Deadpool: A Marketing Case Study!

Ask anyone which was the most recent movie he was/is excited to see. And you have one answer - hands down - Deadpool! 

But why? 

Did you read any comic book of this character during your childhood? No?
Did you watch any movie of this character during college? No?
Were you watching this movie for Ryan Reynolds? No! No! No!

This movie is certainly not marketed on billboards on Indian roads (that space is still filled with some imagery on Flipkart mobile launches). It is certainly not on front newspaper ads (that space is hijacked by upcoming sales on Amazon). And yes there is no continuous bombardment of emails (its still the Batra's territory). 
Also unlike Bollywood movie, no superstar or director is visiting reality shows or comedy shows or saas-bahu serials to make people aware about their movies. Also there are no songs that are aired back to back by television channels and radio stations to keep you reminded that there is a hot movie coming in! And yes there is no frequent bombardment of movie trailers! 
Then how come a character which was practically unknown to masses until an year back became one of the most awaited movies of recent times?

Here's a status update from one of my friends on Facebook: 

What's interesting is that this friend hasn't seen the movie yet. But you can feel his excitement and positivity towards the movie.
Here's a meme shared by another of my friend:

Usually people are quite skeptic before showing their association towards a product/ movie or anything else because they are afraid that their friends will judge them for their tastes. But clearly, folks here are not feeling even a bit skeptic on showing their interest or enthusiasm for the movie. 
And that's some genius marketing! To make one feel positive towards a product even before he/she has experienced it! That's precisely what Mr. Jobs has accomplished too!

But then how did Deadpool manage to create this positive vibe among the crowd?

One small answer : Social Media.

I am not sure of how US media consumption works so I will restrict this case study to India.
In India, one of the most prominent channels of media consumption for anything remotely related to US and Hollywood is 9gag. I did a quick research on the kind of pages most of my social-media-active friends consume and 9gag tops the chart. Out of some 1300 odd friends (a good sample size) in my Facebook list, 250 (yes around 20%) like 9gag!
And you won't believe with what frequency 9gag was throwing Deadpool content to its audience. Here's a quick study I did: 
9gag on an average shares around 18 select posts from its website on its Facebook page and guess how many Deadpool posts it has shared today? 3! (ie over 16%). Here's a quick collection of its posts:

And this is not the case for today. It has been almost a daily affair from quite a long time! Sometimes, the posts were not shared on social media pages but on 9gag website. In fact such posts had been shared for so long that we might not even remember when we saw it originally.
Let me show you a series of 9gag promotional posts that came up over a month before Deadpool release. Also see if you can notice something very interesting about it:

Yes you saw it right! Each post talked about how "awesome" and "remarkable" marketing strategy of Deadpool is.  And yes the posts are repeating the same point over and over again with different taglines until it is etching on the consumer's mind that Deadpool is something really cool, something really witty, something really quirky!
And these are not all of such posts. I remember there was one where Deadpool was shown in a sweater, another where Deadpool is talking over a video to the ladies, another where Deadpool was joking how his movie is a Valentine day romantic movie and another which was a flash mob in front of around hundred folks and was claimed to be the impressive flash mob ever.  Gosh! And many more!
Oh wait! I got a screenshot of the flash mob!

But yes most important  was of course the timing of such campaign. Internet-savy people like us appreciate badass/ differently done things and Deadpool's not-so-mainstream marketing campaigns definitely made it sound witty/ quirky / sarcasm and spoofing.

Oh wait! I hear a lot of you saying that "I don't like 9gag" or "Neither me nor my friends follow 9gag". Well, in that case you might be consuming quite some content from our popular Indian humor pages. And do you know a popular FB page from which their content gets inspired? Here's a quick snapshot on how they are posting:

So chances are that even if you don't directly consume content from any of US entertainment media FB pages, you would have felt the positivity of the campaign through some of the Indian pages.

Here's certainly a quick recipe from the above campaign:
1) Understand your target audience. Where can you find "influencers" or "early adaptors" from this target audience. What kind of content do they consume? 
2) Find channels which they check to consume such content.
3) Subtly position your product in the content. Let the folks not know its being marketed to them. (Yes everyone hates marketing! - directly at least!).
4) Grab popcorn :D 

Happy marketing! 

PS: Would love to hear your views/ suggestions/ feedback on this article. :)