Variety’s 2023 Brandmakers Reveal Marketing Strategies for ‘Barbie,’ ‘Ted Lasso’ and More

variety.com:

For editorial questions, please contact Peter Caranicas at peter.caranicas@variety.com. DISNEY Ryan StankevichSeniorVP, marketing Kyle RodriVP, creative advertising Jackson GeorgeSenior VP, creative advertising 2016’s feature film “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” was a $1 billion+ grosser with a robust fan base.

But six years is a long time in the fantasy-adventure space. So when it was time to promote “Andor,” the Disney+ prequel series, “we knew we needed to reacquaint our audience with this story,” Stankevich says, “and reinvest them in the journey.” The strategy included re-releasing the original film in Imax theaters, with special “Andor” content attached.

This “allowed us to connect the series directly to the film and position it as a streaming event,” she says. Previewing episodes 1-3 cross-network with ABC, Hulu, Freeform and FX broadened the reach.

Custom social media content energized “Star Wars” fanatics — “our best ambassadors,” enthuses Stankevich — who could appreciate that, in the words of George Lucas, “we wanted to tap back into the tone and energy and grounded intensity” of “Rogue One.” DISNEY Ryan StankevichSenior VP, marketing Ely OriasSenior VP, creative advertising Melissa StoneVP, publicity Bridging the dozen years since “Avatar” smashed box office records, says Stankevich, “meant that we had to approach the campaign a little bit like a brand-new property,” considering that much of the target audience was barely born when the Pandora mythology first hit movie screens.