Disney’s Cruella — Marketing Plan
In order to properly prepare for the release of Disney’s Cruella, tabbed to be released on May 28, 2021, it is imperative to establish a marketing strategy that will be implemented in conjunction with before, during, and after the movie release. Cruella has great potential, and therefore a proper goal should be set for this campaign in order to capitalize on this. Since the pandemic is still a prominent factor that has to be taken into consideration, this campaign will be primarily digital with a few safety-oriented, in-person implementations.
The SMART goal for this campaign will be to increase social interaction on all platforms by at least 16 percent by July 28, 2021, increasing the excitement around the movie release and ensuring the movie stays relevant post-release.
Campaign
Due to the fact that this is a Disney “sequel,” the target audience will be larger than compared to a typical Disney movie. The target market will be individuals 8–65. The reason the target market is so large is, 101 Dalmatians was released on January 25, 1961. Individuals that were five years old when this movie was first released will only be 65 years old now. With that being said, this marketing campaign will play into the nostalgia factor for the older generation and the creativity aspect for the younger generations. Eight may seem like a young age, but so many young individuals use the internet that this may be the perfect opportunity to include more youthful generations.
Although popular social media sites have an age limit of 13 to sign up, many young individuals lie about their age and open their first social media account by age 11.4, owning their first smartphone at age 10.3. With that being said, the study shows that by the time the youth is at the age of 12, 50% of kids use at least one social media platform (Katie Brigham, 2018).
In order to properly reach our target market, this campaign will utilize Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. YouTube’s demographic is the youngest of them all, with average users being the age of 15–25. On the contrary, Facebook has the oldest demographic, with the average age being 25–34 (Brent Barnhart, 2021).
The voice used for this campaign will be playful but not immature, friendly but not fake, and smart but not cocky. The voice should be consistent throughout platforms, but Twitter will have some more leeway when it comes to complete sentences/ words. No matter the case, no social post should be wordy — keep every post 280 characters, including hashtags.
The hashtags that should be used for this campaign are as follows: #Cruella and #DisneyPlus. In this campaign, it is important not to bog down readers with hashtags. Although they are beneficial in most cases, too many hashtags mustn’t change the visual of the posts.
Influencers, when utilized properly, can be extremely beneficial to a campaign’s success. Bringing in influencers who are already fans of Disney, and have a following based on that, will be pulled in for this campaign. Tom Bricker (@Tom_Bricker on Twitter) and Lou Mongello (@LouMongello) are established Disney bloggers who will be ideal for promoting Cruella. Although they will not be the focus of our campaign, they will add some outreach.
Measurement and Tools
Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook analytics will all be utilized with this campaign. There will be an in-depth analysis of the campaign analytics one week after the start of the campaign and one week before the campaign shifts (i.e., pre, during, and post-movie release). Analytics shall be monitored weekly, but the in-depth analysis is not necessary. It is very important that there is an understanding of how the campaign is doing in its entirety.
Here are some example posts that can be implemented during the pre, during, and post phases of the campaign:
By establishing a strong marketing plan since the beginning, Disney’s Cruella has a great chance of being a success.
