“Avengers” film series – A story of success and loyalty

10 years and 22 movies later, Marvel scored yet another hit with “Avengers: Endgame”, the second highest earning movie in history, crossing the $2 billion box office benchmark. The film, which sees the Avengers teaming up to defeat Thanos, had the biggest global opening in history, with an estimated $1.2 billion. Only five films have ever reached the $2 billion mark and none have done so faster than the latest Marvel film. Moreover, online ticketing websites Fandango and Atom Tickets have reported that the film has broken numerous records on their sites, including first-hour, first-day, and first-week sales records.

A key to the film’s success was the loyalty its fans felt towards the Avengers brand, something that Marvel has been building up since 2008, with the launch of the first series movie. People seem to be committed to the Avengers brand, following superheroes, attending movie premiers, purchasing limited-edition products, memorabilia, soundtracks and off course watching all series movies.

Comic characters have become superstars and Avengers have become one of the most lovable brand in the world.

It’s all about Loyalty

One of the reasons that Marvel has developed such a loyal audience, is that the company hasn’t just produced standalone movies but a series of films. Throughout its 22-movie run, Marvel has introduced many genres into the mix, including spy thriller and space opera. A cinematic universe creates connections from one movie to the next, allowing characters to become more fleshed out.

Marvel has also been successful at creating archetypes out of their most famous characters, like Iron Man, Captain America, Black Widow, and the Hulk. Marvel Studios has used big data analytics, to find out what fans like most about the characters, what they particularly dislike and what they find fascinating and based on these date, create and “develop” the Avengers characters.

One further mechanism in the Avengers movies that ties people with the brand and enhances loyalty towards it, is the plot of the movies allowing audiences to watch a Avengers movie, without necessarily having seen previous Avengers films, while not missing out. Thus, people are likely to also watch previous Avengers films, since anticipation and excitement’s been building up in every movie. For example, in the “Avengers: Endgame”, there are historical references to all previous Avengers films, connecting them all together, as a sequence.

Marvel loyalty online program, “Marvel Insider”

Apart from brand loyalty, Marvel has created a front-runner loyalty program across multimedia, entertainment, and gaming industries, Marvel “Insiders”. This is an online loyalty platform https://www.marvel.com/insider, rewarding fans for being fans! Users register, and collect loyalty points that can redeem in cool Avengers’ stuff! The rewarding is for users’ events like watching Marvel trailers, checking into cinemas to watch Avengers films, listening to Marvel podcasts, posting about Avengers on social media, etc.  As fans collect points, they’re rewarded with such items as free digital Marvel comics, collectibles, T-shirts, and more.

From tracking user points, to notifying members about new releases, Marvel loyalty program sets its users up for success and helps them to feel truly engaged with the brand. By rewarding Insiders for their loyalty and helping its fandom to have a true superhero experience, the Avengers has become one of the best-known brands in the world.