The Power of Storytelling: Kevin Feige and Marvel Studios

When it comes to the most influential film companies today, Marvel Studios is definitely on the list. Since the first Marvel superhero movie, Iron Man, released and made a huge commercial success in 2008, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige have started introducing more comic book heroes such as Captain America, Black Widow, Thor and Hulk and built a shared universe called Marvel cinematic universe (MCU), where unlike typical individual superhero movies, characters and storylines are connected. Feige and his concept of an interconnected universe reshaped movie watching experience and blurred the line between TV series and films. With the MCU series, a movie is not merely an independent story that ends after viewers spending two hours in the cinema. It is a realization of the comic world where viewers familiarize themselves with each character through TV-like storyline in the beginning. The connection and identification with the protagonists then give a strong emotional impact as Marvel heroes assemble as a team, The Avengers, on the big screen.(Alexander, 2019) The Infinity Saga helped Kevin Feige achieve unprecedented market success. As of April 2020, the 23 MCU films earned the highest revenue of 22.55 billion US dollars globally, followed by Star War series that grossed 10.32 billion US dollars. (Statista, 2020) Looking into MCU’s success drivers, the report takes a deep dive into Kevin Feige’s marketing strategy and its effectiveness on attracting customers attention, shifting attention into engagement through information processing framework.

Customer Attention: The Atypical Superhero

Information processing contains four stages: exposure, attention, perception, and reception. Customers are exposed to various stimuli such as social media posts, advertisements, and news reports in their daily lives. However, their attention is limited. The human brain will focus on information related to the present needs, values, or positive experience and ignore the irrelevant ones. Therefore, attention is crucial for a brand to get across marketing messages and increase consumers’ willingness to perceive and in the end comprehend the information. Take Marvel’s first superhero film, Iron Man (2008), for example. At that time, Marvel was known as comic book publisher, attempting to take a big risk on film making. At exposure stage, Feige chose to unveil a teaser poster of the red and gold Iron Man suit at 2016 San Diego Comic-Con, two years before the film released. (See Appendix 1) The poster attracted Iron Man fans and comic lovers based on three factors: pass reinforcement, novelty, and emotional appeals. For Iron Man fans, the suit is a stimulus that recalls their pleasant memory with this character and entices them to see the comic book movie adaption, whereas for comic lovers, the poster pictures a less known hero that not only triggers their curiosity, but also gives them a sense of freshness. Also, the visual image along with the high intensity red can be easily perceived by consumers by sight. Once intrigued, audiences are more likely to process and receive the simple marketing messages, “Stark Industries Prototype Launching May 2 2008”.

To strengthen customers’ cognition, Feige and his team then released a series of posters following the principles of simple, sensory and repetitive. The message was simplified to the movie title “Iron Man” and the release date “May 2 2008” throughout every artwork.(See Appendix 2) The images centered on the classic red and gold armor. Keeping in mind of habituation, the state in which consumer attention decreases after constantly receiving the same stimulus, Feige’s team altered the presentation of each poster, revealing more details on the suit and its transformation. In mid 2007, the trailer came out and captured the public’s attention by reinforcing the idea of novelty. People saw the rise of an atypical superhero played by Robert Downey Jr. Tony Stark, a self-absorbed billionaire playboy who has no superpower; yet, managed to save the world with his intelligence and the Iron Man suit he built. (Perine, 2019) Moreover, the mixture of visual and verbal elements in the trailer amplified customers’ perception for Iron Man. The repeated presentation of iconic red, movie title, and release date further enhanced their comprehension, which, on the whole, implanted a vivid superhero image in consumers’ mind. Customer Engagement: The Power of Storytelling As the producer of the 23 Marvel films and a creator of interconnected universe, Feige’s key focus is to turn customers’ attentions into engagement through storytelling. Research shows that people love stories because character-driven stories make the brain release oxytocin, a chemical element that arouses humans' empathy with which people can place themselves in the story, building a deep connection with the character. (Zak, 2014) To create superhero stories that resonate with the audience, Feige applied Freytag’s Pyramid dramatic structure to the MCU series he produced. The Freytag’s Pyramid contains five parts: Exposition, Complication, Climax, Reversal and Denouncement.(See figure 1) The story begins with exposition, where characters and settings are introduced. Complication is the events occur after the introduction, building up the conflicts that take audiences to the climax. At the climax, the protagonist faces a turning point that leads the story to an opposite direction. Then, things continue to develop at reversal stage and reach a conclusion as denouncement. (Bunting, 2020)

Figure 1: Freytag’s pyramid

From Iron Man (2008), Captain America (2011), to Spider-man: Far from Home (2019), all the Infinity saga adopted the appealing structure: the story begins with introducing the hero and the villain. Then, a series of events and conflicts contribute to an unexpected setback. Eventually, the hero would grow, overcome all the obstacles and defeat the villain. This generates a sense of consistency that viewers can easily comprehend in the titanic universe. However, what set Marvel apart from other superhero movies is the experiment on different genre, the depth of character and the hook of anticipation. Continuing to focus on novelty and emotional appeals, Feige firstly reconstructed the superhero genre with a balance between the expected storytelling formula and the unexpected setting and character building. Iron Man injects realism to the superhero genre by depicting a troubled hero; Thor: The Dark World is a sci-fi with a Shakespearean touch; Captain America: The Winter Soldier is an espionage film; Ant Man is a caper film; Spider-man: Far from Home is a teen comedy. (Harrison, Carlsen and Škerlavaj, 2019) From outer space to high school in the neighborhood, Feige attracted the audience through creative visuals and then connected them with the superheroes through the shared humanity. Marvel’s heroes are imperfect. Iron man is a self-centered playboy. Captain America feels like an outsider in the modern world. Thor struggled with the family drama. These emotions and personal experiences resonate with the audience and add to the depth and complexity of the protagonists. Once viewers engaged with the characters and plotlines that constructed the entire MCU, Feige enticed their curiosity and anticipation for the upcoming movies by putting “Easter eggs” in the post-credits scenes, giving away clues of how future story might happen. A good example would be the last scene of Iron Man (2008) where Nick Fury, director of S.H.I.E.L.D., showed up and told Iron Man that he was a part of a bigger universe. (Harrison, Carlsen and Škerlavaj, 2019) There were also other “Easter eggs” hidden in the movies such as Stan Lee’s cameo or the Stark Tower’s presence in Doctor Strange films that either paid tribute the creator of Marvel heroes or implied the interconnected universe. With this, viewers are not just receivers of the story, but an active participant puzzling out the new world Marvel created. The hook model framework involving trigger, action, variable rewards and investment can further explain why customers are hooked with Marvel movies for over a decade. (Eyal, 2014) In the beginning, customers’ interests were triggered by external factors such as posters and trailers as well as internal factors like the pleasure and thrill of movie watching. They later took action to see the film, where ‘Easter eggs’ that gradually revealed the hidden plotlines served as the variable rewards for movie goers. The curiosity and desire for how story goes and ends; therefore, motivated viewers to invest more time and effort to look up information online or discuss with other audiences in this community. The time spent and wanting for rewards triggered people to watch the forthcoming movies, creating a loop of repeated purchases. (See figure 2)

Figure 2: The Hook Model of MCU Films

Key Takeaways

To sum up, a great marketer like Feige is a game changer who led the movie industry to a new era of interconnected universe. Feige successfully built Marvel Studios brand, marketing the fantasy of Marvel universe to die-hard comic fans as well as billions of movie enthusiasts in the world in several ways. First, he approached comic lovers who are most interested in superhero films as the primary target audience, getting their attention by evoking nostalgia. Secondly, he reached a larger market by challenging the notion of superhero genre and overall movie watching experience. A superhero can be flawed, abandoned, fragile. These emotional factors strengthen viewers’ empathy with the characters. And the shared universe maintained a continuity even after the movie ended. Then, he put engaging elements like a dramatic structure and “Easter eggs” in the films, which hooked viewers with excitement and expectation. With these, he created a brand unity that tied all 23 MCU films, representing an original, creative and sensational brand image of Marvel Studios.