Tube Trends: Spider-Man’s Swinging Social Success
The reports of superhero movies’ demise has been greatly exaggerated. At least, if you’re talking about a Spider-Man movie, that is.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day’s record-setting opening weekend is impressive in any environment. But in this one, where releases like Supergirl and Fantastic Four: First Steps have spurred significant doubts about the future of superhero cinema as the box office guarantee it used to be, it’s pretty… Amazing (excuse the Spider-Man humor) to see a solo character movie make nearly $1 billion globally during its opening weekend.
More interesting still, the title didn’t follow a typical script for blockbusters like this, seemingly eschewing traditional TV for bigger focus on both targeted streaming spots and social video activations.
Social Surge
Tubular Labs data shows that across all social video platforms, the movie generated over 11 billion views since July 1, via 158K unique uploads. While Marvel/Disney and Sony played a role there, it’s notable that on YouTube, 78% of views about the movie actually came via individual creators (influencers).
Those creators — some of whom worked directly with the movie to promote the release — helped drive what felt like a full-weekend barrage of content around Spider-Man worldwide.
On YouTube U.S. videos only accounted for 42% of videos related to Brand New Day in the lead-up to the release (and through opening weekend), showing how much the film was a global phenomenon. And some videos related to the movie broke the usual molds for superhero fare as well by reaching beyond typical entertainment and pop culture categories.
Tubular data shows that while TV/movie/pop culture videos accounted for nearly 95% of YouTube views, uploads across interests like music, fashion, video games and business/finance still accounted for tens of millions of views as well.
On the fashion front, Zendaya (plays MJ in the franchise) was able to help Brand New Day cross over into atypical spaces thanks to her status as an award winner and red carpet staple. Music-wise, Steve Lacy’s spoiler interview was part of the category’s larger splash — along with the impressive soundtrack from composer Michael Giacchino.
Brands Bought Into Social
Among the various co-branded spots around Brand New Day, Bero (owned by star Tom Holland) and BMW not only avoided traditional TV, but primarily focused integrations on social video platforms.
On Instagram alone, BMW uploaded 11 videos about Brand New Day since July 1, equating to nearly 52 million views. Non-alcoholic beer brand Bero’s campaign for special edition Spider-Man cans had another 3.3 million views. Both brands also appeared in the movie itself, along with various others.
For YouTube, Fortnite, PUBG’s Battlegrounds, Takis, McDonald’s and Samsung joined the party as well for cross-promo pushes. Other brands like Liquid I.V. were active around the movie on TikTok.
Needless to say, it was an all-out blitz around Brand New Day, as everyone wanted in on the buzz around the latest Spidey film.
For 25 years now, the character has been setting the pace for solo hero movies at the box office, which gives partners something to bank on across social video and TV. And with this new movie being the latest in a run of billion-dollar binges for the Wall Crawler, expect more of the same next time out, too.
