How Wicked Avoided Consumer Fatigue To Create Box Office Magic

In recent years, the marketing landscape has been dominated by large-scale, expensive campaigns designed to capture consumer attention. From the ubiquitous pink of the Barbie movie to the pervasive green of Wicked, these mega-marketing efforts raise a critical question: When does a campaign cross the line from excitement to exhaustion?

Since debuting in theaters last Thursday, Wicked has grossed $114 domestically and $164.2 million globally for Universal Pictures, making it the studio’s third biggest opening weekend for a movie in 2024. This shows that there was a method behind the madness in the gargantuan marketing strategy, and that at least for now, there is no green fatigue.

Understanding consumer fatigue

Consumer fatigue occurs when audiences become overwhelmed or annoyed by too frequent or too forceful marketing messages. This can lead to decreased brand perception, reduced engagement, and ultimately, a negative impact on sales. While overexposure is a common culprit, a lack of diversity in messaging can also contribute to fatigue. Generic or cliche content can quickly bore consumers, leading them to tune out even the most creative campaigns.

The competition for consumers’ attention is intense in a world where hundreds of ads are displayed daily through traditional media, streaming services, and social media feeds, which presents a massive challenge for marketers who must simultaneously maintain consumer interest and consistency.

Wicked promo has been unavoidable this fall, but the opening weekend box office numbers show that the ads mostly added to the excitement that people had to see the film.

In a Barbie world

The Barbie movie serves as a prime example of a successful, spare-no-expense mega-marketing campaign. With a whopping $150 million budget, the campaign included a variety of tactics including strategic partnerships with 100+ brands and immersive experiences like “Barbie’s Dreamhouse,” quickly establishing itself as a cultural phenomenon. Barbie became more than a movie, but also a significant cultural event. However, the relentless barrage of pink-themed promotions and constant media attention also raised concerns about fatigue.

Conversely, while Charli XCX’s “Brat” album was not funded by heavy pockets, the album color, featuring a popping neon green, became a mega-viral sensation after a “Brat generator” tool became available online. The word Brat was turned into an adjective as well, most notably by the Kamala Harris campaign. The Collins English Dictionary even chose it as its word of the year. Organic marketing is so Brat!

 Consumers eventually became tired of Barbie pink and companies that hopped on the Brat trend too late appeared to be trying too hard. Their overexposure emphasizes the significance of pace, authenticity, and consumer-focused techniques in large-scale ads, even if they achieved amazing reach.

Balancing quantity and quality

The lessons learned from Barbie and Brat highlight how crucial it is to strike a balance between the scope of marketing initiatives and the caliber of the material produced. How effectively a brand connects with its target audience is more important than how much marketing it can provide. To mitigate consumer fatigue, brands should consider the following strategies.

They should mix their broader brand messages with personalized marketing messages to target consumers, which can reduce consumer fatigue and increase engagement. For example, Xfinity has a commercial that depicts the stars of Wicked, Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, as girls dreaming to play Elphaba and Glinda, and then eventually winning the roles. The sentimentality of the ad is effective, especially for preexisting fans of the two leads.

They should also make sure to include some authentic components, like showcasing behind-the-scenes operations, which can help brands avoid being seen as transactional. Wicked has done a good job of this, and many of the actors have done interviews discussing what is was like making the film, bringing the public into the world of Oz. Brands should also involve consumers in the brand’s narrative, creating engagement by encouraging customer participation through interactive content like surveys, quizzes, or user-generated content.

Oversaturation can be avoided by distributing marketing messages by spacing out communications to prolong campaigns and maintain engagement without wearing consumers out. For example, Wicked’s first teaser trailer premiered in February during the Super Bowl which made some on social media groan that “it feels like Wicked has been promoted for the past eight years.” 

While the surging box office shows the hype for the film matched the audience’s anticipation, brand promoters have to remember that Barbie and Wicked are anomalies, and to make sure that their marketing strategies do not grow on the nerves of their coveted consumers by doing too much.