If you’ve been paying attention to Lee Unkrich’s Twitter feed, you know that college-aged fans have been sending him messages about how much they enjoyed Toy Story 3.
It’s more accurate to say that they loved the first 65 minutes of the highly anticipated sequel, since they were in for special "cliffhanger" screenings. So, what’s the story behind this unorthodox marketing tactic? New York Times has the scoop!
Disney and Pixar made the internally controversial decision to show a big chunk of the film after realizing the teen/young adult audience has been largely untapped. With backing by John Lasseter and Disney Studios Chairman Rich Ross, the move went forward!
The idea is that "Andyites" (a term referring to 18-24 year olds who literally grew up with Andy) would feel the nostalgia from preview screenings. Later, they’d spread the word on Facebook and other social networking sites. The campaign started rolling out a few weeks ago with more screenings throughout the month of May and everythin seems to be going as planned.
It’s clear that although backlash was possible, Pixar was confident enough in their absolutely amazing 11th outing that they went through with this. Here are some Twitter reactions, click to see the full tweet: "Amazing" "Pixar did it again" "Epic beyond all epic" "Blown away" "Incredible"
You can read the full article, with tales from corporate, pre-screenings and more, over at The New York Times.
So, can we call Toy Story 3 a hit yet?
Toy Story 3 opens in wide release on June 18th, 2010!
I’m glad that Pixar is actively marketing to the college age crowd – they seem to be the ones who always miss out. I can’t tell you the number of reviews of Pixar movies I’ve seen on iTunes that start with “I walked into the movie theater kind of embarrassed to be seeing a little kid movie…” It’s obvious that college kids love Pixar movies, but they assume from trailers and such that since it’s animated, it’s just a “kiddie” film.
That’s why the Cliffhanger Edition screenings and internet viral videos that bank on nostalgia and memories of the first two Toy Story movies are so great. Pixar knows that these guys loved the originals when they were kids, and that really helps grab peoples attention. Really great stuff.
Another excellent post martini833 🙂
I’m personally not a big fan of the ‘large-chunks first’ marketing strategy.
I heard it came in handy last year with ‘Up,’ but I mean, who isn’t going to want to see ‘TS3’ after having known these characters from over 10 years ago?
Then again, I’ve got 2 weeks until the Charity screening here in Chicago. If they say I can, I intend to post a spoiler-free review on Netflix and possibly will do so here (my co-workers are anxious to know what I think, since I’m the big PIXAR fan in our division. Well, I at least have the most CARS merchandise out of anyone at the company).
2 things: Number 1, I think I’d rather just see the whole movie when it comes out, and number 2, HOLY MACKEREL my family visited Temple University for my sister Olivia’s college!!!!!!!!!!!