Merc-With-A-Mouth Movie Marketing

Published: 06/05/2023 by Kayleigh Walter

Tonnes of movies come out every year and every year you find yourself being shown the same type of marketing. Social Media, Advertising Posters and Teaser Trailers but is that enough to get you excited? I love my movies and find the advertising campaigns for them really interesting and I am sad enough to find myself waiting for the next out-of-the-box marketing campaign, one that really stands out and tries something different.

That was why I was so excited when the marketing started for Deadpool 2. I haven’t seen a creative marketing campaign like theirs since, well since Deadpool.

Deadpool wormed his way onto our screens and into our hearts in February 2016, but long before that the film was making waves with its creative advertising. From advertising the movie as a romantic film, hoping girlfriends would be encouraged to watch Deadpool at the cinema with their partners on Valentines Day, to billboards with nothing but emojis on them and cocky, ‘sexualised’ movie posters with a self-involved sense of humour.

Deadpool or should I say, Ryan Reynolds, stood out of the crowd and turned his ‘merc-with-a-mouth’ character into a full-on persona which has heavily influenced the marketing campaign for both of the movies.

Deadpool 2’s marketing campaign included all of the usual goal posts, advertising posters, TV commercials and Social Media but they were all done in Deadpool style; with a cocky attitude and nothing you could take seriously. A very Deadpool, Ryan Reynolds the two are one in the same at this point, a thing to do.

Part of the Deadpool 2 marketing campaign included branding deals with the likes of ‘Loot Crate’ and ‘Mike’s Harder Beer’ but the most creative brand partnership was with ‘Trolli Candy’ in which they created a new line of ‘Tiny Hand’ sweets based off of Deadpool’s tiny hand from the original movie and of course it was announced in total Deadpool fashion.

Walmart also got involved with the marketing, another big well-known brand. They had their in-store Blu-Ray DVD racks invaded by the marketing team who replaced famous DVD covers with Deadpool centric covers instead, with advertising boards declaring ‘My face is on all these movies that I’m not in’ and ‘haha these packages contain the original films.’

I would absolutely love to get my tiny hands on some of those Blu-Ray DVDs but unfortunately, the only way you can own a copy now is to spend £25+ on eBay (not including postage) per individual title. Even bags of the ‘Trolli Candy Tiny Hands’ are on eBay for £30+.

This was probably my favourite stunt of the whole campaign because it wasn’t something I had ever seen done before and I thought it was a really effective way of advertising and it worked because it fit in with Deadpool’s Persona.

Other highlights of the campaign included numerous magazine spreads and covers including a talking Empire cover, from a large number of ridiculous teaser trailers and tidbits to a music video with Celine Dion. The whole campaign has been run as if Deadpool is in charge of every decision. From posters released to partnerships created and it really makes this campaign stand out from the others because it has personality. There is no worry about offending the public or saying something inappropriate because that is Deadpool in a nutshell. When you see the Deadpool brand, you expect attitude, you expect something inappropriate and this approach really does wonders for its marketing reach. Deadpool 2 made $125 million in its opening weekend in the US and Canada.

More movies keep being released with bigger budgets but there is very little imagination these days when it comes to advertising movies so it’s really nice to see marketing campaigns like Deadpool stepping out of the box to bring something new and exciting to the table. I wonder what we'll see next.