From the very beginning, the Wicked movie has made headlines.
It’s pretty much common knowledge at this point that Ariana Grande has had her eyes on the role of Glinda since 2011, while the movie has lingered in production hell for almost a decade.
Nine years after the movie’s initial announcement in 2012, Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande were announced as being cast as Elphaba and Glinda, respectively.
Since then, the movie has faced its fair share of challenges, including COVID, the strikes, purported extramarital drama, and a very tearful press tour. But no one can deny that Wicked has become omnipresent. We might not be privy to the $150 million advertising budget, but there are still a few things creators can learn from the marketing and press tour of this movie.
First and foremost, Wicked’s campaign emphasizes the importance of picking an aesthetic and sticking to it. Pretty much every time they’ve stepped out together, Grande and Erivo have been wearing their character’s colors: pink and green. This dates back to March 2024, way before the actual press tour, and since then, the colors have become interchangeable with Wicked.
This color scheme, in turn, has been constantly reinforced with various pink and green merchandise, from cordial to crocs. Similar to how the world turned Barbie pink for the Barbie movie, various landmarks like the Empire State Building have lit up pink and green to celebrate Wicked. And because this color scheme has been drummed into our skulls so much, it’s instantly recognizable.
Obviously, this doesn’t mean that you should wear the same color shirt forever, but picking a uniform aesthetic for your content, editing style, and website will help cultivate your brand identity and make you more memorable to viewers,
Secondly, as briefly mentioned, Wicked collaborated with a few brands to promote the movie. Well, to be honest, more than a few — Variety reports that Wicked collaborated with 400 of them. The range of brands they collaborated with was vast, including the usual food, drink, and clothes and more random ones like Lego. Arguably, Wicked’s no-holds-barred approach re-emphasizes the importance of collaboration.
Whether it’s a multi-million dollar movie or a growing TikTok account, the benefits of collaboration are the same. Chiefly, they help expand reach by garnering access to a broader audience and allow you to boost your credibility by aligning with trusted bands.
Wicked’s diverse collaborations also suggest to creators that it’s worth being open-minded about potential partnerships, as you never know what (yellow brick) road that collaboration will lead to.
And then there’s engagement. From its sneak peek of Elphaba’s battle cry at the Superbowl to vertical snippets of musical numbers on TikTok, it seems like the Wicked marketing team knows exactly how to bait engagement. And it’s paid off, too. The choreography of one of these musical sequences ended up going viral, while Elphaba’s vocalization has become the basis of TikTok’s #DefyingGravityChallenge.
The learning point here for creators is that when it comes to content creation, you should consider creating it in a way that invites audiences to be actively involved. This could be through encouraging them to ask questions or opening up your TikToks to stitches and duets. Or, this could simply be done by involving audiences on your journey in some way by providing regular updates on your Patreon.
When it comes down to it, Wicked’s marketing and press campaign just reaffirms some of the fundamental precepts of being a successful creator: consistency, collaboration, and engagement. Take these learning points on board, you might be able to defy gravity a little yourself.
