2. The Posters. The first poster was all about making sure the audience realized we were going back to very familiar ground. So it just shows the three main characters – and a monkey – obviously recovering after a night of hard living. The copy at the top promises “The Wolfpack is back” while the bottom lets us know the setting has changed by intoning that “Bangkok has them now.” It’s alright and certainly is consistent colour-wise with the look and feel of the campaign for the first movie so it’s hearkening back to that first instalment in a number of ways. Much like the first movie a set of character posters was created and released that featured a different quote for each person/animal. Each one also guaranteed again that the Wolfpack was indeed back and so on.
3. Trailers. The first teaser trailer doesn’t give the audience a whole lot of information. As the camera slowly pans over the scene of the previous night’s debauchery a series of critics quotes from the first movie are shown. We finally see the three guys walking down a foreign market street. The only dialogue we get is from Galifianakis, who remarks that it’s nice that they’re all back together again. The full-length trailer that followed continued to make it clear that we’re on familiar territory with this sequel. We’re in Thailand (hilariously misprounounced by Galifianakis) for Stu’s wedding and his bride to be encourages the guys to take her little brother out for what’s planned to be a subdued night out. But once again the gang wakes up with no idea what has transpired the night before and with someone – this time Teddy, the little brother – the one who’s missing. So they set out to first figure out where they are and what happened. Once again they conveniently run in to Chow, who seems to be helping them but is really just a loose cannon. There are plenty of laughs here but mostly this is about selling the audience on a return to these characters and on that front it works pretty well.
4. Online The movie’s official website begins by playing the trailer as full screen video but you can skip and close that. After that the first section is “About the Film” which has Cast and Filmmaker bios as well as a Story synopsis and Production Notes you can download and read if you so choose. “Videos” has both of the Trailers and “Photos” has just over two dozen stills from the movie that you can view in full screen mode. You can grab Posters, Icons and Wallpapers in the “Downloads” section. A list of sites that participated in giveaways and movie-related contests can be found in “Sweepstakes” while the companies that had some sort of tie-in promotion are in “Partners.” Finally “Soundtrack” lets you sample some tracks from the movie’s soundtrack and “Crouching Monkey, Hidden Chow” is some sort of game that you have to verify your age using Facebook Connect to play so I didn’t do so. The movie’s Facebook page pretty much just has the usual array of photos, videos, prompts to visit features on the main site and updates about new material as it’s released.
5. Advertising and TV spots A number of TV spots began running in late April that largely played up the audience’s affiliation with the first movie and made it clear we’re watching the same group of people get involved in a situation similar to what happened in that earlier film only in a new location. They’re all pretty funny but don’t go out any much of any new ground, though to be fair they probably don’t need to. Further spots would continue to hit the “it happened again” theme but also be, for whatever reason, much funnier in their own right and show off the movie as its own thing and not just a bit of dejavu. In what seems to me an extremely odd promotion, there was a game utilizing location-based service SCVNGR that was run with convenience chain 7-Eleven. Stores hosted a mobile scavenger hunt that encouraged people to take pictures with Big Gulps and so on. Those Big Gulp cups featured the faces of the cast. It’s odd to me because 1) It’s not a toy- or comic-based franchise picture and 2) Because it’s an R-rated movie. On that last point I have to wonder if this even comes close to passing the requirement that most of the audience that’s going to see the ads and promotions are going to be of an appropriate age. Other promotional partners included Last Round hangover support supplement, Singha Beer and t-shirt maker Ike Behar.
6. Warner Bros. sent a letter to all theatres showing the trailer to cease running it. Why? The trailer included a raunchy scene involving a monkey performing a simulated sexual act with a bottle which they snuck past the MPAA. here are the marketing affects: The movie received a lot of press. Many of the articles included the movie’s release date, priming the public and creating a ‘countdown’ effect for opening weekend, which has become more and more critical to a movie’s success. 2) Everyone’s going to be hunting around for the original Hangover 2 monkey trailer now that it’s banned. This will draw a lot of traffic to YouTube or whatever site it’s found on, introducing more people to the movie. As Bob Cialdini points out in his marketing classic Influence, scarcity drives demand. 3) The fact that the trailer got pulled for monkey business indicates that Hangover 2 promises to be just as outrageous if not more than the original. Much of the 1st movie worked because of sheer shock value – the message here is: “Guess what. This one’s going to be just as insane.”
7. The Hangover Part II is set to be released on DVD and Blu-ray on December 6, 2011 in the United States by Warner Home Media. The film will be available in 3 formats: DVD, Blu-ray and Blu-ray Combo pack which includes both high and standard-definition iteration of the film and an UltraViolet digital copy of the film.
