Superman Powerful Marketing
Even if you have been living under a rock for the past decade, I guarantee at some point, somehow, someway a superhero story has crossed your path. This global phenomenon is the most popular movie genre by a landslide and it seems as if every other movie that comes out is about a supernatural being in a costume. But why is that? How has this superhero business been able to stay so successful for so long?
I’m sure we’re all well aware superheroes are a huge aspect of contemporary entertainment. Whether you’re a die hard fan who's fully enveloped in the cinematic universes or just watch the films once they fit Netflix, there’s something we can all learn from the superheroes and the unprecedented success of this genre.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe has put out 23 movies since 2008… yes TWENTY THREE and has 11 more movies in the works (not including the 3 Disney+ shows released in 2021). To put in perspective how insane this run is; Star Wars has turned out 12 movies since 1977, the Harry Potter universe managed 10 movies since 2001, and there are only 8 seasons of Game of Thrones. Yet somehow we can expect there to be a total of 34 Marvel movies within the next few years and we didn’t even include the dozens of DC movies about Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman.
But why is that? How has the hero genre become so popular and more impressively, stayed so popular for so long even after a near perfect conclusion in Avengers Endgame? How have people not become bored of the genre where, pre-covid, the movies were almost a guaranteed billion dollar money maker? Let’s examine this further and how we can learn from these marketing geniuses.
Superheroes are our reflection:
We all face unique challenges in our day-to-day lives. Some of these challenges are daunting where we may feel there is no way we can overcome and beat the odds. Some of the appeal of Iron Man is the epic scope, dazzling visuals, and a form of escapism from our troubles in real life. However, the appeal of superheroes can also be for the opposite: they mirror the human experience and can face the same personal struggles that you and I do.
Take Captain America, for example, he was once an ordinary kid before he was given a “super soldier” serum. Yes, he was given incredible athleticism and super strength but his problems don’t always revolve around saving the world. The pain of losing a loved one, struggling to fit in because of his differences, and having to overcome immense failure are all experiences you, me, and Captain America have faced or could face at some point in our lives. Marvel creator, Stan Lee once said “Even if they have super powers, they have to be believable. What they do has to be what any normal person would do in those situations.”
Even more so, at the very core of every superhero’s story is a world not too different from our own. Unlike other fantasy movies like Harry Potter or the Hunger Games, super hero stories are grounded in our own reality (okay maybe not Krypton, but still). Yes, each character's super powers are a little, very unrealistic to what can actually be accomplished. But the worlds in which they interact with often reflect and follow the same rules as our own present-day society .
Just take a look at the 3 different Spider-man franchises over the past 20 years. While each tells the same story of a teenager being bit by a radioactive spider, Marvel understands who their audience is and adapts each story to appeal to the times of the release. From all of the cheesy jokes and sound effects in the 2001 Spider-man to using Instagram live as Spideys way to find his friends and save the day in 2019’s Spider-man Far From Home (it was way cooler in the movie than it sounds). It becomes very easy for anyone to see themselves living and interacting in the world of these heroes.
Superheroes represent the best in us:
Psychologist Robin S. Rosenberg defines a superhero as “someone who has superhuman powers and does heroic deeds by exhibiting brave and self-sacrificing behavior.” We see this in every big screen story: Iron Man's redemption arc from self-serving billionaire to sacrificing everything to help others, Wonder Woman leaving behind her home to help defeat Ares from destroying the world. We see this Call to Adventure time and time again in countless stories across the world. In fact Joseph Cambell wrote a fantastic book called “A Hero With a Thousand Faces” where we see the same character arc in every book, film, or story out there. A hero takes a call to adventure, leaving behind the ordinary world, faces challenges and strife before ultimately beating the odds and achieving victory.
It’s the same story in Star Wars, Harry Potter, The Lord of The Rings, The Hunger Games (the list goes on) and we still can’t get enough of it. It turns out, we love this story. We as human beings have an attraction towards strong, inspiring individuals who protect others and use their gifts for good.
A study by Nature demonstrated why we love these particular qualities. They took six and ten month old children and showed them clips of violent interactions. In one clip the children saw someone intervene and stop the violent actions, in another the violent actions went unchecked. The study was able to find that at just six months old humans already approved of people who actively intervened and helped each other out. This is who we are. We all admire and want to be around people who are hopeful and bring out the best in others through their words or their actions. We want to be around the kind of people who live their life helping others. Even the villains in movies believe they are the hero of their own story.
At the end of the day, people like to associate themselves with people doing good things for others.
So how does this relate to Marketing?
So I’m sure you’ve been thinking, this is cool and all to understand the hype of why so many movies and shows are about a superhero, but how is this relevant to marketing?
Well at the core of it all, superheroes are in their own way, marketers. Marketing is all about understanding why people move and how to alleviate various points of friction. We want to find the common ground where our network beliefs overlap with the brand's conviction. Marvel and various other movie studios recognize that this overlap occurs with the reliability of their characters to their audiences and has established incredibly strong ties between the two. They understand their consumers better than almost any other business and know how to touch the soul of their audiences. They use this network belief overlap to help convey stories of people we believe are most similar to us (aside from their super powers) and who overcome their personal demons. We love to associate ourselves with brands and people we believe reflect who we are and that’s why superhero movies are so successful.
Even if you’re not the biggest fan, we can all identify with at least one superhero. From a socially awkward Peter Parker, to strong female leads in Wonder Woman, the first African-American Superhero in Black Panther, or an attempt to redeem yourself from past mistakes like Iron-Man. Each character is a reflection of a different persona of ourselves where, more often than not, we see ourselves in more than one of these characters.
As easy as it is to be cynical and complain about the dumbing down of society to keep being fed the same superhero story time and time again, there is something inspiring about these films. Something that drives other people to action and more to follow them. These characters spread hope, happiness, and optimism that we too can take action and make the world a better place through our own story.
