The star of Kick-Ass may not actually have superpowers, but Maple Pictures is putting a heroic effort into promoting the new film.
The film opens April 16, and promotion behind it started this week with a rollout of eye-catching oversized decals in 12 transit stations across Toronto (media was handled by Initiative in Toronto, creative from Lionsgate). Each station was selected because of its proximity to a mall, to better hit the campaign’s 18-to-34 target demographic, Joanna Miles, VP of marketing, Maple Pictures, tells MiC.
Wild postings will also be spreading across the city this week.
The OOH will be accompanied by an installation in the empty storefront at Queen and McCaul in Toronto (handled by Toronto’s Juxtaproductions), set up to look like Dave Lizewski’s (aka Kick-Ass) bedroom from the movie (complete with authentic props!). Maple has also secured the storefront next to it to be set up as the film’s comic book store, Atomic. To top it all off, Kick-Ass and Hit-Girl dopplegangers will be on-location and in-costume at Queen and McCaul on April 15, the day before the film premieres.
In addition to the usual TV, radio and print campaigns that accompany most major studio releases, the film is being promoted via two unique partnerships as well, Miles says.
The first is a contest partnership with MTV which offers viewers the chance to win a trip to Comic-Con in Chicago to cover the event for the channel as an MTV correspondent. The channel will be promoting the contest on-air and via the hosts and the footage from Comic-Con will air as well. Promotion starts March 29.
‘MTV has the perfect target demo for this film,’ Miles explains. ‘They’re young and edgy, and the film is edgy – it’s rated R in the States – so it’s a perfect match. We want people to know it’s a big film, so you have to treat it as such. This is an event!’
The second is a first-ever partnership with the film’s American distributor, Lionsgate, built around IWillKickAss.com. Visitors to the site can turn themselves into a Kick-Ass villain by connecting via Facebook and uploading their profile picture to the site, modifying it and giving themselves a costume and name.
The images can be placed within a customized version of the movie’s trailer. Then others can vote on which villain they like best, and the winner will be given an in-print cameo in the final edition of the comic book.
‘It’s the first time we’ve ever done a North American wide contest,’ Miles says, adding that the contest will be promoted on Twitter, Facebook, IGN.com and with a YouTube homepage roadblock ad.
