The more recent marketing for the film took on many different forms, between sponsoring a night of mobile device game show to typical television spots to revamping other familiar pieces of media online.
The film sponsored live mobile game show 'HQ Trivia' on March 28th for $3 million, also providing their first sponsorship, allowing them to give out their biggest cash prize ever of $250,000, just to have their name mentioned through the duration of the game as well as a few references within the trivia questions. The game garnered over 2 million players that night, giving them the same number as a baseline of total impressions from that sponsorship alone.
Their television spot was reportedly one of the most expensive of the year, with an estimated media value of $9.66 million, spanning from February 19-25 for 70 national airings across 13 networks, according to Variety. These TV spots were targeted towards sports fans, which are audiences that tend to also enjoy video games and sci-fi/action films, which are the subject and genres of the film itself. The mentioned tv spot can be viewed below:
On a more creative note, 'Ready Player One's social media accounts promoted video re-imaginings of popular cult television shows, specifically The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Friends, and Full House in 8-bit video game styling. The videos were intended to make a connection between the nostalgia of video games and retro styling reportedly referenced within the film itself. The connection appears to be loose, but at the very least, did garner plenty of positive attention online for the film as their sponsor. Two of the re-imaginings can be viewed on AdWeek's website.
As this movie was a large project for Warner Brothers, it makes sense that they would take different approaches to marketing the film, especially as fewer people are watching cable television and using adblockers online, making it harder to get trailers in front of audience eyes. The film industry is having to get more creative with how they market films now that they can no longer depend on trailers alone, and by making moves like being the first to sponsor the world's first live mobile game show, Warner Brothers is clearly already getting creative.
Video games are also a large area of interest for a lot of different types of people, and by targeting different interests of different video game players (such as sports fans versus nerdy trivia players), Warner Brothers successfully gets the film's name out there to the many different demographics this film may pique the interest of.
As a huge gamer this movie is definitely high on my watch list. It's interesting though, I actually haven't seen too many ads for this movie. However, I do play HQ and I think that app is both an obscure and effective place to get recognition because a couple million people play it!
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