Marvel Is Playing The Hype Game Beautifully With The #ThanosDemandsYourSilence Infinity War Letter

You wouldn’t think there would be much that Marvel had to do in order to get butts in seats for Avengers: Infinity War. It’s the culmination of everything that Marvel has been building up to in the last decade and, with the brand standing as the unarguable king of all modern franchises, convincing general audiences to give a damn about that is far from a challenging task. Infinity War would make a billion with ZERO marketing…but the Hollywood machine does what the Hollywood machine does, which means that we are going to be inundated with trailers, TV spots, posters, product tie-ins, interviews, clever social media posts that go “viral,” and literally dozens of other forms of publicity as the film prepares for its grand debut at the end of the month.

But as my Introduction to Public Relations course I took in college taught me, journalism is dying and the only way to possibly make a living with the degree is by selling out to the corporations around you and taking in that sweet, sweet public relations coin however way you can. No, wait, the other thing, sorry. What I meant to write was that any public relations plan needs a simple mission statement, and the marketing for a film is no different. So when the marketing powers that be began brainstorming just what they wanted to accomplish with the advertising blitz for the film, what exactly was their approach? Well, the last few months of PR makes that pretty damn clear, at least from my perspective.

With Avengers: Infinity War, Marvel isn’t just trying to sell a blockbuster superhero movie — they are trying to sell THE blockbuster superhero movie. Through every trailer, every new piece of information revealed, and, yes, even every post to social media, Marvel and Disney are setting up Infinity War to be the mother of all event movies. You know that whole “culmination of everything” spiel I wrote about in the first paragraph? The only reason I’m seeing Infinity War like that is because Marvel WANTS me to see Infinity War like that, and have built up a pretty effective public relations campaign to do just that.

Which makes the latest bit of big publicity for the film rather inspiring, at least compared to the deluge of behind the scenes interview quotes from the producers, actors talking the film up on Access Hollywood, and the like. Posted on Twitter earlier today by The Russo Brothers (a.k.a the directors of this massive beast) was an open letter to all Marvel fans about spoiler content when it comes to the launch of the film. If you haven’t yet, check it out for yourself below:

#ThanosDemandsYourSilence pic.twitter.com/dvyc26ju04

— Russo Brothers (@Russo_Brothers) April 3, 2018

Essentially, the brunt of the letter is this: don’t spoil the film if you happen to see it early (looking at you, fellow bloggers), because that’s not a cool thing to do. But the subtext of the letter in my mind (and what makes it such clever publicity overall) is that Infinity War is a movie that shouldn’t be spoiled to begin with. That the events of the picture are so huge and groundbreaking and game-changing for the MCU that the directors have to write a letter about it, making sure people know the release of the film is huge and groundbreaking and game-changing (it’s a marketer’s job to be repetitious. Their job! Their job is to be repetitious!) And even adding a little fun to the proceedings (a Marvel trademark!) is the hashtag “#ThanosDemandsYourSilence,” which of course has been trending all day, since Marvel/Disney know exactly what they are doing here. Hell, they even got Tom Holland involved in the mix, who as Marvel’s Resident Young Person™ has a big social media presence, and is quick to poke fun at himself in a way that delights all, causes retweets, increases brand awareness, etc.

This letter was originally addressed to me ? https://t.co/qmVQUqH6Fd

— Tom Holland (@TomHolland1996) April 3, 2018

Now, let me make things clear: while I believe this to 100% be publicity for the film, I don’t necessarily think it’s not a sincere gesture from The Russo Brothers. Of course they don’t want their movie spoiled before most get to see it, and I’m sure there is a lot of big events in the film they would rather people keep their lips shut on for the foreseeable future. But the #ThanosDemandsYourSilence thing is, more importantly, another way for Marvel to build up the grand event nature of the film, not just to get people to see the film, but to feel like they have to see the film as soon as humanly possible. Pushing the film up and making it a near simultaneous global release was one big aspect of that strategy (“Now everyone in the world can feel like they are the first ones to see it, and can experience the film free of spoilers!”), and this letter is just the icing on that publicity cake.

But I want to stress that I’m not railing against this letter — it’s a fun way to build up hype for the opening weekend, and it only does more to increase my personal anticipation for the film’s release. Which, once again, was the entire point. So purely on that level…game gotta respect game here. Bravo Marvel.

…Now give me Inifinity War, plz.