Those of us who work in marketing like to think we’re above falling for hype. When you’ve been round the block a few times, and know most tricks in the book, you reserve a healthy dose of cynicism for ad campaigns, product launches and viral marketing.

But something happened last week that sent everyone in the Podium office a little bit weak at the knees and, cards on the table, we should have known better.

Force Friday, on September 4th, marked the start of Disney’s push to convince us all that we need to spend all our spare cash on Star Wars stuff, between now and when the film launches in December. And then for some time afterwards, too.

I won’t list the types of merchandise here: there’s tonnes of it. Disney spent $6bn acquiring the Star Wars franchise, and it’s going to extract every cent/penny of value from that. And I don’t blame it in the slightest.

However, one toy stood head and shoulders above the rest, in terms of novelty value and price. The smartphone controlled BB8 robot. Based on the droid star of the new film, this toy looked incredible, and was accompanied by a stirring trailer that had everyone in the office reaching for their wallet (true).

Here’s the trailer in full:

So why was this so brilliant?

Firstly, a geeky note of explanation. Here’s the science bit. Concentrate:

There has been a lot of focus on what proportion of the visual effects in the new Star Wars film are computer generated. George Lucas relied too much on CGI in his disappointing prequel films, with the result that they felt very ‘shiny’ and not particularly gritty. Plus, the actors very obviously had no clue what was going on around them for large parts of each of the prequel films. It’s accepted that a return to actual hand-built sets and characters is essential for the success of the new films, and when the adorable BB8 was first spotted in a trailer, you could almost hear the entire internet loudly booing as nobody believed it could possibly be a hand-built robot.

Still with me? Well, the film-makers had the last laugh, as they very quickly proved that BB8 was indeed very real technology and set about demonstrating this to a series of live audiences. Everyone was blown away, and hype for Star Wars ratcheted up another level.

Little did we know that you’d soon be able to buy one for yourself. I mean: look at it. It’s a perfect sphere with a floating head. And you can buy one. Never mind going back and trying to explain this to me as a seven-year-old: I can scarcely believe it as a 36-year-old.

Now, I write this as a man who has a full-size replica lightsaber in my man cave at home, but I managed to resist. £130 was just a shade too much, and there are enough ‘man’ toys in the house already that rarely get played with. Also, the other half would have killed me.

But that’s not to say the campaign didn’t work: it’s just that real life got in the way slightly. There’s no doubt that Disney knows how to create hype and I genuinely find it hard to begrudge them the success this is going to bring them.

The whole thing was just a fantastically-well executed bit of marketing. Force Day as a campaign will have cost millions, but will make billions. I have absolutely no shame in admitting it totally worked on me, which in itself is brilliant as it made me feel slightly less grizzled and cynical. Good work, Disney.

Footnote: 

Not everyone in the office was as strong as me. The force always works better on the weak-minded, of course. The result being that there is a BB8 in the Podium office at the moment.

The little guy remains in his cellophane as the purchaser is currently suffering from buyer’s remorse and is considering sending it back. Also, the plan to buy it and sell it for a profit at Christmas when parents get desperate for the latest must-have toy is not panning out as stock appears to be plentiful. Everywhere. If you want a BB8, you can buy one in a shop. Disney clearly has supply and demand nailed.

Anyway, here he is:

DSC_0171

So, what would you do? Keep or send back? Let us know on Twitter. We’re also keen to hear about that time you totally fell for the hype.

 

 

 

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