Movie Marketing Madness: Kung Fu Panda

There’s always a sense of uncertainty when it comes time for Dreamworks to release another animated feature. While the studio has certainly produced some successes at the box-office like Shrek and…um…err…Shrek 2, there’s always the fear that whatever it is that’s being released now will be an uninspired mess like Shark Tale, Madagascar, Shrek 3,….do I need to go on? The problem is that the movies are always compared to the consistent genius of Pixar, comparisons that only highlight how Dreamworks offerings tend to highlight fart jokes and already-stale pop culture references instead of any sort of emotional story or actual humor.

The latest such offering, and one that, at least in my mind has managed to avoid being pigeon-holed already as being sub-par, is Kung Fu Panda.

In the movie Jack Black voices Panda, the latest student at a martial arts dojo that trains warriors for epic battles. He’s the one who must face some new terror that has emerged, despite his propensity for being lazy and not having any of the discipline or skills exemplified by his more studious fellow students. Of course that fits in very well with Black’s public brand and persona and the marketing campaign that we’ll now look at plays up that aspect of the movie heavily.

The Posters

Actually – and a bit surprisingly – there was only one poster that I could find had been created for the movie.

That one poster just showed Po the Panda in a very kung-fu-esque pose, with a temple and mountain tops in the background. The movie’s title treatment and the copy point “Prepare for Awesomeness” appeared at the bottom and Jack Black’s name was at top since it is, after all, one of the movie’s primary selling points.

It’s a good poster, but as I said I’m surprised it’s the only one that got released. It feels like a teaser poster that should have been followed up with a theatrical version that had the actual release date and maybe some other characters and actor names along with it. There should have been something, especially since most of the other major release films this summer are getting multiple posters, with new ones coming out all the time that constantly threaten to push this one out of the glass cases.

Speaking of those other characters, I’m equally as surprised there wasn’t a series of character posters produced, especially considering the big names providing the voices for those characters. Angelina Jolie may not be seen in the film, but that doesn’t make her any less of a popular draw. Same goes, though to a different extent, for Seth Rogan and Dustin Hoffman. Those characters also, as we’re about to see, get a lot of focus in the trailers for the movie so I think that there should have been some sort of print extension of that.

The Trailers

The first teaser trailer that was released did little but inform us as to the world the movie took place in and the characters we would be watching. It goes through the dramatic introductions of the five other members of the “Furious Five” as they’re referred to and then juxtapose their extreme skill with the introduction of Po the panda, who’s seen gnoshing on some snacks while the master glares disapprovingly. Po is then asked to hit a punching bag and his ineptitude is highlighted as it comes back to hit him, sending him flying across the room.

The first theatrical trailer begins on familiar ground, with slightly different or extended versions of some of the stuff we saw in the teaser. There’s the barest hint of a story that’s alluded to – something about the Panda being the chosen one for some sort of battle – but mostly this is still about reinforcing the comedy that’s inherent in a panda that’s voiced by Jack Black trying to do Kung Fu. The other characters get some lines this time, though, which is nice. It actually is quite funny.

The second theatrical trailer contains a number of elements that have been carried over from previous installments. It starts off similarly in that it introduces the other animal members of the dojo along with their respective fighting styles, but it does so with some new footage for each one. It also features yet another action shot done in slow-motion, something we’ve seen in each of the other trailers, though it’s a new scene. The fact that it’s new doesn’t make up, though, for the fact that we can now assume this is a technique the filmmakers have mined extensively in the movie.

One unqualified new element included in this trailer is the explanation of some of the movie’s plot, something about someone dangerous having escaped. That differentiates it greatly from previous trailers that positioned the movie as one great big Jack Black comedy routine about how fat and lazy his panda character is.

The more I think about it the more this combination of new and old actually makes sense to me. We can discuss whether it works or not, but it does manage to come across as both familiar and new at the same time, an accomplishment that could work to the movie’s advantage in reaching an audience.

One thing all the trailers have in common is the use of slow motion. Every trailer has at least one scene that’s slowed down to show something like the panda flying through the air or landing on someone’s head or some other gag. At first I thought this was kind of a lazy tactic, like they were really underlining all the jokes in an unnecessary way. But then I began to think this was more about differentiating the funny bits from the fast-paced action that is spread around the rest of the movie. It still is a way to really draw attention to the physical humor and outrageous reaction shots of the panda or someone else but at least I kind of understand why that well is gone to so regularly.

Online

The movie’s official website continues, when you first load it, the same image branding as the poster. Before entering the site’s full content you have the option of watching a trailer – the second theatrical trailer, to be exact – , grabbing a widget (more on this below) and reading “Dragon News,” which is a list of headlines touting site updates and more. It’s a good idea, but without an RSS feed to subscribe to it’s more or less useless if you’re not coming back and hitting the site every day.

Let’s now enter the site.

The site’s content is laid out in a very cool fashion, with a lot of animation and such and a scrolling environment that gives you access to some cool hidden goodies. But before diving into that let’s just look at what’s on the menu that expands when you mouse over the logo at the bottom of the screen.

Up first is “Dragon News” which is just the same thing we saw on the front of the site.

When you hit “Downloads” it gives you all kinds of options but don’t worry too much about it – clicking one will bring up the whole section. Once there you can grab the Widget, a Screensaver, some Buddy Icons and Wallpapers. There’s even a handful of Email Signatures that you can download and use yourself, which is something that’s pretty cool and which isn’t used a whole heck of a lot. There are also some Panda-based Emoticons for use in your instant messaging program. Again, I like that a lot in no small part because it’s so rare to see. It puts the movie’s branding inside people’s conversations but gives them the control over its usage, which is a good balance to find.

“Video” contains all three of the trailers as well as a behind the scenes Preview and a Music Video of “Kung-Fu Fighting” featuring film clips and vocal support by Black.

“Production” is where you’ll find Cast and Crew profiles that aren’t anything new or all that interesting. Also there is The Film, which is actually a series of bite-size chunked production notes covering everything from casting to art design and other areas. Also there is Production Art, which features a bunch of the movie’s concept art and, in some cases, progressions of that art into digital rendering and then the final product, which is cool to see.

Moving into the site’s more interactive content there are three main sections.

The first is “Explore,” which takes you to the various locations the movie takes place in, ranging from the training hall to a palace and more. Each location comes with a text background of that spot as well as one or two clips from the movie that are set there.

The second is “Games.” There are a variety of games to choose from, be it Throwing Stars, Punching Dummy Challenge or more. There’s also the KFP Online Multiplayer Game and a demo of the console game for the movie from Activision.

Alongside that is “Activities” that has a whole slew of things to print out and color, assemble or otherwise have fun with. There are puzzles, characters to build and more. These two sections are certainly geared more toward the kids in the audience but the selection of content here makes them valuable additions to the site.

There’s also a section for “Partners” that lists all the promotional partners Dreamworks lined up for the movie, most of which are covered below. The problem is that not all of them have any sort of clickable link that takes you to information on the promotion. That makes doing any sort of research into those partnerships a bit tricky and is a bit disappointing.

When you mouse-over the logo at the bottom of the screen you’ll also see each character gets its own listing. Clicking on that takes you to a whole bunch of content that’s specific to that character such as downloads, a gallery, a brief biography.

I mentioned that the side scrolls to the right and left and that there were things hidden in the scenery, but that turns out to be the same sort of location information you find under “Explore” and the character pages that are accessed by clicking their picture. I didn’t see anything else unique that was hidden there so it just depends on what you want your experience on the site to be.

As has become common for movies, there was a widget created for Kung Fu Panda that features a personality test showing which martial art they’re best suited for. The widgets also contained trailers and clips from the movie. After people embedded them on their site or social network profile Interpolis, the agency which created it, could see which generation that particular embed was, or how far removed from the official site for the movie it was as a way to monitor its progression across the web.

The movie’s Facebook fan page (I couldn’t find a MySpace profile) is a pretty standard affair, allowing you to grab the widget and download some stuff. There was also a Get Your Daily Fortune application you could add that did just what you would expect it to do.

Media

One of the biggest components of the movie’s earned media push came when it was shown (out of competition) at the Cannes Film Festival. Jack Black, Angelina Jolie and others from the movie went to the French Riviera along with 40 guys in panda suits to put on a big show for the press that was there. It’s much the same tactic Dreamworks took last year with Bee Movie, when they had Jerry Seinfeld zipline down to the waterfront while wearing a bee costume. Coverage of the Panda stunt was everywhere for a few days, with people posting pictures and video they had taken of the spectical.

Advertising and Cross Promotions

Dreamworks has lined up a whole bunch of promotional partners for the movie, so let’s try to give each one its due.

American Airlines is listed as being the movie’s “Official U.S. airline” and has a “What is your Kung Fu Style?” quiz as well as the trailer on its AAPubs.com movie site. Black also got profiled in the airline’s American Way magazine.

Bank of America is also listed as a promotional partner but there’s nothing about that deal on the bank’s website or the official KFP movie site so I’m not sure what exactly this entails.

Wrigley partnered with the movie through their Hubba Bubba brand. The microsite for that partnership has a sweepstakes awarding kung fu lessons, a copy of the movie’s video game or packs of Hubba Bubba chewing gum along with movie stuff like the trailer and some wallpapers.

Kelloggs slapped Po the Panda on a bunch of its snack and breakfast food, as did Kid Cousine, Crunch N Munch, Trix Yogurt and Orville Redenbacher’s Popcorn. Energizer did that as well, but at least their microsite had little game you could play that had the Energizer Bunny doing some kung fu and a sweepstakes you could enter.

Hewlett-Packard, a long time partner with Dreamworks, probably had the most extensive micorsite and cross-promotion. its site featured a number of videos as well as activities to download and such. In fact there’s a whole activity pack you can download that includes photo cards, photo frames and other kind of stuff, all of which of course is meant to reinforce the idea of printing when it comes to HP.

Safeway will, for its part, give you two movie tickets when you buy $40 of participating products in its stores. Visa is also a sponsor, but what its participation is isn’t clear.

Dreamworks also ran a charity auction on eBay, collecting bids on movie memorabilia with the proceeds going to Conservation International, which fits in nicely with the idea whole panda thing.

Distant corporate cousin Nick also helps promote the movie with a microsite all its own that featured a another set of character descriptions, downloads and games to play.

Dreamworks sponsored, via the movie, an “Unlikely Heroes” feature on BeliefNet, something that fits well with the overall conceit that the panda in the story is an extremely unlikely hero. Ads for KFP also appeared on those pages in addition to the “sponsored by” graphic at the bottom of the first page.

Finally, there were branded appearances and locations added to the virtual world of Gaia and profile for the movie on MyYearBook.com.

Overall

I really like this campaign for a number of reasons. First, the trailers and the consistent impression they create, especially the continued use of the slow-motion action, something I was not really a fan of at first. Second, the website is nicely interactive and fun, with enough content there to keep adults entertained as well as provide some good stuff for the younger audience members.

I only have a real problem with the print component since I feel it’s a tad under-whelming with its single poster. Dreamworks may have been thinking additional posters weren’t needed because the first one got the main selling point – a ridiculous panda doing martial arts – across just fine. They may be right, but everything else splits the focus between Po and the other main characters so it also would have made sense to release some additional print assets.

There were two offshoots of the campaign that played to the movie’s two general target audiences. The one played to kids by hitting them on Nick.com and elsewhere. The other played to Jack Black’s older fanbase, with things like the Cannes stunt and other appearances by the actor that were better at incorporating his personal brand into the promotional push

Overall Dreamworks has put together a pretty entertaining campaign for the movie. Since it’s not trying to be something it’s not – a Pixar knockoff – and it’s sans any real competitors my guess is that it’s going to do fairly well in the week it has before a green giant comes a-knocking.