The Secret Life of Pets Marketing Campaign
Wonder What They Do All Day?
In the summer of 2016, Universal's animation unit Illumination, launched The Secret Life of Pets to big box office numbers. Universal's marketing department was able to launch a viral trailer, engaging hashtags and content that made fans excited for the release. The trailer launched on social media and gathered an impressive 150 million views across Facebook and Youtube. Both the trailers and the posters were based of basic pet stereotypes that everyone believes. This makes all the posters and trailers really funny and engaging because we can picture pets actually doing some of these things. They utilized the slogan "Wonder what they do all day" to capture people's interest and imaginations. In addition to the typical advertising they created a mobile game for kids as well as a Petmoji app to create fun, unique emoji versions of your pets. These gave fans ways to interact with the content and engage with the movie. People love everything about their pets so being able to create an emoji or game character based off them makes customers feel part of the creation process.
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Results:
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Opened to a 103 million dollars opening weekend which was way above predictions
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Over 100 partners-delivering close to $400 million in promotional value
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Trailer earned 150 million views across social media in the first day alone
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Went on to gross 875 million dollars at the global box office
Cross Partnerships are Important
A cross-promotion that manages to be relevant, fun and creative is always a winner!
-Burningred
One of the unique aspects about this marketing campaign was that the company went ahead and created a ton of promotional partners with the film. This helps them share the costs and allows for more exposure to the film. Their marketing quickly followed up the trailer by taking over Pets Smarts with in store promotions along with their website and social media accounts. This was a natural fit thanks to the pet atmosphere and the people who shop there are more likely to wonder what their pet does all day. They were able to engage fans with a GoPro integration to see what really happens when you leave your pet at home. This was an unlikely partner, but it ended up being very successful because GoPro got to advertise some of its pet harnesses and the film got free user content. Many people posted their GoPro footage on social media for the world to see. In addition, Universal gave fans a way to create their own content with the hashtag #SecretLifeOfMyPet which allowed them to share videos and pictures of their own animals. The entire marketing campaign focused on connecting with consumers and bringing them into the experience and creation process.