Kermit takes over Disney's Twitter feed for film promotion

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Posted 27 January 2012 16:55pm by David Moth with 1 comment

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Kermit the Frog took over Disney UK's Twitter feed yesterday to promote the new Muppet movie.

As part of Disney's marketing around the film's London premiere fans could post questions using the hashtag #AskKermit.

Hundreds of people took part, including actor Stephen Fry, and the hashtag was in the top ten trends on Thursday.

Kermit tweeted responses back to fans and also posted personalised videos on YouTube as he toured London for various promotional events.

Using Twitter as a marketing tool is nothing new, but allowing fans to interact with an iconic character like Kermit in real time is a novel approach.

CrowdControlHQ head of ideas and sales Joy Stefanicki points out that Twitter was also used to encourage fan engagement around the launch of Sex In The City 2.

Creative agency ThinkJam ran a campaign around the hashtag #tweetyourfeet which encouraged fans to tweet a picture of the shoes they wore to the cinema.

This was a great way to re-enforce the fashion and friendship ethos of the movie and helped add another dimension to a simple visit to the cinema."

She said a similar campaign is being launched on Monday to promote the DVD release of Drive, in which fans can tweet reviews of the film before an 8pm screening.

I think the opportunities are limitless when you think about what could be done by creating feeds and divulging back stories. Cinema-goers get the chance to really feel a part of the movie."

Tamar digital marketing director Henry Elliss highlighted that when it comes to your social strategy, Twitter is clearly a lot smaller still than Facebook, but when it comes to 'Q&A' activities it has a lot of advantages.

For a start, it's much easier to identify and connect with users without having to actually 'friend' them, so it's easy to identify and target influential users. Disney was clearly doing this by retweeting messages from Olly Murs."

He said that it's also easier for a message to spread on Twitter through retweeting and trending.

But though we are becoming used to seeing film studios promote their films on Twitter, Elliss said companies are still feeling their way and working out the most effective marketing methods.

It's still very much trial and error, but to be fair to Disney it has clearly identified that there shouldn't be a 'one size fits all' approach across multiple channels." 

He said that with Twitter there is a lot less opportunity for sharing media. Photos and videos spread very well in the Facebook news feed, whereas Twitter is more about the interactions, with a more 'instant' feel to the communications you get with fans or influencers.

The approach seemed to work quite well in this instance, as I personally saw tweets about the movie mentioned by at least a dozen people I follow this week. I even started following Kermit as a result."

David Moth is a Reporter at Econsultancy. You can follow him on Twitter.