“This is the The greatest gladiator match in the history of the world” – Alexander Luthor
Easter weekend 2016 saw the release one of the most eagerly anticipated super hero movies in Hollywood history.
Opening to abysmal ratings by critics as well as very mixed reactions by fans and regular movie goers alike, this movie has gone on to make almost $700m globally. In less than 3 weeks.

Using 3 of the traditional P’s of  marketing (Product, Price, Place & Promotion) I will share some things we can learn:

  1. Product – The fact that 2 of the biggest super heroes in pop culture history were put in the same movie for the first time was a spectacle that the world wanted to see. This alone guaranteed a critical mass of people preordering tickets  before the movie came out.  Lesson – try and sell as much of your product as possible before it’s even “ready”
  2. Place – Warner Bros had a brilliant distribution strategy leveraging two things a.) The Easter holiday  and b.) releasing the movie across multiple locations at the same time. These factors ensured that there was virtually no other movie to compete with them and that kids all over the world were out of school and were able to pressure their parents to take them to see it. Initially the movie was scheduled to come out in May to compete with another big super hero movie (Marvel’s Civil War) but the studio re-evaluated and pushed the release forward. Lesson – find a time and place where you will totally own the market
  3. Promotion – the good people at Studio WB pumped an Olumo sized budget into marketing this movie to ensure that even if you lived under the aforementioned rock you’d know about the film. This kept the movie buzzing for over 3 years creating a frenzy of anticipation towards its release. Lesson – do not assume that your target audience knows about your product. Bury their subconscious in the knowledge of it!  
So should you go and see this movie in cinema? Well that depends on whether you would like to contribute to one of the biggest box office phenomenons in movie history or you’d rather wait until you can download it on a torrent site … sorry … I mean watch it on DStv