Through the looking glass: marketing Alice

Digital Marketing Executive Caroline Kennedy, a published children’s author in her own right, is mightily impressed by the campaign to promote the recent Alice Through the Looking Glass film. In particular, the interactive and shareable marketing Alice live poster campaign featuring the Mad Hatter proved especially successful, gaining a lot of online traction. Its star would gain even more publicity in the following weeks, although we might not go into that here…

So I’m a nut when it comes to children’s literature. The Chronicles of Narnia, Harry Potter and of course the adventures of a young girl, a Cheshire cat and a mad hatter.

Bright colours, bold aesthetics and a world that doesn’t abide by the mundane rules of the everyday – Alice in Wonderland is a marketeer’s dream.

Alice Through the Looking Glass hit the big screen on Friday 27 May. Disney and their big, creative brain recently hosted an interesting stunt which was an absolute delight to watch. It’s visual, it’s funny – much like Tim Burton’s direction – and it lends itself particularly well to social media…

A glimpse into Wonderland

It was the jewel in this campaign’s crown – a simple but effective stunt that literally let unsuspecting Disney fans peer through the looking glass…
A poster site with what appears to be a static image of the Mad Hatter comes to life… not only that, it interacts with his audience. If you haven’t already seen it, watch below:

Of course once you have a video overflowing with genuine human reaction, there’s no better place for it than on Facebook and other social platforms. We’re talking 11m views, 200,000 shares and over 390,000 reactions. Not to mention those lucky visitors to Disney who witnessed it first-hand.
Now the movie hasn’t been the biggest success, making $89 million less than the original on opening weekend. We can still agree that the above was well-executed.
Regardless – I loved it!