Marketing using someone else’s Brand with 5 examples

Princes and the Beast

Looking for a quick way to promote your comic, blog, or other project?

An easy way to create a little buzz is to steal I mean borrow someone else’s brand.

If you look at huge franchises such as Star Wars, Disney, Marvel, DC, etc, etc you have people who are just crazy for these characters.  You have people that want to see everything and anything related to them even if it isn’t from the companies that own those properties.

If you create works of art that feature these characters, you have an opportunity to build up viewers and possibly convert some of them into fans.  Just creating copies of your favorite characters isn’t going to bring in a flood gate of people; your art has to have some distinct qualities.

Those are:

1. Have to keep those characters’ personalities at the heart of the artwork. People have strong attachments to their favorite characters and if they feel you are making fun of them or not presenting their character properly they will not share your work.
   NOTE: It is possible to create a buzz by flipping a characters personality espeicially if related to big topics like gender roles or societal expectation (look at example 4 below to see this in action).
2. There has to be a creative change. Copying a picture of Spiderman or creating an original drawing of Spiderman is not going to create a buzz. There has to be some unique change to the character, situation, or art style.
3. It has to look good. What ever creative change you choose, it has to look amazing or at the very least visually interesting.

If your art covers all three of these requirements on a popular enough character, you can quickly see a spike in your views and hopefully keep some of those people coming back for your other cool artwork.

The Viral Effect

Basically we all know what it means when things go viral. People share with people who share with People, etc. etc.

When implementing this marketing tactic it is important to remember you have a very simple start for your viral effect.

Start with the fans of your subject

If you are using Disney characters you should post on Disney related fan sites, Disney blogs, and Disney fan social media groups/pages.

Once these places get the news, they will pass it on to their readers, who are also Disney fans.

These fans then share it with their friends and their friends share it with people who they think will like it.

And it will go viral.

Legal

I am not a lawyer, so by creating images that have copy right protection you are breaking the law. To find out exactly which laws and what the legal loop holes around these laws are, you should consult a lawyer.

I personally have not tried creating alternative versions of popular characters as a way to market my blog, but plan on doing it in the near future.

5 Examples

from http://minionfactory.blogspot.com

#5 Pixar Invades The Marvel & DC Comics Universe!

This example I found when a friend posted it on an Milwaukee’s Animation Group’s Facebook Page.  They really liked Pixar and Marvel, so it made sense for them to post it on an animation related facebook page.

The original creator says:

” This project started after the announcement of Disney buying Marvel comics and all the the fans started making Pixar / Avengers images. Well I was not terribly happy with the images that they were doing, so I tried to do better. ( Most of what I saw was recoloured  images from “The Incredibles” movie screen grabs )”

 You can see more amazing images like this one at: http://minionfactory.blogspot.com/2012/11/pixar-invades-marvel-dc-comics-universe.html

#4 The Hawkeye Initiative

The Hawkeye Initiative is a fun experiment in how woman are portrayed in comic books, graphic novels, or in society in general.

The website describe’s itself at:

“A blog with Clint “Hawkeye” Barton being placed in the same provocative, female poses that are featured in superhero comics.”

Another great feature is that they take submissions that they feel fit the goals of the project.

You can see more at http://thehawkeyeinitiative.com/

#3 Real Life Disney Characters

This project was basically a way to show off the artists skills to possible employers. We all recognize these Disney characters and to see them in a realistic style of art gives the piece of art an extra layer of meaning.

If the artist just drew random people we would not get the same effect of the images.

You can see more at:
http://www.behance.net/gallery/Envisioning-Disney-Characters-in-Real-Life/2072296

#2 Disney Characters Sneaking Into Star Wars

This artists creates these images and posts them on their tumblr account.

I assume they also become good example of their artwork for a portfolio.

They great thing about this example is that they are using two different sets of characters (Lion King & Star Wars) and morphing them together.

On the site there are morphs of these types for many characters; most of which are Disney.

See more at:
http://silvaniart.tumblr.com/

#1 Live Action Toy Story

I heard about this video a few weeks ago, but never got around to watching it. I still haven’t had a chance to watch the entire thing (runs 1 hour 20 minutes) but it is the perfect example of using someone else’s brand.

The creators of this video can always say “I made the Live Action Toy Story”. They took someone else’s film and the creative change was to use the real toys from the movie, but now they can use this success and fame (currently at over 8.5 million views) to launch their own personal projects.

They even had the opportunity to connect with Pixar which is something people want to hear about.

Conclusion

Marketing  by using someone else’s brand is a smart option for building up your own brand. I just have to warn you not to lose focus on your project when creating creating your “Fan” art.

If you know of any other examples similar to these 5, I would love to hear about them in the comment section below.