Most film marketing still thinks their job is to convince you the movie is good. Studios have relied on the fact that a good trailer, press, and a premiere justifies people buying a ticket.
The rollout of Wuthering Heights understood the real job: make the internet want to participate. Wuthering Heights is not being sold as a period piece. It’s being sold as a feeling, a trope, a mood you can wear, quote, repost, and recreate.
The marketing for the film was not “go watch this.” It was more like, join the cult of yearning and longing.
Both Margot Robbie’s production house, and Warner Brothers turned a classic love story into a modern distribution machine by doing three things:
Timing the release to a cultural moment that already has built-in attention (Valentine’s Day)
Designing key movie creative (the kiss poster) that doubles as a UGC template
Using press, fashion, and merch as ongoing episodic content
We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again, this is what marketing looks like when it’s entertainment based and optimized for social.
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