The New Era of Movie Marketing: Caught Between Streaming and Cinema - Five Realities Warner's Marketing Faces

1. The Industry Structure That Demands "One Battle After Another"

“The next ordeal follows a hit”—In Hollywood 2025, those involved in marketing must create peaks of demand for each work, collect them instantly, and immediately move on to the next peak. With theaters, streaming, and social media intricately intertwined, topics rise quickly and are forgotten just as fast. Warner is at the extreme point of this. Amidst reorganization towards a spin-off, the strategy for works is forced to simultaneously pursue "certainty" and "surprise."

2. Organizational Tectonics: Spin-offs and Personnel Optimization

In 2025, WBD announced a separation into two companies: Streaming & Studio and Global Network. In line with this, about 10% optimization in marketing/distribution/production strategy was enforced in the film division, and the center of decision-making is shifting from "US headquarters + overseas" to "fully global." Marketing practices have entered a phase where fragmented information and budget allocations by country, platform, and sales channel are unified, rebalancing creativity and efficiency.

3. Steering the Brand: "Return" to HBO Max and "Newstalgia"

The decision to revert the streaming brand name from "Max" to "HBO Max" sends a strong message to bolster brand assets. While re-emphasizing the high-trust quality impression of HBO, it integrates advertising products and measurement platforms across the board. WBD's "Storyverse" and the "newstalgia" through re-editing and re-proposing old IPs capture the trend of younger audiences beginning to enjoy classic works as "new standards." Marketing is tasked with expanding the intersection of nostalgia and discovery into experiences both inside and outside of streaming (OOH, events, commerce linkage).

4. Case Study ①: 'Superman'—Redefining the "Classic"

The flagship DC reboot 'Superman' returns its tone and manner to a "high-quality classic" while carefully capturing fan-driven UGC enthusiasm digitally. From the teaser stage, it encouraged "visualization of expectations," and during the preview period, unified "ways of talking about the work" with cross-exposure of the cast and long-form content on owned media. Transitioning from the traditional mass drop to a "precision instrument flight" that meticulously creates peaks. As a result, it drew a line of "broad and deep" in both reviews and retention.

5. Case Study ②: 'Minecraft'—"Parent-Child Two-Tier" Beyond Four Quadrants

In the family domain, 'Minecraft' is designed with the "shared memory" of the younger generation with game experiences and their parent generation at its core. Before release, it distributed "make and show" experiential content to educational, hobby, and YouTube micro-influencers, and just before release, synchronized the weekend "parent-child attendance switch" through commercials, in-store, and SNS. As a result, it achieved both initial thickness and weekday sustainability.

6. Case Study ③: 'Weapons'—Cryptic × Retro Viral

The horror film 'Weapons' deliberately reduced information and stimulated curiosity on SNS with fragmented 90s-style visuals and "mystery-solving pathways." By placing ARG-like setups and minimal OOH in the city in a pointillistic manner, it evoked the desire for audiences to share "solutions." The key was meticulously managing the boundary between spoiler avoidance and UGC diffusion.

7. Optimization of Marketing Costs: KPI Shifts from "Buzz" to "Customer Acquisition"

Film marketing in 2025 is an operational competition to optimize "buzz → search → ticket/subscription → retention → spread" seamlessly. Warner reviews MROI for each work, including multivariate testing of creatives, elimination of distribution overlap, local optimization of OOH, and unification of PR "narratives." While options for strategies have increased, doing everything is inefficient. The key is to quickly decide what to do and what not to do by evaluating "surefire strategies" and "buzz-targeted shots" on the same dashboard.

8. Backlash and Fatigue: The "Double-Back" Risk of Social Media

In the era of SNS, marketing missteps are immediately "doubled back" and spread. Casting, production behind-the-scenes, and past statements are often connected without context, mixing creative evaluation with management criticism. Warner needs to prepare "pre-launch explanations" and "initial response pathways when misunderstandings arise" for points where backlash is anticipated, to slow the spread of negativity. While zero backlash is impossible, fatal damage can be avoided.

9. Market Perspective: M&A Observations and Rating Fluctuations

While acquisition observations push up stock prices, concerns about profitability, debt levels, and integration costs cause fluctuations in ratings and analyst evaluations. For those in marketing, it's important that strategies for works are not overly "drawn into" short-term market narratives. The investors' narrative and the audience's narrative are different, and in the latter, "the quality of advertising spend" and "the quality of the work itself" ultimately determine success.

10. Proposal: Designing Warner's "Winning Strategy"

• Dual Wheels of IP Re-editing and New IP: Re-design old IPs in the context of "newstalgia" for discovery experiences among younger audiences. For new IPs, focus on "worldview design × UGC inducement."

• "Necessary and Sufficient Set" for Each Work: Instead of an all-around approach, have a winning strategy template for each type of work (e.g., four quadrants/horror/award-targeted/fandom-focused).

• Democratization of Measurement: Increase the in-house ratio of cross-media overlap elimination and MMO (Marketing Mix Optimization), and quickly cycle creative tests.

• "Initial Design" for Social Media: Predict potential issues, and pre-agree on pathways for apology, explanation, and correction. Keep crisis communication and public relations in constant operation.

• Human Stories: Align the narratives of management and production sites, and prepare a stage where creators/talents/fans want to "participate."
  
  
  

SNS Reactions (Summary)

• Industry media analyzed the marketing executive change at the beginning of the year and the summer layoffs as "pain towards a high-risk slate." On X, questions like "Why change the top now?" and "What's the aim of global optimization?" were flying around.

• On the other hand, there were many positive voices regarding the "mysterious" marketing of the horror film 'Weapons' and the "classic return × careful exposure" of DC's 'Superman.' Evaluations like "Because they don't reveal too much information, it makes you want to talk about it" and "They can design spontaneous diffusion by fans" were common.

• Regarding the schedule of the spin-off and M&A observations, media/journalist transmissions are spreading to investor clusters, creating a situation where "expectations and concerns" intersect.
  
  
  

Conclusion

The NYT's expression "One Battle After Another" is not an exaggeration. However, "continuing to fight" itself is not the cause of defeat. Being sincere to works and audiences, polishing brand assets, and not stopping measurable hypothesis testing. Marketing wins not by the "number of strategies" but by the "accuracy of hypotheses." Warner's next battle depends on whether they can turn their current success experiences into a "system."

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