Market Schmarket

One thing about me is that my life pretty much revolves around movies. I’m obsessed with watching all the new trailers and keeping up with casting news and new releases for the next 3 months. It’s not that I’m obsessed with celebrities or anything because that’s not why I’ll watch a movie (okay FINE. Sometimes it is. SOMETIMES.) I am genuinely just really into the whole movie culture. I’ll watch Hollywood blockbusters at the Scotiabank Theatre or indie movies at VIFF or old school flicks rented from Blockbuster. And even though not everyone may be as into movies as I am, it’s undeniable that movie culture has a HUGE influence on contemporary culture. And not only that, but it’s a great way for certain companies to make some quick cash by creating promotional products or advertising schemes for a limited time while there is still a lot of anticipation for an upcoming movie to explode in theatres.  2 really prominent ones that I’ve seen lately are the pair-ups of Pantene/”Tangled” & Hurley/ “Tron”.  Pantene is obviously a company known for their hair products so it seems extremely appropriate that they would partner up with “Tangled”, a movie about Rapunzel, for their line of shampoo and conditioner products. A not so obvious connection is Hurley, a clothing company. Although they’re usually known for their clothing and shoes that reflect a skater/urban vibe, the ad for their partnership with Tron is something that looks very different from their usual merchandise of board shorts and bomber jackets. The model in the ad is wearing a sleek black mini dress, with a design that’s similar to the outfits that the characters in the movie are seen wearing.  This just goes to show that a movie can provide a good excuse for a company to go beyond their comfort zone and provides a chance to capture a new target market that they would normally not be able to reach.  And with the movie, Tron, soon to be released in theatres and already generating A LOT of hype, Hurley can expect that their new line of “Tron clothes” is going to be a success.

The same marketing technique can also be used in the reverse way: using an already famous entity to create hype for a movie. As my friend, Andrew Kwan, mentioned in his blog (https://blogs.ubc.ca/akwan91/2010/09/29/500-million-friends/), the movie “The Social Network” got a lot of attention because it was a biopic about Facebook, a zeitgeist of our generation. Not that it was the only reason that the movie was such a huge hit (since Jesse Eisenberg did do a STELLAR job portraying Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of Facebook) but it certainly didn’t hurt that the social networking site has practically become a necessity for most students in high school and college.  In fact, the movie poster for the movie had nothing but the actor’s face on it and the title of the movie line across it. Even just by seeing the font, it was easy to make the connection that the movie was somehow related to Facebook. The font used in its logo is a brand in its own. And it did a little more than help the blockbuster get more publicity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTWFuZEcJlo

Hurley x Tron Website:

https://shop.hurley.com/department/tron-legacy-10132.cfm?killnav=1