Case study black panther

The 17th film within this particular franchise of superhero movies.

Marvel Studios is a subsidiary of Disney (one of the largest conglomerates in the world).

Marvel is vertically integrated and can both distribute and produce products.

Marvel used Disney to distribute their film - an example of them taking advantage of being vertically integrated into a bigger company with a lot of resources. Big budgets, big teams, lots of experience, and Disney is international so the film was distributed internationally to lots of countries instantly.

Disney “aims to create a 360-degree marketing campaign for their films”. This means that people are attacked with images of their movies no matter where they look - the same was done with Black Panther as well. They had social media pages, merchandise, actors going on chat shows and appearing in magazines. They partnered with numerous companies to produce synergetic products that would further advertise Black Panther.

An example is in their working with “Hasbro on synergetic products (merchandise) to create toys/action figures for the film”. They released action figures tied to the film. This engages children and can appeal to family audiences. A lot of fans that enjoy comics also enjoyed the collectible element of these action figures.

Disney also partnered with Tesla which released two limited edition cars that were tied to the Black Panther campaign - every time the cars were advertised, so was the movie. This was great in reaching markets who love technology, cars, speed, business, etc - reaching a greater audience!

Kendrick Lamar was asked to release a soundtrack for the film. He has a strong audience presence in the black and even white audiences around ages 12-35 - bringing them on board for the film.

Disney released several trailers for the film - showing off the actors and special effects of the film. These trailers also made it very clear that Black Panther was part of the Marvel Universe to appeal to those already existing fans of the other Marvel movies.

The trailer was even shown at the ad break of the SuperBowl - reaching a mainstream, global audience.

The trailer was also posted to YouTube and was viewed over 19 million times minutes after its release. This proves the benefits of using social media apps such as YouTube where audiences can like, share and repost posts and actually help advertise the movie/ product.

Posts and hashtags on Twitter were also used as a method of advertising the film.

The movie was also released in Black History month - which meant the film could relate its movie and its themes to the theme of the month. It was marketed as a “cultural event”, to celebrate black culture.

Quite a lot of people started to crowdfund online for young black children who couldn’t afford it to be able to go watch this film in the theatres (some sites raising £6000 for example) because they felt it was so important for these children to watch a film with such a predominantly black cast, because of how rarely it occurs. This was “unofficial marketing for the film” because it was mentioned in newspapers and the news so much, without Disney even having to do anything!

Disney even worked with New York Fashion Week creating a fashion show showcasing outfits inspired by the film. It was called “Welcome To Wakanda”. This was an excellent way of targeting a predominantly female audience - also reached a VAST range of audiences.

The cast appeared on talk shows - such as Chadwick Boseman - who spoke on ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live’ and others who featured on ‘Ellen’. This enabled them to reach perhaps a slightly more mature audiences who still watch linear television.

The actors appeared at ComicCon - an event for fans of big franchises. The actors did a panel and answered questions. This is a “great way of targeting really super fans of your show”, according to Mrs. Fisher on YouTube. They will then go on and tell others about this film.

There was a Snapchat filter called the ‘Wakanda Black Panther Snapchat Lens’ - this would be to target younger audiences interested in the film.

Although Disney owns Marvel, part of the agreement was that Disney would not get too involved in the actual creative decisions behind the production of Marvel films - those decisions are predominantly left up to Marvel.

Marvel has a very “large pre-sold audience”, and owns the rights to a lot of their characters, which they sometimes sell the rights of to other companies, which enables them to raise capital for other ventures they’d like to carry out. 

Elements that could lead to the film being risky:

Lesser-known Marvel character

Predominantly Black cast - although this is really considered to be accepted in today’s day and age, it is a risk because of how rare it is! It could also be seen as ‘tokenism’.

Costs to make the actual film

o have black people in positions of power, positive positions such as King, Superhero, etc is quite a rare, less popular sight. Doing so in Black Panther is successful at targeting audiences who would appreciate this!

Also, the representation of females in Black Panther is different from a lot of depictions of women traditionally - instead of always being the supporting, less important, vulnerable, and meek character, a lot of the women are quite aggressive, powerful, bold, etc. This will appeal to the women in the audience.

Some believe that Black Panther was Disney’s attempt to “change their reputation” for not representing ethnic minorities very well/positively.

Was given a 12A certificate BBFC in the UK. This means you can go see it on your own from the age of 12, and under 12 if with an adult.

This was quite controversial - because of all the aggression and violence in the film, quite a few people felt the rating was perhaps a bit relaxed.

The BBFC argued that people should expect a level of violence in a Marvel superhero movie. The violence is also quite ‘fantasy-based and backed up by a strong moral code. The “violence exists in a moral universe” where it’s made quite clear that it’s in retaliation to an aggressor, or done for protection, etc - and the actual aggression itself is not really glorified, or senseless either.