'Avengers' movie triggers massive jump in social chatter, study says

Brief:

"Avengers: Endgame," the record-breaking Marvel Studios sequel that opened worldwide last week, triggered a massive jump in social media chatter including pleas to #DontSpoilTheEndgame, per a study that social media analytics firm Talkwalker shared with Mobile Marketer. The firm observed more than 9.6 million mentions of the superhero movie and 40.5 million engagements worldwide on social media during the opening week.
Among brands, Disney's Marvel Studios ranked highest with 313,000 mentions, followed by carmaker Audi with 6,689 mentions, Coca-Cola at 934, McDonald's at 650 and Mastercard at 600. Audi is prominent because Tony Stark, the alter-ego of superhero Ironman, drives an all-electric E-Tron GT concept car in the movie, Talkwalker said.
The #AvengersEndgame hashtag had the most mentions with more than 3.82 million social media posts, followed by #Endgame at 728,192, #Avengers at 367,378 and #DontSpoilTheEndgame at 330,823. Social media users posted the misspelled hashtag #AvengersEndame 108,881 times.

Insight:

The social chatter about the new "Avengers" movie has helped to extend the publicity for the latest sequel, which comes a year after "Avengers: Infinity War" left fans with a major cliffhanger. The Disney and Marvel film shattered the record for biggest opening weekend with an estimated $350 million in ticket sales domestically and $1.2 billion globally. Before "Avengers: Endgame" opened, filmmakers Joe and Anthony Russo used the #DontSpoilTheEndgame hashtag in a statement that asked fans to avoid spoiling the movie after leaked footage and images from the film were shared online.

Brands like Audi, Coca-Cola, McDonald's and Mastercard reaped some of the benefits from the massive opening, although fan posts related to the movie's key plot points were the biggest topics of social media discussion. Among brand tie-ins, Audi created a spot for its E-Tron concept car starring actress Brie Larson, who plays "Captain Marvel." Google promoted its Pixel 3 smartphone with a spot that included scenes from the movie and original augmented reality content inspired by its characters. Car rental company Hertz highlighted its mobile app in a spot that showed a couple driving a car while Marvel superheroes battle an unseen enemy. Hertz earlier this year ran an ad that was tied in with the release of "Captain Marvel," suggesting that the superhero action genre has been a successful tie-in for the car rental company.

Marvel Studios spent about $13.6 million in the U.S. to promote "Avengers: Endgame," according to Kantar estimates cited by Fast Company. The studio created a record 10 custom spots and ran 927 national ads on 39 networks during the movie's opening week. Most of the U.S. budget was spent on TV, with one-minute ads primarily running during talk shows including the "Today" show, James Corden's "Late Late Show," and "Late Night with Seth Myers."