The Marketing of Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Warning: Light Spoilers about Star Wars: The Last Jedi Ahead

Star Wars: The Last Jedi premiered on December 15, 2017. Theaters were packed, fans dressed up (yours truly included), and people experienced the newest episode of this amazing saga. The hype around this movie was big, but why is that? Was it because of the fandom? Or the Star Wars’ brand? Or maybe even the timing? Well yes, yes, and most definitely. However, I believe the main reason was the amazing marketing campaign Disney, Lucasfilm and Director Rian Johnson developed. Let’s dive into some of the elements of this campaign.

Disney’s Broad & Diverse Reach

The Walt Disney Company has a broad reach, through their movies, tv channels, social media, apps, stores, theme park experiences, and merchandise. This means they can advertise to many people, of many different backgrounds, demographics, and interest in many different ways. For this film, we got a look at how this machine worked.

In the theme parks, Disney handed out theme buttons that reminded guests of the movie’s release. They also hosted their second Galactic Nights event at Disney’s Hollywood Studios which allowed guest to experience Star Wars to a new level of immersion. The characters from the film also started to address events from the new film, of course without any spoilers unless you understand Shyriiwook. Fireworks and projection shows were updated to include content from the new film, and stores started to carry Star Wars: The Last Jedi Merchandise.

Disney has many social media channels and accounts, including Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Some of these accounts are tied to specifics movies, franchises, or lines of businesses. For this campaign, we saw many of the accounts get involved in the marketing of this film. The post of this campaign tease the characters, their allegiance, and their faiths. This once again increased the reach of this campaign.

Star Wars’ Omnipresence

Ever since Star Wars: The Force Awakens premiered back on December 18, 2015, Star Wars has stayed present in our lives. Here is the timeline of the major events that kept Star Wars in the forefront of our memories:

• June 20, 2015 – March 30, 2016: Rebels Season 2 premiered.
• December 18, 2015: Star Wars: The Force Awakens premiered.
• January 20, 2016: Star War Episode VIII release date announced.
• August 11, 2016: Rogue one: A Star Wars Story trailer is released.
• September 24, 2016 – March 25, 2017: Rebels Season 3.
• December 10, 2016: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story premiered.
• January 23, 2017: Star Wars Episode VIII Title revealed “Star Wars: The Last Jedi.”
• April 13 – 16, 2017: Star Wars Celebration was hosted, celebrating 40 years of Star Wars.
• April 14, 2017: First teaser trailer of Star Wars: The Last Jedi is released.
• July 15, 2017: Disney announces the first plan to build the first Star Wars fully immersive Resort.
• September 1, 2017: Force Friday II was held, to release all the new Star Wars: The Last Jedi merchandise.
• October 9, 2017: Tickets for Star Wars: The Last Jedi go on sale.
• October 11, 2017: Secrets of the Empire (The VOID Virtual Reality Experience) is announced and a trailer is released.
• October 16, 2017: Rebels Season 4 premiered.
• October 17, 2017: Han Solo Film is revealed: “Solo: A Star Wars Story.”
• September 1, 2017: “Phasma” (Highly recommend this book) and “Leia, Princess from Alderaan” books were released, both of which relate directly to Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
• November 17, 2017: Battlefront II was released.
• December 15, 2017: Star Wars: The Last Jedi premiered.

These are just a few of the events that happened since the premiere of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. There are tons of book releases, comics, and other news and events that were omitted for the sake of simplicity. However, all these events help keep Star Wars in the forefront of our minds, keeping the hype up and encouraging people to watch the new movie as soon as it came out. You may see all these and worry that too much information was revealed ahead of the release, but Rian Johnson explained how they avoided this in an article with CinemaBlend;

“A year ago, maybe even more than that, my producer Ram [Bergman] and I sat down with the folks at Lucasfilm and said, ‘OK, this is what we’re going to reveal here and there, and this stuff we’re never going to reveal until the movie comes out.’ We came up with a ‘no-fly list’ of, under no circumstances, is this shown or that shown.” – Rian Johnson

Partnership Galore

For this marketing campaign, we also saw the true power and influence of both the Disney and Lucasfilm brand as they partnered with many recognizable brands across many industries. We saw Disney partner with Winn-Dixie in their Cosmic Shells promotions, with Nissan to allow people to design their own Star Wars-inspired vehicle online with the chance to win the car. Not only did this expose the movie to a broader audience but it also gave fans a new way to interact and connect to this galaxy far far away.

Make it Red, White and Black

While I could write a whole post about the graphic design of the posters, product packaging, and other graphical elements of this campaign, I will just focus on the colors and their effects. This was the first time we saw Star Wars deviate from their yellow logo in recent history for the saga films, They also deviated from the black background in favor for a white background again getting the attention of many. They stayed very loyal to this color scheme throughout the marketing campaign and once you watch the film you understand the significance of those colors.

We can see where the director got these colors from. At the end of the film, the Resistance is trying to escape the First Order who is following them in space. They fled to an old rebel base that was located in Crait. Crait was a red soil & mineral planet covered with white salt. Red has always represented the Dark Side in the Star Wars galaxy. Right away you can tell based on that information, that this movie will heavily lean towards the Dark Side, and so it did. From the very beginning we saw the true power and reign of the First Order and at the end of the film, the resistance got away by a hair.

In the movie, we also saw something interesting. As I mentioned before, Crait is a red planet covered in white. This became apparent one you took a step as the salt would be cleared and the true color of the planet became visible. White is usually seen as the color of light, positivity, good and purity, while red is seen as the color of aggression, evil, power, and violence.  I think this paralleled the story and the characters of the film very much.

In Star Wars: The Force Awakens the characters (especially those in the light side) are portrayed as perfect and pure. However, in this film, we see the inner conflict of all those characters, and we start to see that they are similar to the salt cover grown in Crait. The more you step (the more they grow as characters and the farther they go on their journey) the deeper we see, and the deeper we go we start to see that things are not the same on the surface than in the inside.

Technology from a Galaxy Far Far Away

The marketing campaign for Star Wars: The Last Jedi also utilized some technology for the first time in Star Wars marketing history. This included many different VR elements from Snapchat Filters, their own app, and to Google Pixel VR stickers. It was very interesting to see how this new technology was implemented, and I have to admit it was one of my favorite parts of this campaign.

Result of the Marketing of Star Wars: The Last Jedi

So far it seems like this marketing campaign was a huge success. Star Wars: The Last Jedi had the second biggest opening weekend ($220 million) of all time, only falling behind Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($247 million). (Box Office Mojo) This means that the marketing campaign did a good job of attracting people in. The Disney and Lucasfilm executives also seem very happy with the success so far as they offered Rian Johnson a new trilogy to direct. Merchandise from the film has also been very successful from what I have seen. However, I don’t have any solid evidence of this. Critics love the film, and it currently holds a 92% Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.  The audience’s opinion is yet to be determined as it seems very split with a 52% on Rotten Tomatoes,   although this could be the result of a troll movement and since we are only analyzing the marketing campaign of the film and not the actual film itself, this is insignificant.

Star Wars and It’s Marketing Future

As new Star Wars movies keep coming out every year, it will be interesting to see how Disney approaches the marketing of each film. Each time a new movie comes out, they run the chance of oversaturation, something that so far they seem to be immune to. This may be because of the fandom or because they have handled the brand well. I think we will see this at the end of Episode IX since at that point they would have released five films in five years.

Solo: A Star Wars Story will be an interesting one to watch as this movie will have the most challenges any Star Wars Film has faced so far. Solo will have a small window to market itself due to Star Wars: The Last Jedi having its theatrical release on December 15, 2017. This movie will not be able to start its marketing campaign until Star Wars: The Last Jedi is out of the theaters so that means late January or early February. This gives Solo at most a 4-month window for their marketing campaign.

Solo has also faced a lot of drama with the replacement of directors, and they will not have the star power of star wars veteran Harrison Ford or the momentum of being a saga film. The success of this film will be very interesting to watch. In marketing, every challenge is an opportunity so let’s see what Disney does with this opportunity.