Volkswagen has rolled out a promotional tie-in with its Atlas sports-utility vehicle with animated “Despicable Me 4” distributed by Universal Pictures. There’s a fun 30-second commercial with “Despicable’s” oddball villain Gru surrounded by a sea of impish little minions with an Atlas in the center.
Volkswagen says that it rolls with “Despicable Me 4”-themed national TV commercials, social posts/advertising and integration on VW.com site (see accompanying image for website). Given this is the fourth installment of “Despicable Me,” Universal is simply looking for Volkswagen tie-in promotions to tout the July 3 domestic premiere date, since the animation property is already well known to audiences.
Volkswagen is an occasional marketing partner with Hollywood films, which lately tied into its first electric vehicle ID.4. In early 2023, VW tied into Walt Disney Studio’s live-action super-hero actioner “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” to promote ID.4.
“Ant-Man/Quantumania” grossed a decent $214 million domestically (U.S./Canada) and $476 million worldwide. Meanwhile, the most recent “Despicable 3” in 2017 raked in a better $276 million domestically and just over $1 billion worldwide, so it’s a potent franchise for VW Atlas. “Despicable Me 4” is rated PG in an indication of all-family appeal, while “Ant-Man” was a more restrictive PG-13.
Also, VW collaborated with Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Entertainment for the global release of “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire,” again featuring VW ID.4. In May 2022, VW presented two “Star Wars”-inspired ID4 electric vehicles at Disney fan event in California.
Germany’s Volkswagen-Audi-Porsche group is the world’s second-biggest carmaker, and Audi is perhaps the most active automobile outfit for placing its vehicles in Hollywood movies and TV.
“Despicable Me 4” provided VW cartoon characters that its producer Illumination Entertainment controls (Universal distributes the film), though again real actors can be more demanding. “When talent refuses to lend itself to a promotion, the consumer-goods partner is left with using movie logos, props, and backdrops to communicate its association with a film,” says the third edition of business/academic book “Marketing to Moviegoers” in three editions.
“Another tactic,” the book continues, “is to use substitutes for actors. In its radio advertising [for ‘Shrek the Third’] that was a promotional tie-in to the DreamWorks release, McDonald’s restaurants employed soundalikes for Mike Myers and Eddie Murphy, two of the stars. [Elsewhere] Tobey Maguire had restricted use of his likeness in promotions of the initial three ‘Spider-Man’ movies from Columbia Pictures, so his supernatural character wears a mask or is pictured from the rear in materials of promotional partners.”
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