To most of the world, Deadpool is a little known superhero, famous mostly within

the legion of comic fans that populate the geek fan base. The movie had a troubled
production history, spending 11 years in production limbo. Prior to its release, was
preceded by a version of Deadpool in X-Men Origins: Wolverine that was lampooned
for being a terrible portrayal of the character.

Production Company, FOX, was so apprehensive about Deadpool that it cut the
movie’s budget while it was in production. Against all odds, Deadpool has come out
guns blazing (literally) and murdered box office records. It’s one the highest rated
R-Rated movies in history. Much of this incredible success can be attributed to its
somewhat insane marketing strategy that, like the film, broke all the rules.

Absolutely nothing about Deadpool is subtle, and the movie’s advertising is no less.
The campaign was so crazy that it seemed as though Deadpool himself had planned
the film’s advertising.

Deadpool’s marketing team wasted no time advertising the film with the first image
surfacing in March 2015 with Ryan Reynolds lying sensually on a bearskin rug.

Some of the amazing marketing campaigns Deadpool applied are:

1. The Emoji Billboard

A combination of a skull, the ‘poo emoji’ and the letter L, creatively symbolizing
Deadpool in a way that’s slightly childish, but entirely memorable. The ad worked so
well that “Skull-Poop-L” made repeat appearances in the rest of Deadpool’s
advertising. The ad used the medium to its advantage and people got a good laugh
out of it.
 2. The Valentine’s Day Prank

Deadpool got a Valentine’s Day release in most countries and was (jokingly)
marketed as a romantic movie, releasing posters and a billboard that framed it
as the movie to catch this V-Day with your significant other. Boyfriends around the
world were suddenly empowered, gently suggesting to their clueless girlfriends a
romantic night at the movies with Deadpool. It even sparked a trend of viral posts
showing boyfriends luring their trusting (and arguably gullible) partners into
catching the “most anticipated romantic film of the year” on Valentine’s Day 2016.

3. Marketing on Tinder
As Tinder users furiously swiped left looking for true love, some of them found
themselves matched with none other than Deadpool. If they swiped right, users
would be informed of the movie’s release date and encouraged to take their matches
to watch Deadpool. The Tinder profile was never meant to stay stagnant on the app.
It was a pleasant surprise, and people love sharing happy things. Deadpool’s Tinder
profile quickly found itself plastered across the internet – Tinder users who matched
with Deadpool quickly shared screenshots which found their way to major geek
news and advertising sites.

4. 3 Full Hours of Deadpool Ads

Named “The Deadpool Takeover”, three TV channels: Spike, MTV and VH1 advertised
nothing but Deadpool for 3 hours and promoted the takeover in the weeks leading
up to it. The channels even went so far as to alter their usual programming to cater
to Deadpool’s demographic – including reruns of Golden Girls, which Deadpool is a
huge fan of. The stunt was covered on sites because it was over the top and
ridiculous – just like Deadpool. It could have been seen as desperate or obnoxious
if it was for any other film, but because it was Deadpool, it was spot on with the
movie’s branding.

5. 12 Days of Deadpool

12 different websites released 12 pieces of exclusive Deadpool content leading up to

Christmas, culminating in the final film trailer. Sites involved included EW, People,
Mashable, Deviantart and EMPIRE. People who start the countdown end up getting
hooked on the constant drip of marketing content, and have something to look
forward to every day. Even more so with the promise of a big juicy reward at the
end of the countdown – a shiny new Deadpool trailer.
 6. Custom Emoji Keyboard

As a gift to fans during the 12 days of Deadpool, the Deadpool marketing team
released a Deadpool Emoji app reminiscent of Kim Kardashian’s successful Kimoji
app. The app was featured on Mashable and geek fan sites with much more
enthusiasm than the disgruntled reviews on the App Store would have you think
was possible. That’s because the app isn’t for everyone, it’s for the fans who love
Deadpool enough to power through the user-unfriendly interface. More importantly,
they could share their love without the fear of annoying their friends because Emojis
can unintrusively find their way into most text conversations. The app put the ability
to spread the word about Deadpool into the hands of every eager fan with a
smartphone – that’s word-of-mouth marketing at its best.

7. “Beef” with Hugh Jackman

As part of its promotional efforts, Ryan Reynolds staged an online “beef” with Hugh
Jackman. Shenanigans included Reynolds, in character as Deadpool, promoting
Hugh Jackman for People magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive and Jackman responding
by giving Reynolds the finger (or in this case, the claw) as wolverine. In the true
spirit of Deadpool, the “beef” parodied the promotional “beef”, just like how Deadpool
consciously parodies superhero movies.

Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds are also longtime friends both known for being
great people who don’t take themselves too seriously.
 8. Dirty Humor

Deadpool’s entire marketing campaign was supercharged with lewd jokes and crass
humour that have been described as speaking mostly to 14 year old boys. Some of
these include Deadpool in suggestive poses, and innuendo laden taglines like “Wait
till you get a load of me” and “Sit on this”.

The number 1 fear of Deadpool fans was that the movie would not stay faithful to the
over the top tone of the comics. The marketing campaign’s overt use of juvenile
humour was a nod to fans that the movie will be exactly what they hoped for and
played a big part in creating buzz during the movie’s early marketing.

Notably, the posters weren’t overtly obscene and expertly straddled the line
between crass and appropriate. There were also harmless G-Rated marketing
material for use when even the slightest naughtiness wasn’t appropriate.

9. Social Media and Ryan Reynolds

Although the emojis and social media posts were effective, the greatest asset the
Deadpool marketing team had to work with was Ryan Reynolds himself. Why?
Because no one was more excited than Reynolds about Deadpool becoming a
feature length film, allowing for fans to be entertained by his social media posts for
an entire year leading up to the movie.

10. Xmas Wish List

One of the highlights of this campaign was Deadpool’s very own Xmas wish list,
written in red crayon, or perhaps even blood. You never can tell with these
mercenaries.

Hard-core devotees of the character got a huge kick out of references to Betty
White, sewing kits and a new fourth wall for the bathroom, but even casual Deadpool
fans had plenty to enjoy with this early Xmas present.
 11. The “Leaked” Script

Deadpool brought us a “leaked” page from the final script, complete with Wade
Wilson’s dirty annotations. Whether this was made by the entire marketing team or
Ryan Reynolds simply did it on his lonesome.
This generated next level curiosity in the minds of the audience that what is actually
going to happen in the movie as Deadpool was proved to be a unique character on
its own, not abiding by any rules but his own.
 CONCLUSION

More than anything the Deadpool marketing campaign managed

to create a relationship with the people who ended up going to see
it. They were honest, creative, and completely relentless. And
rather than sticking to traditional advertising, they decided to put
their campaign anywhere someone might be looking, even
Tinder.

The message that this whole marketing campaign of Deadpool

gave is that If there’s anything a company or movie can mimic
here it’s the tenacity, the creativity, and above all be honest with
what you’re trying to sell. People will support you if they can see
into what you’re providing.