Instagram has been looking for new ways to appeal to advertisers using its video features, particularly with a new 60-second format. However, its latest introduction could very well help them find what they’re looking for.
The social sharing platform has introduced a way for videos to be recommended through its Explore section, depending on what the interests of users are. This is the latest evolution of Instagram’s video features, which started slowly with video from high-profile events like the Golden Globes and college football seeping into the news and curated feeds.
“As people share more videos than ever before, we’re making it easier to discover the ones you’ll love,” the company noted to its users in a blog post. “To begin, you’ll find a personalized channel called ‘Videos You Might Like’ that collects videos from across Instagram’s global community into a seamless viewing experience. And as you scroll through the Explore grid, you may also see ‘Featured’ channels filled with videos on specific topics.”
Companies will find a better opportunity to reach out to potential fans and consumers this way, while at the same time, Instagram and its users benefit from a selection of more videos to be offered on the site.
This will also tie in with the company’s forthcoming algorithm, which will allow the reordering of pictures and videos in users feeds, which means marketer-produced videos could be mixed in without going into overload on pushing the brand. These ads could end up being featured among the Instagram’s top clips and find even more exposure as a result.
Instagram is taking a steady approach with this program, having already introduced a Coachella music festival stream, and it will likely use again soon for events in the weeks and months ahead.
When it comes to exclusives, no show does it better than the San Diego Comic-Con. The event, which brings in thousands of fans every year, is a huge draw for many film and television studios to showcase upcoming products to its adoring fans. Sadly, online fans don’t get much of a taste of that, outside of possible videos that may be posted weeks or months after the event, or they may turn to illegal video downloads and streams. But there could be big changes on the way, with an opportunity for those that can’t get to the show to still take part in it.
Comic-Con International (which will take place on July 21–24) has announced that it is working on a VOD platform, which will allow fans to check out panels and special events that they would otherwise need to be in person for. Although it won’t be livestreaming (any panels aired would be on a sort of tape delay), it will bring a heavy amount of content to those watching.
Brands can take part in this format by not only adding advertising to the channel itself, but also hosting the content. Several studios “have their own marketing plans” already, and prefer to “control their assets,” said Seth Laderman, executive vice president and general manager of Comic-Con HQ, the official name of the project.
Speaking with IGN, Laderman explained how the project could be a place to “help promote everyone.” It would eventually be up to the studios to see what content goes online, including exclusive film footage and whatnot.
“So there will be studios that are going to want to engage our audience and spread everything out through that, but other ones that are going to want to keep it closer in their own platforms, and I think that’s perfectly fair,” Laderman noted.
The platform’s appeal shouldn’t be limited to big studios, as smaller panels would also get a great deal of exposure. “I still want to get a camera in the smallest rooms because they may not have the broadest audience out there,” he said. “But it’s still an important part of what Comic-Con is and I want to be able to allow everybody to see everything.”
The Comic-Con HQ platform is set to launch on May 7th across both web browsers and mobile devices.
More studios are taking advantage of Comic-Con’s wide exposure. TBS aired many episodes of its hit talk show, Conan, last year from the event, including exclusive Funko Pop figurine giveaways and highlights from various films, including X-Men Apocalypse.Syfy has recently announced plans to air a nightly event with highlights from its upcoming shows and movies for audiences to see from a livestream.
“Our goal with Syfy Presents Live From Comic-Con is to give everyone the experience of being on the convention floor, at the events, or just walking through the frenzied streets of the Gaslamp District… with hundreds of thousands of their closest friends,” said Heather Olander, senior vice president of alternative series, development and production for Syfy.
It sounds like a prime opportunity for companies to get on board, whether their product relates to Comic-Con related franchises or not. It’s almost sure to be a big hit, considering how millions of fans tuned in to illegally posted content from the show last year.
Case in point: Warner Bros.’ first trailer for Suicide Squad found so much exposure through these illegal posts that it relented and posted the full official trailer online days later to avoid compromising the quality of the product. So the demand from Comic-Con fans is definitely there. Now it’s just a matter of seeing what livestreaming and VOD does for it.
After Facebook’s F8 developer conference, the technology everyone is talking about is the chatbot. These are interfaces inside of a messaging app, and some are projecting that they could be the new way people will interact with businesses and brands. Done correctly, chatbots let you interact with a business inside of a messaging app to send text messages that will order things, get information, or enhance the brand experience.
The chatbot is an alluring prospect to marketers looking at the difficulty of getting users to spend time with branded apps. The reality of the smartphone is that while people may download plenty of apps, they generally spend most their time in a few apps—one of which is almost always a messaging app of some kind. If people aren’t likely to hang around in your branded app, why not find a way to engage with them in the apps where they do hang out? Enter the chatbot. The technology is being eagerly pursued by Microsoft, Facebook, Google, and other tech companies.
“Every brand that you can think of will have to have a bot to engage with their users, to enable them to communicate with them and find them,” said Beerud Sheth, CEO of Gupshup. “It is going to affect every brand and every business. It is going to happen very quickly. I expect a bot explosion by the end of this year.”
Of course, it’s not always easy to create a chatbot, and creating a chatbot that not only works well but has the desired effect on the audience is far from a trivial effort. With platforms like Facebook Messenger opening up to development, the floodgates are being opened, though, and many companies are undertaking the effort to create a chatbot.
“In a world where messenger apps have surpassed social networks, companies need to expand their digital presence to these greenfield pastures,” said Ivar Chan, Kik’s developer evangelist. “Products have yet to fully realize how messenger bots can rocket their engagement rates, community and build strong distribution channels.”
Where messaging apps have been even more firmly established than in the U.S. is China, and you can see the rise of the chatbots for marketing use there. Many brands already have chatbots in WeChat, and that shouldn’t be a surprise when mobile devices are the standard way people use the Internet in China. “I’m hopeful that messaging will create the next-generation platform for mobile app distribution,” said Uber’s Andrew Chen.
Privacy Is An Issue
The chatbot is performing in a messaging app, and users expect some degree of privacy when they are messaging with their friends. By extension, users may well find it a bit disturbing if a chatbot knows too much about them—or reveals too much about them to others. Marketers will need to be aware of how users might be feeling while messaging, and make sure that chatbots don’t become creepy or inadvertently obnoxious (as we’ve seen in a recent chatbot test where the AI chatbot was led astray by malicious intent from some users).
Efficiency Is A Chatbot Driver
One of the main reasons that chatbots have become a trend is that they are vastly more efficient for users than wading through a mobile website (or worse, a website designed for a desktop viewed on a mobile screen). Searching for just the right menu item or FAQ can be a painful experience—who among us hasn’t spent far too long trying to find something on a mobile device, only to give up and make a phone call or head to a website on a PC?
For marketers, the message is simple: make sure your chatbot helps a user, hopefully in a substantial way. A chatbot that’s just cute or funny will quickly lose its charm if it’s not enormously useful. Chatbots can be optimized for low engagement time and high repeat use, or for the opposite case where you heighten the narrative content and don’t expect a great deal of repeat use. Of course, you would like to think you could create a chatbot that’s got high engagement and has users coming back again and again, but that’s going to be a difficult goal to reach.
Brands Are Embracing Chatbots
Some iconic brands are already hopping onto the chatbot bandwagon. Mattel has worked with San Francisco company ToyTalk to create a chatbot version of Barbie, which can interact with fans. Uber and Facebook announced a partnership last fall to let users order up an Uber ride through Facebook Messenger. An interesting use of a chatbot on Kik was built for the release of a horror movie, Insidious: Chapter 3, using one of the characters in the movie, Quinn Brenner. “When you’d text Quinn Brenner, she would give you some hints of what’s happening, but after a while, the conversation would taper off just like a normal text conversation,” said Chan. “You wouldn’t have the full experience in one sitting, rather over the course of a few days. Teenagers loved it.”
Kik has been working with many different brands to build chatbots and generate brand engagement, and the results have been good. Comedy website Funny or Die used Kik to build engagement through a chatbot, letting users share in-app GIFs. That led to users following Funny or Die directly. “It took about three months to get to 1.5 million chatters,” said Funny or Die VP of marketing and distribution Patrick Starzan, “compared to the two or three years it took to get the same number of people on social networks.”
What The Future Holds For Chatbots
With Facebook getting behind the chatbot revolution in a big way, we can expect to see the technology being adopted much more widely. Some are predicting chatbots could be the next app revolution, spawning a new wave of user engagement on mobile. The technology isn’t limited to a particular platform or types of purpose, and we could see chatbots used for virtually everything. The technology is particularly well suited to mobile, though, and to voice interaction. We’re going to see plenty of work being done with chatbots to make it easier than ever to order goods and services, and to engage with brands in a variety of ways. This is one tool every marketer needs to study in order to add it to future strategies. The future of the chatbot is wide open right now, and those that lead the way may reap outsized benefits for their brands.
The event is set to kick-off on Monday, April 18, from 10:00-11:00 A.M. PDT, and will have the defender for FC Barcelona and the Spanish National team livestreaming Final Kick alongside FIFA Twitch broadcaster Castro_1021. The session will be aired on Piqué‘s devoted Twitch channel.
Co-sponsored by Amazon Underground (the publishers of Final Kick), the event is the latest to feature an athlete showing his video game prowess, as Piqué has his own game development company, Kerad Games.
“Over this last year, more and more athletes have been showcasing their love of games on Twitch,” said Eric Brunner, who heads up the athlete initiative for Twitch’s Partnership team. He has a few years of MLS experience under his belt, having played for seven years. “We’ve seen MLB, NFL, NBA and UFC stars all using our platform to connect with their fans, so having a soccer star like Gerard Piqué launch a channel really illustrates the diversity of athletes who are embracing social video.”
The idea of playing around with augmented reality is still a fresh one, with more companies looking to integrate the technology with their products. The latest to do so is Snapchat, which recently added new 3D stickers for its millions of users to put into their videos, according to TechCrunch.
As you can see in the photo above, there are many great ways for these stickers to be put into video, whether it’s putting an emoji over the face of a cat, or putting a fake plane into a drawn skyline. These stickers can be put onto objects within a video and they will stay throughout, no matter what’s happening in it. This opens up a wealth of new opportunities for content creators and casual users alike.
What’s more, the process is quite painless. Snapchat fans simply record a video, tap the sticker button located at the top of the screen, put it in place over the object of choice, and hold it down to apply it.
Although Snapchat didn’t say much in regards to who put together the feature, TechCrunch found out that the team recently hired Eitan Pilipski, vice president of engineering from Vuforia, a company that specializes in augmented reality technology with “the power to connect experiences to specific things in the environment.” Its demonstration video below showcases just what it could do with AR, and you can see some of those elements in play with Snapchat’s stickers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rohLgtLQrK4
This is the latest addition to Snapchat’s video services, following the debut of an animated lens to further push creativity in user-created content. The 3D sticker update is available now on Android, and coming soon to iOS devices.
Kobe Bryant’s iconic and illustrious twenty-year career comes to a close tonight.
Ever since he penned his “Dear Basketball” retirement letter on Nov. 29, 2015, the NBA has been sending off the greatest player of his generation in grand fashion. Tonight, the Kleenex comes out as we officially say goodbye.
The legion of teams, opponents and fans he tormented since entering the league in 1996 as a wire-thin high school prodigy from Pennsylvania have showered him with endless adulation and persistent standing ovations in recent months. It’s a strange sight from the parade of people who found him to be a polarizing pariah and heroic sociopath during his prime.
The final farewells have been proper for the 18-time All Star, five-time NBA champion, two-time Olympic gold medalist, and the league’s third all-time scoring leader.
Basketball fans will fall short of superlatives trying to illustrate the Black Mamba’s legacy-defining career and his global impact on basketball. One thing is for certain, though. No matter where you have him on your personal “all-time” list, he’ll forever be on the NBA’s Mount Rushmore.
“You never disappointed the city, Laker fans, and basketball fans worldwide,” Magic Johnson wrote in a letter on Wednesday. “All you cared about was winning games and championships and that’s why so many people love you.”
Bryant retires having earned $680 million for his efforts on the hardwood—the most in NBA history, perForbes. From that figure, $350 million came from endorsements from Nike, Adidas, McDonald’s, Sprite, Apple, Smart Car and Nutella, among countless others. The earnings would be even more astronomical, but sexual assault allegations cast shadows on his image in 2003, and it took sponsors some time to warm up to him again.
Companies still eagerly lined up though, much like fans will tonight at Staples Center—up to $25,000 a pop if you want to be within handshake distance of Jack Nicholson.
As Bryant suits up for the final time in an NBA uniform versus the Utah Jazz—the hardwood will have special No. 8 and No. 24 decals—a team of brands are sending him off to the sunset in style.
The front page of today’s edition of the Los Angeles Times:
Nike has declared April 13 as “Mamba Day,” and of course, there is a special pair of sneakers to celebrate the occasion as well.
Their touching ad titled “The Conductor” features Kobe hitting one last buzzer beater on the road, and orchestrating the banter from his foes before he walks off the floor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQYz0I5dE_A
Nike’s “Don’t Love me. Hate me.” remarkably hits the spot as an homage to Kobe’s tenacity and unending desire to be great—and hated. The stirring tribute was made especially for the Chinese market, where Kobe is a rock star. He recently signed a deal with Alibaba, China’s biggest online marketplace, to create and sell a series of Kobe-branded products.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvgMtfvTgdI
Nike also rolled out their A-list team of athletes featuring LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Roger Federer, Tiger Woods and Serena Williams, among others, to chronicle what Kobe’s fierce and unrelenting attitude means to them.
Sometimes lost in the love and fanfare is that Kobe is having a historically bad season while playing on the worst Lakers team of all time. He’s often seen late in games wrapped in ice and towels like a mummy. Such is the case for a 37-year-old who’s played 50,000 taxing minutes of professional basketball. Apple used actor Michael B. Jordan to poke fun at Kobe’s decline.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CxQW3bzIss
In a laundry list of career highlights and achievements, perhaps the most remarkable for Kobe was scoring 81 points in one game. It’s a feat even difficult to duplicate in video games. NBA 2K celebrated the fact that anyone can be Kobe with a special “Legend Edition” of NBA 2K17, set to be released this September. Here’s the smorgasbord of goodies included in the $79.99 preorder:
Physical Items: Limited-edition Kobe poster; two Kobe Panini playing cards; BlackMamba game controller skin. Digital Content: 30,000 Virtual Currency; MyTEAM Bundle + (includes three packs with guaranteed Kobe limited-use card); Nike Kobe 11 retirement shoes; Kobe No. 8 Mitchell & Ness jersey; Kobe hoodie, and more.
For 2K, it’s a fantastic marketing move to capture Kobe-crazy fans.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UysS_kQYd7s
2K’s “through the years” collage also showcases an impressive and nostalgic evolution of the Mamba’s video game likeness (below). If you’re old enough to remember Bryant’s formative years in the league, then you’ll also recall the Nintendo 64 series Kobe Bryant in NBA Courtsideand jacking up shots just like the real-life version. In fact, Kobe is a veteran of the video game industry, as evidenced by his cameos for Guitar Heroand Call of Duty.
As the season came to a close, American Express hosted a “Teamed Up” event with Kobe to provide a super-exclusive event for card members, giving them special access to Bryant. Kobe was joined by former teammates Rick Fox and Robert Horry for a night of storytelling and celebration. This should be a reminder as good as any for Lakers fans not to ever leave home without an AmEx card. And if you do forget, use the L.A. Metro Blue Line Pico station, otherwise known as the Kobe station, to go back and pick it up.
As Kobe’s retirement loomed, his merchandise sales surged, too. According to CBS, Kobe-related merchandise sales were up more than 100 percent this year and in the last 30 days, sales increased by 500 percent—NBA.com chronicled all 36 jerseys he’s ever worn. If you have an extra $38,000 laying around, AEG and the Lakers team store unveiled the “24 Collection” featuring a New Era, 18-karat gold hat that would even make Robin Leach blush—2 Chainz was impressed by the selection of lavish garb, too. The collection also includes a limited-edition boxed jersey, priced at $824.80.
If you’re looking for something more modest, Stance has released special-edition socks that will be worn by the entire Lakers team tonight, just as Kobe did during L.A.’s upset victory over the Golden State Warriors earlier this season.
If the socks prove to have the winning mojo again on Wednesday, it will be the best sendoff Kobe could ever ask for.
The push for Marvel Studios’ latest film, Captain America: Civil War, has begun and it’s taking the fight online.
Marvel has launched a new promotion alongside its partner, online ticket sales company Fandango, asking fans to choose a side on Twitter using the hashtag #TeamCap or #TeamIronMan.
The time is now — let the world know who you stand with. You never know who’s listening… https://t.co/ZOvwuL2Obk
While making positions publicly known is good fun, some lucky users are getting something back: a response from a member of the film’s cast. Actors like Paul Rudd, Sebastian Stan and Anthony Mackie spent a good deal of time recording responses with popular names, which the Captain America Twitter then posted as replies to these users, making them seem like they’re actually talking to them.
A few samples are below. While most of them are positive, some express disappointment with the user’s decision to back the other team.
The program has been a success thus far, with tens of thousands of responses. It’s the latest promotion to be introduced for Civil War for Twitter, following the debut of custom emojis for #TeamCap and #TeamIronMan, which arrived earlier this month.
With just under a month until the movie releases, Captain America: Civil War is getting huge promotional pushes with partners like Fandango, Pizza Hut and others launching their campaigns. New film clips are popping up online, including this one, where Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) meets up with Captain America (Chris Evans) and his team for the first time.
The film opens May 6th. Those that can’t get enough of Marvel’s media takeover can also enjoy the debut trailer for Benedict Cumberbatch’s upcoming Doctor Strange both online and on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, and it performed well on social media. The late night talk show host is interviewing actors from Civil War and across the Marvel movie and TV show universe this week.
Facebook has already had a pretty wild month, with the introduction of initiatives that will help marketers utilize the site and its many features to their advantage. The company continued its stride at the start of the developer-oriented F8 conference today, with announcements that will help shape the future of Facebook as we know it.
Co-founder Mark Zuckerberg took the stage to kick off the event, explaining the focus of keeping people connected around the world. “As I look around and I travel around the world, I’m starting to see people and nations turning inward, against this idea of a connected world and a global community,” he stated. “I hear fearful voices calling for building walls and distancing people they label as others. For blocking free expression, for slowing immigration, reducing trade, and in some cases, around the world even cutting access to the Internet.”
But he remained hopeful. “It takes courage to choose hope over fear. People will always call you naïve but it’s this hope and this optimism that’s behind every important step forward.”
With that, Zuckerberg introduced a new bot platform for Messenger, enabling developers to create them inside the messaging service for new functionality. With assistance from its partners at Baidu, this serivce includes an API to help build not only bots, but also chat widgets that will be accessible to media types that will enhance messages to subscribers with news and other information.
Zuckerberg went on to explain how Facebook Messenger, alongside WhatsApp, has managed to generate 60 billion messages per day, which is three times the normal amount for SMS. He noted how the Messenger service now has over 900 million monthly users, which makes the aforementioned announcement about chat bots very exciting for particular marketers.
Facebook also turned a spotlight on the Save function, which enables users to reserve content for later viewing. Even though it’s “buried” under a mountain of new content, 250 million people still take advantage of the feature. That was more than enough to prompt the company to introduce a specific button for it, which now lets publishers add the button to standard article templates. Once they see something they like, users can save the content right into their Facebook queue. The company expects to introduce it on Product Hunt and Overstock once it’s ready for launch.
Live video was a huge part of its opening keynote, and now any camera can stream onto Facebook Live, even a DJI Drone, which was brought out onto the stage. With this feature, developers can incorporate Facebook video into their programs and applications, allowing for better interaction with audiences. The tweet below from Niv Dror shows the camera drone in action, as Mark gives it a little wave.
The company also made a push for 360-degree video during the presentation by introducing a new high-end video capture system called the Facebook Surround 360. It features a 17-camera array and accompanying web-based software, which enables the ability to capture 360-degree video in real-time. Unfortunately, the UFO-shaped device isn’t ready for mass market yet, as it’s still in the prototype phase.
Facebook chief product officer, Chris Cox, announced better video integration with a new feature that will enable users to replace static profile photos with a seven-second video, with support from Vine, Instagram’s Boomerang service and Facebook’s MSQRD. With it, users simply need to press a button and let videos get captured directly to their page, in place of the usual profile image.
“If you’re building a selfie cam app…you can plug this in seamlessly to Facebook,” explained Cox.
The tool, labeled a “profile expression kit,” will be made available to developers so they can integrate the tool better into their camera apps. A launch date hasn’t been given yet, but it shouldn’t be too far off.
Zuckerberg also talked about the possibilities of virtual and augmented reality, which is where he’d like the company to move towards in five years. “Virtual reality has the potential to be the most social platform, because you actually feel like you’re right there with another person,” he explained.
“Over the next 10 years, the form factor’s just going to keep on getting smaller and smaller, and eventually we’re going to have what looks like normal-looking glasses that can do both virtual and augmented reality. And augmented reality gives you the ability to see the world but also to be able to overlay digital objects on top of that.
“So that means that today, if I want to show my friends a photo, I pull out my phone and I have a small version of the photo. In the future, you’ll be able to snap your fingers and pull out a photo and make it as big as you want, and with your AR glasses you’ll be able to show it to people and they’ll be able to see it.
“As a matter of fact, when we get to this world, a lot of things that we think about as physical objects today, like a TV for displaying an image, will actually just be $1 apps in an AR app store. So it’s going to take a long time to make this work. But this is the vision, and this is what we’re trying to get to over the next 10 years.”
There’s a lot of ground being covered here, from the expansion of 360-degree video to augmented reality to more convenient features for marketers and companies to take advantage of on the social front. It’s certainly a lot to take in — but it shows how incredibly serious Facebook is when it comes to not only making things convenient for its partners, but also its users.
It’s been a busy week for Facebook, as the company has introduced a number of initiatives in the hopes of drawing in more content creators and brands. Among the four biggest components are:
Video
The company first posted a blog earlier this week discussing the new video features being added. Specifically, a new mobile tab was added to the Facebook mobile app, making it easier to look up user videos. It also provides a huge upgrade to livestreaming by allowing users to broadcast to Groups and events.
With these new features, there’s potential for reaching out to new audiences, especially through events and fan groups monitored by a marketing team.
Speaking with Buzzfeed, company co-founder Mark Zuckerberg noted, “If you’re a public figure, the audience is unprecedented. If you’re Jimmy Fallon and want to go live, it’s not really worth your time unless you can reach an audience that’s similar to what you can reach on TV.” And while those numbers matter in aggregate for people like Fallon, they may even matter more on an individual level for regular people. “If you’re a person that just wants to share with your friends, it helps to have your friends there.”
Canvas
Last month, Facebook released its new Canvas experience for its mobile app, enabling advertisers to bring products to life like never before. It’s the latest push in an effort to reach out to its billions of daily users, creating a unique experience instead of a traditional ad format.
What does this mean for marketers? Canvas allows marketers to become more creative with their advertising, putting together experiences that expand beyond the usual “banner ad” or “auto-playing video.”
However, it still needs some time to be effective, according to VentureBeat. The format is currently “not ready for the agencies of their advertiser clients looking to use it to drive direct, measured results.” However, they won’t have to wait long to see these results come to life, as it could reach that potential in just three-to-six months.
That said, impressions are positive, as some consider Canvas to be a “cool new toy” for agencies to try out.
Improvements To Native Ads
Some companies have been hard at work trying to make native ads work on Facebook, but the company’s recent changes to its branded content policy could make things a little bit easier. With the changes, verified Pages will now be better enabled for sharing content, even though some of it will still be blocked if it’s too promotional for its own good.
“This update is something that media companies, public figures, influencers, and marketers have been asking for, as branded content is a growing and evolving part of the media landscape,” the blog (written by Facebook product manager Clare Rubin and Nick Grudin, VP of Partnerships) notes. “People will now be connected to more of the content they care most about on Facebook as publishers and influencers gain an incentive to share more quality content—of all kinds—with their fans. We know that many of our partners have existing partnership deals with marketers, and this update gives them the ability to extend their branded content business onto Facebook.”
What does this mean for marketers? Provided it can produce its branded content the right way and utilize video features for a more effective campaign, then there’s no reason why a company can’t find success using native ads on Facebook.
“The marketer will be notified, can access post-level insights, and will have the option of sharing and boosting the post. We focused on designing an easy tagging experience to create a simple and streamlined workflow for both publishers and marketers,” the blog also states.
Messenger
Facebook’s Messenger service could be seeing the most innovative push of all, making it easier to access its 900 million monthly active users.
The service now supports custom QR codes, like the ones Snapchat utilizes, where users can link up with one another and begin conversations. This lets users find and communicate with people more simply, even when they’re in the middle of watching an event or livestream.
What does this mean for marketers? While the full marketability hasn’t been nailed down yet, the social possibilities are endless. After all, we’re talking about a vast audience of people with a stronger way to communicate with one another. Imagine putting together a promotional campaign for a band or film where fans can connect with one another and talk about how excited they are. It worked for Twitter and yesterday’s launch of the Star Wars: Rogue One trailer.
It’ll probably be some time before we see a campaign that effectively utilizes Messenger’s social features, but the potential is definitely there. It has to be done right, so perhaps the cautious approach is the best way to go.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens was a massive box office success, earning over $2 billion, and this week’s home release is expected to break even more records. So, the timing is perfect for Disney and Lucasfilm to promote a new film in the franchise.
This morning, the companies released a new teaser trailer for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, and fans are already hyped. This prequel actually ties in with the earlier films, with a ragtag group of soldiers assigned to steal the plans of the Death Star, a super-sized intergalactic battle station that was heavily featured in the original movie trilogy.
Directed by Gareth Edwards (Godzilla), the movie features an all-star cast, including Felicity Jones, Donnie Yen, Diego Luna, Forest Whitaker and Mads Mikkelsen, and promises to be “a departure from the saga films but have elements that are familiar to the Star Wars universe,” according to Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy. “It goes into new territory, exploring the galactic struggle from a ground-war perspective while maintaining that essential Star Wars feel that fans have come to know.”
The teaser premiered earlier today on Good Morning America before being let loose on the Internet, where millions of fans immediately began discussing it on social media. Most of the responses have been positive, with fans excited about a return to an “old-school” style—characterized by the appearances of Star Destroyers, AT-AT’s and classic stormtroopers—that is reminiscent of the original movies from the ’70s and ’80s.
The film is set to undergo a huge promotion over the next few months, which will include a heavy presence at this summer’s Star Wars Celebration in London, possible new content for the game Star Wars: Battlefront, and perhaps new toys and products that are similar to last year’s The Force Awakens line-up. Disney hasn’t revealed all its plans for Rogue One promotion yet, but we’re certain to see much more rolling out over the next few months.
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story releases in theaters on December 16th, 2016.
