Samsung rolls out a multilevel promotional tie-in with “Spider-Man: Brand New Day,” which audience tracking says is poised for a blockbuster run. Sony Pictures premieres “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” on July 31 in domestic cinemas (U.S. and Canada).
The marketing campaign plays out with these interconnected strands:
In a product placement, the Samsung logo is visible in the movie as the costumed Spider-Man holds a Samsung Galaxy cell phone (“New Day” screen grab above).
In another initiative, Samsung marketing drives consumers to a fictional Spidey Tracker, an interactive video-game-like experience powered by a Samsung Galaxy smart phone. The centerpiece of this initiative is a web site presenting a map on a video screen dotted with glyphs that mark places of supposed Spider-Man sightings; clicking any glyph pulls up information on that location. The tracker homepage visual presentation also includes a “Get Tickets” link and says “Powered by Samsung Galaxy.”
Says a Spidey Tracker press release: “Fans can join in on the interactive campaign, follow Spider-Man sightings and engage with the story in real time, while connecting to a shared community experience at SpideyTracker.com and on X @SpideyTracker. The Spidey Tracker is available in 35 countries worldwide.”
The tracker and X/Twitter aim to keep fans engaged leading up to the film’s premiere at the end of the month. In marketing parlance, this is an “activation” designed to convince consumers to engage with a brand for a individual experience in a specified manner.
The Spidey Tracker is also a product placement seen in the movie itself, presented on a Samsung mobile phone screen. Product placements are formal agreements to insert brands that are plainly recognizable in non-marketing content such as movies and TV programs.
In another thread of the campaign, there’s an original campaign video with a cinematic sweep that shows Samsung products in what seem extensions of the movie. The campaign video presents the Spider-Man character getting a new Galaxy phone after his other phones are shown discarded after being trashed. A voiceover concludes, “Now you are ready for battle.”
The campaign video comes from Chromista, a marketing-content outfit founded by Oscar-nominated filmmaker Darren Aronofsky (“The Whale,” “Black Swan” and “The Wrestler”). The video itself is directed by Emmy-nominated filmmaker, Marvel alum and production designer Kasra Farahani.
The key characters in the campaign video are Spider-Man in costume and the superhero’s likeable, oafish sidekick Ned Leeds, who is played by Jacob Batalon (above). Since Spider-Man appears in costume, the star Tom Holland is not identifiable (and presumably not contracted for Samsung marketing services), but Batalon is shown in character and is a star in Samsung marketing. Costumed characters and animated films make it easier to work around top star talent since the talent isn’t visually identifiable.
A final layer is a sweepstakes, with the key copyline “A brand new shape for a Brand New Day.” The “new shape” references the Galaxy foldable cell phone.
Looking at all the campaign’s strands, Samsung Electronics America’s Keena Grigsby, chief marketing officer and VP-Mobile eXperience, says in a statement that the “Spider-Man” campaign “creates stories that fans genuinely want to experience, with technology integrated in ways that feel natural to the characters and stories they love. This collaboration gave us the opportunity to create an exclusive brand film for fans that brings Galaxy foldables naturally into Spider-Man’s world through an original story.”
The Spider-Man character concocts clever solutions to problems, making the promotional tie-in with a technology gizmo a good fit! The “Spider-Man” movie series has been a bonanza over the years for tie-in promotions.
“Teaming up with Samsung helped bring [the Spider-Man] spirit to life both on screen and beyond, integrating the technology people use every day into Spider-Man’s world while also bringing innovative and fun new ways for fans to engage through the Spidey Tracker,” Jeffrey Godsick, Executive Vice President, Global Partnerships, Sony Pictures Entertainment, said in a statement.
Samsung hitched its promotional wagon to a winning movie. “Disregard any funk that’s going on at the box office, for Sony/Marvel Studios’ ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ is arriving to save the day on July 31 with three-week tracking projections indicating a $180M-$190M start” domestically,” wrote Anthony D’Alessandro on Deadline.com. Its global three-day premiere weekend is expected to be double (adding international to domestic, which is just the U.S. and Canada). That’s well into blockbuster territory. The movie cost over $200 million to make.
The “disregard/funk” references in Deadline.com mean soft boxoffice from recent major releases “Supergirl” and “Lee Cronin’s The Mummy,” from Warner Bros. Pictures, and “Disclosure Day” from Universal Pictures.
Samsung is a clever marketer hitching its Galaxy cell phone to Hollywood glitz. “In 2014, big Oscar advertiser Samsung orchestrated a famous cell phone selfie taken during the Academy Awards ceremony,” says Marketingmovies.net in an earlier post. “Master of ceremonies Ellen DeGeneres corralled some celebs in the audience in what was orchestrated to seem spontaneous.”
Other recent movie tie-ins from Samsung include “The Devil Wears Prada 2” (see TV commercial below), “Superman” and “Supergirl.”
Elsewhere, “New Day” logs a significant media promotion as the inaugural movie with the “Shot for ScreenX” designation. ScreenX is the three-sided, 270-degree cinema projection system that is a PLF (premium large format). “New Day” got shut out from Imax, which is the widest PLF in use, because Christopher Nolan’s epic “The Odyssey” locked down Imax screens for an exclusive run.
“Shot for ScreenX” is a seal-of-excellence that will be conferred on future films. ScreenX has 140 cinemas in the U.S. and Canada.
Major Hollywood studio Sony Pictures originated 11 Spidey movies … nine live-action including “New Day” and two animated. The new live-action movie is audience classified as PG-13.
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