Super Marketing Heroes: Marvel Entertainment & Iron Man
I'm going to continue today from my Monday post talking about Marvel Entertainment and their recent 
huge success with the theatrical release of the Iron Man Movie. It just so happens that our local chapter of the American Marketing Association, Rochester (RAMA), held their annual Marketer of the Year Awards luncheon today.
One of the sponsors of this event, who also happens to have a professor on the board, is Alfred University, located in the Southern Tier of Western New York. They secured one of their alumnus to the event as our keynote speaker who just happened to be Peter Cuomo, Marvel Entertainment Inc.’s vice chairman and former CEO who discussed the evolution of the Marvel brand since the comic book company’s comeback eight years ago.
Unfortunately we didn't have much time alloted to hear from Peter today since we were there to give out some awards during an extended lunch hour. So Peter first asked us, due to the limited amount of time, should he:
- Talk about Marvel coming out of bankruptcy
- The lessons he learned doing this
- Or, the movie business, specifically their new movie, Iron Man, and let us get to watch some movie trailers
Yes, we all agreed to number three. To be entertained is all we really want.
So, after a little technical difficulty we were able to view the full trailer of Iron Man on the big screen. He emphasized that the key to success in a film is a great trailer. Reviews aren't even as important to a film's success as is their movie trailer, which by the way Iron Man received a 97% positive review rate. He went on to say that Marvel's next theatrical film, The Incredible Hulk, which is to be released on June 13th, has turned out to be the most watched trailer in all the history of Universal Pictures - over 14 million people have viewed it so far.
Going back to Iron Man, Peter said that one of the most asked questions is.."Why did you cast Robert Downey Jr. as the lead character?". I can relate to this question because when speaking to my 16 year-old daughter she asked.."Why did they put an old guy in the lead? He's just not the same as Tobey McGuire" who played the lead, Peter Parker in Spiderman. So, Peter explained that during the casting call Robert Downey Jr. did the first half of the call on script, but then totally ad-libbed the second part which just showed them that he totally connected with the character. It's no secret to the troubles that Robert Downey Jr. has had in his real life that just so happened to fit the background of Tony Stark eerily similar. So Robert totally understood this character...and he got the part.
Speaking of emotional connections, Peter said that what they also try to achieve is to connect with a wider demographic audience for their films. Comic book are mostly associated with a male fan base, so they need to bring the emotional relationship story into their films. Peter Parker had that famous upside down kiss with Mary Jane (Kristen Dunst) in Spiderman (most of us women will remember more than the men). Iron Man has the relationship with Virgina "Pepper" Potts, executive assistant to Tony Sparks, who's always there to "put out the fires that Tony leaves in his past". The next Marvel movie, The Incredible Hulk, even goes further with the relationship angle staring Liv Taylor, (still one of my favorite actresses since the Lord of the Rings) as the romantic partner to the Hulk character.
Peter also reminded us about how much planning, as well as money, goes into launching a major theatrical movie. He spoke a little about the entertainment marketing partnership they created with Audi over Iron Man and said that Audi came to the table with over $20 million in promotion support of the film. Peter admitted that Internet promotion is the biggest way to promote a film today. Timing of the release date is also very critical to the final outcome of how much money a movie will make. The summer season is not the best time to promote licensed retail products which is key to the Marvel characters. The back-to-school season and Halloween are their biggest seasons. So this is something that is taken into the fact when they release the DVD, which Peter said they spend just as much money promoting as the movie release.
Marvel Entertainment, with their recent success of Iron Man, is now going down in history as one of the greatest turn-around corporate stories of today. Peter didn't have time to go through his whole PowerPoint presentation on this subject, but he did mention that the stock of the company went from an all time low of $.80 a share to $34.00 as of yesterday. They now have 55% of the comic book share of market and are worth over $2.8 billion. The really interesting fact is that they only have 250 employees worldwide, which makes each employee worth over $1 million dollars each. Their key is that they use over 500 freelances from all over the world who produce their comic books who still pump out 75 comic books a month!
So, we could of been there all afternoon listening to Peter's stories and insights, but we had to get on with our local marketing awards. For those from Rochester, and afar that are interested, here are the results:
- Excellus BlueCross Blue Shield, Rochester region was named Marketer of the Year for their new Healthy Blue Campaign
- Tavern on the Green/TavernDirect.com is this year’s Turnaround/Start-up Marketer of the Year
- United Way of Greater Rochester is Non-profit Marketer of the Year
- George Eastman House was honored as Online Marketer of the Year
Congratulations to this year's winners and thanks to Peter Cuomo from Marvel Entertainment for speaking to us at such an important time in Marvel Entertainment's history. The Rochester AMA chapter did a great job of pulling it all together today and made me proud to be part of our marketing community today,
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