For the long-awaited release of Zack Snyder’s Justice League (aka the Snyder Cut), Home Brew envisioned a social campaign unmatched in scope and size to delight the fans that had waited years for this film to premiere. With a very actively engaged audience spanning across the globe, we wanted our campaign to lead the conversation while remaining nimble enough to adapt to real-time trends so that the campaign stayed culturally relevant at all times. In close partnership with HBO Max, we set out to create a holistic digital marketing strategy, best-in-class creative, strategic content rollout plan, and an approach to community management that would authentically capture Zack Snyder’s vision for the film, successfully engage and excite the passionate fan base, and ultimately drive awareness for the film’s debut on the HBO Max streaming platform.
Our strategy focused on building and maintaining strong fan relationships, a defined voice, community rewards such as easter eggs and social exclusives, and the overall celebration of DC Comics and Zack Snyder. Knowing the strength and power of this fandom, a layered approach to fan engagement was a key element to a winning campaign strategy. The first layer was the hardcore fans that started the movement to get the Snyder Cut made and banded together to create the monumental #ReleaseTheSnyderCut movement. To reach this audience, we went straight to the platforms they were most active on–Reddit, Discord, and Twitter. Next, we activated fans organically by seeding content via DMs and challenging them to dissect our content for larger payoffs. In our creative, we called out niche characters and iconography details, incorporated themes that attracted new fans, and kept the knowledgeable audience hooked with in-world and interactive content.
Engagement with fans one-on-one on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram was especially key in the early days to significantly boost conversation. With our primary audience on Twitter, we focused on regularly engaging with fans on this platform, optimizing the Snyder Cut’s presence with GIFs and other shareable content.
For trailer debuts, we responded with GIFs of talked-about moments and developed a consistent and knowledgeable voice across all of our posts. During the Digital Red Carpet Premiere, we hand-selected fan tweets to showcase on the live simulcast, focusing on a diversity of voices that represented the global community.
Our Facebook and Instagram accounts targeted more to mainstream audiences, so we developed Instagram Story streams that encouraged interactivity and UGC. We also launched a Vero page to own exclusive content windows, servicing the hardcore fan base and their active platform community.
We actively listened to Reddit, Discord, and Twitter, following influential voices to gauge sentiment and summarize daily chatter, especially when it impacted our upcoming content and key beats.
With an emphasis on Zack's interpretation of the classic DC characters, we highlighted the film’s darker tone and deeper character development with a creative series on superheroes and villains. We utilized impressive VFX scenes and highlighted powerful quotes for fans to rally behind.
Maintaining the visual fidelity of the film, we kept true to Zack's vision by developing a creative strategy where less is more. Using the same epic tone as the film and trailers, our videos used sound design to build impact. Any unedited scene lifts were kept in the original 4:3 ratio.
As a close partner to HBO Max, we planned paid asset rollouts and coordinated with their media agency and publishing partners, including Twitch, Snapchat, and Twitter and converted top-performing organic content to paid assets to draw in a larger audience.
For key beats and big content debuts, we built tease and release strategies for primary partners in addition to the film’s accounts, aiming to compound visibility across the owned channel ecosystem. We wrote copy and planned rollouts for the HBO Max brand, HBO Max’s international accounts, talent, DC Comics, and Zack Snyder.
Home Brew executed a winning campaign that delighted fans and drew in new viewers for a record-breaking release that earned 34.7B social impressions. As a result of our campaign, the film had over 20,000 social posts from global audiences every day for over 60 days. The accounts experienced 3,514% follower growth and gained 734,851 new fans. As a result of our owned channel amplification, 82% of views on the first trailer within one week were driven organically.
Exceeding even our highest goals, our campaign worked with the passionate fan community to make Zack Snyder’s Justice League the #1 Most-Discussed movie on Twitter in 2021.
