Marketing Made to Manage Spoilers

In a post Avengers: Endgame world, social media can be a minefield for spoilers. However, as the saying goes; the show must go on and it does. Marketing for the new Spider-Man film, the next instalment to the Marvel franchise, is well underway so the question is how can you market a film that contains spoilers for the last film, or is it even an issue and people should just know this already? The interesting thing about this case is how Disney don’t have complete control over the Spider-Man character rights, those belong to the production company Sony. This is the reason a first trailer was released after Avengers: Infinity War when Spider-Man was among the casualties of the snap. So, if it were up to Disney we would not have seen any footage up until now. Being that this second trailer was released so close after Avengers: Endgame the marketing team at Sony made sure to put a spoiler warning at the beginning.

The interesting thing here is how pop culture influences an organisations marketing, because spoilers and fandoms have become an element of consumer behaviour organisations need to be able to navigate through them not as a corporation but almost like individuals. For instance, the spoiler warning before the new Spider-Man trailer was delivered by the star of the film, it just adds a personal touch that fans can appreciate.

There is always a divide between TV and film, in this case the social media campaign to #dontspoiltheendgame was launched and endorsed by influencers and the common people alike. However, when it comes to the equally popular Game of Thrones GIF’s from the episodes climax were immediately spread across the social waves. When it comes to TV, there is a community aspect that can be uniquely enjoyed in that everyone, even across time zones, is watching the same thing as you at the exact same time, so how much of the responsibility to avoid spoilers fall to those that didn’t watch live or is there a solution the marketing team can create to provide one online location for all those watching the show live?