If this Cruella Social Strategy Plan Doesn’t Scare You… I Don’t Know What Will
Disney’s Cruella has to be one of the most anticipated live-action premiers of 2021 for the Disney studio. For being one of the first films back in theaters and with premier access through Disney+, the film has a lot of marketing potential through social media to gage interest for new and loyal fans. Cruella, based on the original 101 Dalmatians, will showcase that original Disney villain story that has been highly anticipated from fans. With Emma Stone as the lead actress, the film is sure to gain a new affinity for her with and charisma that is exactly what’s so beloved about the classic Cruella De Vil.
In order for the social media team to be able to kick off the Cruella campaign, we need to establish our SMART goal so that we are able to set out a news strategy to follow and improve on.
As a comparison we will be looking at the 2020 live-action Mulan, which only grossed a low $69 million international (Nash Information Services, LLC, n.d.). There were many factors that led to this box office opening like that of streaming, the pandemic affecting theater openings, social and political backlash, and many others. Still, we have to reflect that looking back at this information be essential to making for a better campaign focused on the good of the film.
Our SMART goal: We will boost engagement through Instagram and Facebook with exclusive content pre, during, and after the film release to see a 15% increase on box-office opening ticket sales.
The Campaign
Instagram and Facebook will be the main platforms that will feature and propagate fan engagement. Instagram focuses on the visually appealing, while Twitter is more fan engaging. Each will do their part to retain and gain that fan interaction we need to spread awareness.
In terms of marketing, Instagram and Facebook will both target a young-adult audience, creating content that Gen Z and Millennials cling to. According to Sprout Social, Instagram and Facebook’s “largest age group ranges from 25–34” with a majority female base, while Facebook’s majority is male (Barnhart, 2021). The content should cater to all followers, so for the purposes of this campaign, we should focus on sharing quality content that anyone in this market can engage and share.
Next, we want to establish a voice that sets the tone for the accounts. With Cruella’s over-the-top character traits, we are going to be able to bring that sort of dialogue and creativity into the campaign.
In order to establish a voice for the platform, here are a few adjectives to describe Cruella De Vil based on the teaser and her past characters envisions:
Refined, classy, sophisticated, poignant, scandalous, evil, wicked, obsessive, passionate, arrogant
From here we can pick at least three to fit the voice of the campaign: Refined, scandalous, and arrogant.
Fitting into the tone of the fictional character gives the audience a chance to have fun in engagement. The classic character is beloved for her wit, craziness, and obsession of dogs so fans will be able to find that in a closer environment. It makes it fun and inviting when the community can interact with the classic character through social.
Since Disney is an established company, hashtags aren’t as necessary for fans to find and discover the brand. But one sort of fun way to use a hashtag would involve user engagement, which is exactly what we plan to do.
Instagram: #Cruella #disneycruella #CruellaWorld
#CruellaSpots
This hashtag will promote fan-made fashion as the main character is an icon in her estranged world. This will help reach engagement and will make for easy user-generated content to share with fans. Whether this be through fashion, makeup choice, fan re-enactment, or through some other creative design, fans will be able to showcase their own style as the new vogue look, but it a non-evil sort of way.
Facebook: #Cruella #disneycreulla #CruellaWorld
#Cruellaratesmydogs
Here we can drive the beloved dog content of the internet to be interactional, as we inspire fans to post their pup pics and ask Cruella to rate their dogs. Lucky fans would win the appraisal of Cruella, to see if they made it into her dog collection.
One last component would be the integration of partnerships and influencer relationships. For this campaign, I don’t see much of an influencer relationship as I’d like to focus on our very own content and the user-generated content through our hashtag challenges setup. For this we will solely focus on our own content.
For this to be successful, we really have to plan and integrate the use of our social tools to find what social media users are best engaging with. Because without them, Cruella wouldnt be the star she already is.
