley, William) I think 5% would be attainable.
Relevant — Seeing potential viewers share their feedback and insights, and UGC.
Time-bound — Within the period of time of strong advertisement/marketing through the movie’s release and the following months in which it will be most popular. This period solidly in February 2020.
Social media platforms
Seeing as this movie was released in 1981, and we assume the person watching was between 10–30 years old. That makes our current age demographic for loyal followers to be 40–60 years old, and many will have found interest in the project in the 30+ years since it’s release, thus making this range even larger at reasonably 15 to 60+. As such we need to focus on platforms that reach a large demographic and can skew older. For this I think Facebook and Instagram would be the best choice.
The target market for each platform
Facebook is where the older end of the range goes, and Instagram is where the under 30’s crowd is. This is simply due to demographics and the age group that has been exposed to each platform and accustomed to it for longer. On Facebook the posts can be more conversational and detailed, we can post full-length trailers and such. For Instagram images and engaging story posts are our best bet for getting follower’s attention. Those decisions are due to the types of media consumed on these mediums.
Voice/Tone
This campaign is a killer rad dude that just wants to get along with you. The campaign is excited, welcoming, and very interactive.
Hashtags
#Bill&Ted #FaceTheMusic #Partyondudes #Stillexcellent
Partnerships/influencer relationships
The main actors will be the main influencers, but new characters can also advertise the movie to direct their independent audiences to the film.
Works Cited
Driver, Saige. “Understanding Social Media Analytics.” Business News Daily, Businessnewsdaily.com, 17 Apr. 2018, www.businessnewsdaily.com/10694-understanding-social-media-analytics.html.
Finley, William. “What Is a Good Engagement Rate on Instagram?” Instazood, Publisher Name InstazoodPublisher Logo, 27 Jan. 2020, instazood.com/blog/what-is-a-good-engagement-rate-on-instagram/.
