Fast Company provides an awesome summary of the whacky transmedia Marketing machine for Deadpool 2. I just love all this thinking-out-the-box stuff.
“What 20th Century Fox and Ryan Reynolds did was lean into what worked last time, while expanding ever so slightly into newer, less familiar areas. Like a coloring contest. Or somehow convincing Good Housekeeping magazine to let Deadpool guest edit a holiday issue….plus.the ultimate film soundtrack formula for success (since ’97): a Celine Dion power ballad. Unexpected, sure, but with about 20 million views and bajillions more in earned media, it’s yet another shrewd move by the guy in red tights.
Perhaps the most obvious way Deadpool 2‘s marketing has expanded beyond its initial incarnation is with product marketing. Even there, though, the studio has managed to play it just weird enough to make even a blatant brand tie-in cash grab look like a clever joke. This is not Happy Meal territory. Here we meet Devour frozen sandwiches in what appears to be a middle-of-the-night munchies-induced fever dream, self-aware sell-out accusations and all.
Then there’s Mike’s Harder Lemonade, which goes the pretty traditional route of tie-in packaging, but then added a twist with two pop-up bar events in New York and L.A. that recreate Deadpool’s favorite watering hole, Sister Margaret’s School for Wayward Girls. More impressive is the partnership with candy brand Trolli on a “tiny hands” edition of the gummies, a clever throwback to a memorable scene in the original…”