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If everything had gone according to plan, the feature film Black widow It would have opened this weekend, and Marvel Studios would now be celebrating the success of the 24th entry in its superhero franchise. For many of the Disney-owned studio’s retail and licensing partners, too, the build-up to the release of the film would have been an occasion to generate interest in toys and other licensed merchandise. Consumers who loved female superspy might have been shopping right now to find products that would remind them of their favorite moments from the movie.
However, none of that happened. Thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, Black widow It has been delayed, like so many Hollywood blockbusters, currently on target for a release on November 6. That delay has disrupted not only the flow of screen content, but also the entire media licensing system that extends these franchises to the retail and marketing economies. While fans wait six more months (or more) to see the movie, the merchandise is ready now. Retailers like Walmart, Target and Amazon already have the product on hand and available to buy, but the hype of the media (including TV commercials) aimed at stimulating sales did not fully materialize.
SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA – July 20: (L-R) David Harbor, Florence Pugh, O-T Fagbenle, Rachel Weisz and … [+]
At the same time, this delay could have cultural consequences. Many of the top franchise films intended to endorse licensed products this year put women (and, to a lesser extent, people of color) at the forefront. In addition to Black widow, Mulan has already been delayed, just like Wonder Woman 1984. The perceived ability of these films to support marketing campaigns, however unfairly impacted by the pandemic, could shape the continued reevaluation of diversity and inclusion in Hollywood.
Successful marketing has long struggled with such attempts to capitalize on the potential of cross-promotion. In movies, television, comics, video games, and toys, differences in production lead times make coordination difficult. Licensees could be working with preliminary character designs and plot descriptions, for example, because they have to start their production process long before creators in another medium finish their work. In 1994, for example, Playmates Toys produced a complete line of action figures for Star Trek: Generations based on costume designs that were completely discarded by filmmakers. As expected, the incongruous product languished on the shelves.
More recently, marketing plans for major franchise movies point to greater coordination between studios, manufacturers, and retailers. In 2015, Disney and its partners launched “Force Friday” to organize the retail push. Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Friday, September 4, marked the first day of a marketing blitz intended to culminate in the film’s release in December. Although retailers often agree to honor similar “street vending dates” for product debuts, available stocks may be inconsistent after that point, and the retailer’s attention may not be sustained as products linked to other franchise stores in means are available. In a study of how Target stores media brands on its shelves, Avi Santo, professor of communication and theatrical arts at Old Dominion University, describes how just weeks after the June 2017 release of Wonder Woman, much of the related product was out of stock and already ranked second for merchandise driven by League of Justice (which was not due yet until November). Retail trade is advancing rapidly.
NEW YORK, NY – SEPTEMBER 1: Star Wars Force Friday II begins in the US. USA With a midnight store … [+]
In that sense, the pandemic might just seem like more of the same to studios, manufacturers and retailers, evidence of how difficult it has always been to try to coordinate media releases with product marketing. Studios have always tried to use retail to increase the visibility of their films, while retailers continue to estimate the correct number of products to order from manufacturers to meet demand, particularly concerned that any excess inventory will devalue associated with a film that bombards. The constant turnover of media-related merchandise and temporary investment in any franchise could mean that manufacturers and retailers are not as exposed to pandemic-related movie delays as it might seem. After having worked for a long time in the hype space before movie releases, maybe it doesn’t matter that much if those movies actually come out?
In fact, it is possible that at least some of these media-related products have experienced increased sales as a result of the pandemic. According to NPD, global toy sales increased 4% in the first quarter of 2020 as families trapped in their homes search for new toys. However, these reports suggest that it may be the more enduring media franchises, not those linked to impending movie releases, that benefit from this impact. NPD cites as licensed properties that see the highest sales growth in this environment Frozen, Star Wars and Toy Story (all Disney properties) as well as PokmeMon. This list of legacy franchises does not guarantee toy manufacturers that they support individual movie releases like Mulan or Black widow will pay as much as the investment held in legacy media brands with the most recognized track record.
Such a distinction may seem somewhat absurd, in that sense Mulan and Black widow they are just independent companies. They’re both Disney-owned franchises, too, with the first live-action version of the 1998 animated film and the second just the newest extension of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the most successful film franchise of all time with a box office of $ 8,500 million. total only in the US USA and Canada. However, these major releases represented opportunities for studios, manufacturers, and retailers to change their marketing and media marketing strategies, albeit slightly. These particular movies allowed franchise sellers to decentralize the white male characters who are supposed to be necessary for box office success and to support major marketing campaigns.
Hollywood has often faced diversity and inclusion as a source of risk in the media franchise. Marvel CEO Ike Perlmutter, for example, has opposed the idea of making Black Panther or Captain marvel movies based on her perception that the market would not support female superhero movies and that movies with black characters have limited global box office appeal. Similarly, product manufacturers and retailers have allowed their decision-making to be based on gender assumptions and a sense that certain media franchises are targeted at particular types of consumers.
In 2015, Disney and its licensed partners targeted the marketing of Star Wars: The Force Awakens around its male characters, leaving out the character of Rey despite his prominence as the protagonist of the new film series. According to blogger Michael Boehm, some product makers have proposed to put Rey first in their offerings, but Disney executives told them that the children’s target audience would not want to buy anything with a female character.
In such industry discussions, assumptions can turn into self-fulfilling prophecies. The perception that there is no market pre-empts efforts to serve, support, or cultivate that market, and therefore confirms the initial perception. Professor Suzanne Scott, from the University of Texas at Austin, refers to “surplus audiences” as those whose desires are outside the perception of the industry audience, and in the marketing of many media franchises, these surpluses include women and people of color.
However, in the case of Star Wars: A force awakens, that surplus spoke and became known, using social networks to ask #wheresrey. This hashtag activism called corporate reluctance to imagine new markets and challenged media managers to reconsider their assumptions about what types of characters and what types of audiences might have market value. Earlier that same year, similar tweets asked #whereswidow when the Black Widow character was tossed aside in a toy product for The Avengers: Age of Ultron“Even when that product depicted the action scenes where she was the key player.”
Five years later, Black Widow has been (possibly) found. Following the successes of Wonder Woman and Captain marvelShe has a movie of her own, and retailers make a licensed product available to her that brings her to the fore. In many ways, the product that has been manufactured, both on-screen and in merchandise terms, offers evidence that franchise strategies have undergone a significant overhaul, where media managers possess a new understanding of women as anchors. marketable for action movies and action figures. same.
But a new question arises: when is Widow? At what point will the marketing of the film catch up with the marketing of the product it must endure? How will the film’s delay affect the eventual success of these consumer products? How will industry decision makers make sense of that performance so that they form franchise strategies in the future?
For one thing, it is certainly possible for sellers to handle Black widow, Mulanand Wonder Woman It will recognize that its performance in 2020 depended on crucial media and retail hours disrupted by a global pandemic. This could lead to new and more flexible strategies for coordinating releases in the future.
On the other hand, it is possible that less than expected market performance for this product, even if the result is a bad time, could breathe new life into the tired claims that superheroines cannot handle the box office or hold the aisle. toys. While surely few marketers could be blind to the impact of the pandemic on these franchises, it’s not hard to imagine them going back to the old ways of thinking to ask whether the more “universally marketable” (read white, male) characters could have handled Better a pandemic. Of course, no such market data exists to show that Iron Man would have a greater ability to thrive in a pandemic, but such is the superpower of faith in white and male supremacy. At stake is not only the delay of individual films, but the possibility of deferring the change of the industry.
