Star Wars. You don’t have to be a sci-fi fan to know Star Wars. But how did the Star Wars franchise become so well-known? How did the epic phrase: “May the force be with you,” become a catch phrase? Fact is, Disney kills it at Content Marketing.
Usually when we marketers look for successful content marketing case studies to learn from, we tend to think of products, brands and services, very rarely do we look into the film industry. And out of all films, we probably never would have thought about looking at Star Wars. And that is just how good their content marketing is. It’s so good, many marketers don’t even know it is content marketing while we joke and imitate famous quotes such as: “No, I am your father…”.
We remember these quotes so well because we hear them not only once on the big screen. We see, read and hear them consistently over time from the many content marketing channels! Repeat, repeat, repeat!
Building Hype Through Content Marketing
Let’s take a look at the upcoming Star Wars: Episode VIII. Firstly, there is little to no clear footage or leaks. And when small details are revealed, fans get exceedingly excited and anticipates the release even more. Disney completely understands how to build hype, which is pretty much content marketing to engage and pull in the audience. Even if that content is a small sneak peek, if it does the job to engage the audience; it’s a success.
Timeless vs Time-based Content Marketing
Content has many dimensions: Time, Location, Duration, Scale and much more. And one of the important elements of any content is Time. Content can be timeless, content can be time-based with constraints and content can jump back and forth between the past, present and future. Disney has used this element of time to role out content marketing efforts that brings depth and meaning to its fans. In the movie itself, you will notice that each series answer questions from previous series, and create new questions to be answered by future series.
These time-based content is also discussed, shared and engaged by fans on social media, community forums and blogs, creating a well-connected content marketing web. Whether or not it was intentional, the concept ended up being a beautifully crafted timeline-based content marketing network that encompasses the Star Wars movies.
Exhausting Content Marketing Channels
Star Wars content is definitely not only video content. The same concept is diversified into text, apps, games and even audios, increasing touch points for audiences to engage with; going beyond digital content into toys and games such as Star Wars Lego.
We’ve yet to see a full analysis report on how content marketing was played out for Star Wars: Episode VIII. In the meantime, we’ve seen detailed reviews on Disney’s epic results for Star Wars: The Force Awakens content marketing efforts.
“The Content Marketing is strong in this one.”