Description of the Marketing Campaign of James Cameron's Avatar

2. Cast & Crew
Director:
-James Cameron: After the success of The Terminator, Aliens, Terminator 2, True Lies and Titanic, James Cameron took a
pause of 12 years before releasing the blockbuster called Avatar which have been the most-gross movie of all time for
nearly 10 years followed by his own Titanic.
Actors:
Sam Worthington: Before the release of Avatar, Sam played Marcus Wright in Terminator Salvation, which is a sequel of the
franchise of The Terminator, which is also started by James Cameron.
Stephen Lang: In 2009, the same year of Avatar’s release, Lang also played Charles Winstead in Public Enemies, movie that
had a really big success for the two main character played by Johnny Depp who finished The Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy
in that years and Christian Bale who had a lot of rumors around for The Dark Knight
Michelle Rodriguez: The most famous role that she played is the Letizia Ortiz one in The Fast and The Furious saga which
before the release of Avatar was at its 4th chapter.

3. The Movie
Avatar is 2009 movie directed, produced, written and screen played by
James Cameron who had the idea in 1994, 15 years before the actual
release in the theatres.
Due to a lack of necessary technology, the production of the movie was
delayed until 2004 when James Cameron started to write the screenplay
for a fictional universe and began developing a extraterrestrial language.
The movie premiered in London on December 10, 2009, and was
released in the United States on December 18.
During the theatrical run, the film broke all the box office records and
became the highest-grossing film at the the time and also became the
best-selling film of 2010.
The movie also became the first film to gross more than $2 billion.
Avatar held the title of ‘’Highest gross at the box office’’ for nearly a
decade until the release of Avengers Endgame which beat the box office
in 3 weeks.

4. The Trailer and the
Poster
The first poster was released on the 14th of October 2009 and then Empire released some exclusive images from the
movie.
The first trailer of the movie was released on the 9th of November 2009, one month before the release of the movie.
It got more than 5 million click on the 20th Century Fox verified official channel by the time of the release in
theatres. Which was a great number back then, when the social medias weren’t advanced as they are nowadays.
The trailer was also played in television during advertisement breaks, and it also got played in theatres through hall
screens or before the play of other movies.
The trailer shows that James Cameron directed also successful movies like The Terminator, T2: Judgment Day and
Titanic. This will give to whoever watches the trailer the confidence that someone who directed movies that the
people liked, is going to release another movie after years of silence.

5. The video game and Coca-Cola
The video game is a 2009 is a third-person action video game based on James Cameron’s
Avatar movie, it was developed by Ubisoft Montreal and released on the PlayStation 3, Xbox
360, Microsoft Windows, Wii and Nintendo DS on December 1, 2009, while a PSP version
came out a week later. The same stars of the movie, voice act their characters in this prequel
game and it uses the same stereoscopic 3D technology used in the movie.
As of may 19, 2010, the game has sold nearly 2.7 million copies.
And a ye sequel is currently in production.
The Coca Cola company collaborated with Fox to launch a marketing campaign to promote
the movie. The highlight of the campaign was the website AVTR.com. Specially marked
bottles and cans of Coca-Cola Zero, when held in front of a webcam, enabled users to interact
with the website’s 3-D features using augmented reality.

6. The book and the Facebook page
Avatar: A Confidential Report on the Biological and Social History of Pandora is a book in the
form of a field guide to the film’s fictional setting of the planet of Pandora, was released by
Harper Entertainment on November 24, 2009. It is presented as a compilation of data
collected by the humans about Pandora and the life on it, written by Maria Wilhelm and
Dirk Mathison.
The page was created on December 11, 2009, just a few days before the release of the
movie, the page counts 45 million of likes and followers and it started posting videos of clips
from the movie and special contents. But it had never posted before the movie was actually
released even if the page was created before. Also because Facebook was the bigger social
media in that times, but it wasn’t used for marketing purposes.

7. The action figures and Mc Donald’s
The line of Avatar action figures was announced and introduces by Mattel Toys in
December 2009.
Each action figure was made with a 3-D web tag, called i-TAG, that consumers can scan
using a web cam, revealing unique on-screen content that is exclusive to each specific
action figure.
In December 2009 a series of toys representing six different characters from the movie
were also distributed globally in McDonald’s Happy Meals.
It also had a promotion mentioned in television commercials in Europe called “Avatarize
yourself”, which encouraged people to go to the website set up by Oddcast, and use a
photograph of themselves to change into a Na’vi.

8. All of four products contains the official logo of the movie in it’s original form or in an edited version.
In the same years there was an upcoming animated series called Avatar: The Last AirBender which could confuse the audience
so that’s why every product specifies that the movie is different from the cartoon adding at the logo James Cameron’s name.
Both toys and coca cola bottles have a QR code which when scanned by the webcam, permits you to have a personalized and
unique avatar on your computer.

9. The website and the Twitter page
The website was created before the release of the movie but it also has been mentioned
first in the first trailer of the movie.
When first created it only had the link to the trailer and the original poster.
After the movie came out, the website uploaded PDFs about the experience on the
planet of Pandora, and links of articles about the movie, and the link of the tickets to a
theme park called “Pandora”, just like the name of the planet in the movie.
After James Cameron announced the sequels of the movie at the David Letterman’s
show, the cover image of the website changed with the scheduled days of the respective
future releases of the movies.
The twitter page was created on May 2009, 8 months before the release of the movie,
and it posted the first official poster on 14 October 2009, and it posted the link of the
trailer the day it came out on YouTube.
On December 2019, the page launched the hashtag #Avatar10YearsAnniversary posting
exclusive interviews with the Cast & the Crew about the experience they had making the
movie, and about the success it made.
Twitter has also been the main platform for the collaboration that Avatar made with
Mercedes-Benz launching James Cameron’s announcement of the sequels

10. The trailer, the
original poster
and the first post
of the Facebook
page all present
the same original
logo of the
movie.
The trailer and the
original poster,
both present the
date of the release
of the movie.
All the visual
platform use the
same blue color
which recalls the
skin color of the
Na’Vis.
The trailer, the poster and the
Facebook page all mention that
James Cameron is the same who
directed Titanic. While the page and
the poster do it with the same font.
The trailer uses the same font of all
the other text boxes used before.

11. The Website, the twitter
page and the Facebook
page all present the same
logo. Which is not the
official one but a special
made only for the online
platforms.
All the three platforms
point on the purple color,
which is the color of the
sacred plants of Pandora
called Eiwa.
All the pages and the
website have pictures of
Pandora’s panorama, this
because the movie is all
set in that planet and to
show the “spectacular”
details of the design of
the movie.

12. 18 December 2009
Release of the movie
in theatres
14 October 2009
Release of the
first poster
9 November 2009
Release of the first trailer
14 November 2009
Marketing Campaign
with Coca-Cola
24 November 2009
Release of the Guide-
Book
1 December 2009
Release of the
video game
11 December 2009
Release of the toys
line with Mattel and
McDonald’s
22 April 2010
Release of the
movie in Blu-Ray

13. James Cameron knew from when he had the idea that millions of people were going to
watch the movie, especially his success due to Titanic.
Avatar being a movie suitable for an all aged audience, the marketing had to be really
big and efficient.
This is why the campaign is linked with Happy Meal and Mattel for a children target,
while the videogame covers a teenager audience, the new generation teenagers don’t
love reading so the book is more suitable for a middle age audience who can enjoy it
more being used to this kind of entertainment, and in the end Coca-Cola has an all-
aged audience like the movie does.
James Cameron and the trailer really pointed on the new 3-D technology, this is why
also the Coca-Cola cans and the Mattel toys have this webcam feature which plays with
a basilar 3-D image.
The campaign was really successful, and permitted to the movie to be the “king of the
Box Office” for nearly 10 years grossing a total of 2.79 billion USD all over the world.
The critics really appreciated the movie and the CGI technology surprised everyone in
the theater.
Also because even if the movie came out 11 years ago, the computer graphic is still
comparable to the nowadays’ visual effects.