Mid February sees the launch of the latest film-focused partnership between Manchester United and 20th Century Fox promoting Marvel’s latest movie ‘Logan’
A reworked version of the film’s flagship trailer sees the football club liken its all-time top scorer Wayne Rooney to the Marvel hero Wolverine.
The spot draws parallels between the England and the club captain’s toughness by comparing the forward’s ability to combat his critics and recover from injuries to the easily-angered, super-tough X-Men character portrayed by actor Hugh Jackman.
The club shared its version of the promotion across its own social media channels – including to its 10.2 million Twitter followers.
Nobody is born a legend. You fight to become one. #Logan #HisTimeHasCome@20CenturyFoxUK pic.twitter.com/Hc7xp1EzDX
— Manchester United (@ManUtd) February 15, 2017
Activative Comment:
Thus far, the ‘Logan – Heroes Become Legends’ Utd spot has generated more than 2.2k retweets.
The ‘Logan’ promotion follows on from a series of previous partnerships between Man Utd and 20th Century Fox including Deadpool,
Independence Day 2,
and X-Men Apocalypse.
As entertainment genres blend we are seeing more and more sport/music and sport/movie partnerships with dual or even triple promotional objectives.
Some of these are primarily based around using one of the partner’s fan base and reach to push the other’s property and drive awareness, while others are more balanced initiatives offering genuine synergies and mutually beneficial outcomes.
The standard approach, off course, is a classic brand/movie tie-up that includes product placement: such as Audi & Ironman 3 (see case study), or Heineken & James Bond (see case study).
But there are also examples of multiple partnership tie-ups: such as Kia fronting its Australian Open tennis sponsorship with a campaign featuring ambassador Rafael Nadal and focusing on its own 20th century Fox film alliance with X-Men Apocalypse (see case study).
Ridiculous? Probably!
Does it work? Almost certainly!
Links:
Manchester United
https://www.facebook.com/manchesterunited/
http://www.manutd.com/en/Club/Sponsors.aspx
https://www.instagram.com/MANCHESTERUNITED/
https://plus.google.com/+MANUTD
https://www.pinterest.com/manutd/
20th Century Fox
https://twitter.com/20thcenturyfox
https://www.facebook.com/20thCenturyFox
https://www.youtube.com/user/foxmovies
https://www.instagram.com/20thcenturyfox/
Marvel Website
