STEVEN KRAMER
Mortal Engines
Consumer insights research for Universal Pictures' 2018 film.
For my marketing capstone class at USC, I collaborated with Universal Pictures to lead a research team to discover insights about millenial movie-going behavior. Specifically, we were tasked to increase opening weekend box office sales among millennial audiences for Mortal Engines (December 2018) and The Voyage of Doctor Dolittle (2020). All ideas were tested through over 85 one-on-one interviews, four focus groups, and a nationally-representative survey with over 400 respondents.
The films earned upwards of $50M in their opening weekends.
I was also in charge of creative direction for all assets, and the hand-off to Universal's creative team. Our final presentation was an Integrated Marketing Campaign pitch to Universal Pictures Marketing and Global Franchise Management.
Due to our Non Disclosure Agreement, I am unable to post more details of the work here. If you would like to know more about the project, please contact me.
Mortal Engines
Peter Jackson, the creative genius behind the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, brings Philip Reeve's novel to the big screen on December 14, 2018.
Three key discoveries I found and proposed, which made it into the final campaign:
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Our interviews and surveys found that the majority of millenials recognize Peter Jackson by his portfolio of work, rather than his name alone. Thus the posters showed "From the Filmmakers of Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit" rather than "Directed by Peter Jackson."
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Our goal with the movie poster was to highlight Peter Jackson's incredible world-building talent, and how that shapes the stories and paths of the main characters. The final poster (right) was heavily influenced by our original drafts.
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In an effort to generate word of mouth and set the stage for the upcoming December release, there were talks about sending Peter Jackson and the cast to a Comic Con event. However, with the San Diego Comic Con schedule already set in stone, I proposed sending the cast and crew to the next largest Comic Con: New York. Below are photos of the cast and crew during a Q&A session at 2018 NYCC, where they spoke to over 250,000 conference attendees.
