All of Us Strangers, which was first released in the US in late December 2023, followed by its UK release on 26th January 2024. The film was distributed in the UK by Searchlight Pictures, which is a Disney-owned company. The territory that this case study will explore will be Searchlight Picture’s marketing and distribution strategy for the UK market. As of Thursday 23rd May, All of Us Strangers had grossed $6,722,288 at the UK box office, and represents the largest box office gross of all exploited territories. We’ll explore how Searchlight Pictures marketed this film uniquely in the UK in a way that doubled down on the focus on the film’s star cast and their relationship, as an avenue to target an audience so that they would watch a deeply emotional film about complexity and grief based on book about a writer ‘haunted by his past.’
Film Marketing – When the consumer first becomes aware of the film
When All of Us Strangers first announced its release date, the media and online audiences inferred what this film was about from the very beginning. Questions were frenzied and fueled speculation with the main question being ‘will Mescal and Scott fall in love in the film?’ Outlets concluded that because it had been confirmed that the film would include a gay romance between the main characters, the media constantly alluded to the two stars embarking on a ‘sweet love affair.’ By the very definition of film marketing which is that value creation begins at the very point that a consumer ‘becomes aware of a film,’ the incongruency that would characterise the ultimate marketing of a film partly about a gay romance and primarily about grief and ‘inconsolable loneliness,’ laid its foundations at this very early point.
All of Us Strangers Marketing Campaign Review
As a film is a unique asset in and of itself, anything from the genre to the star can impact and have a ‘profound influence’ on how it will perform in a certain territory. As a risk averse industry, studios tend to develop a customer-centric approach that relies on ‘me-too products’ or genres with a built-in audience with existing loyalties. The star power in this film enhanced these existing fanbase loyalties, as both Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal rose to fame with their two most famous characters, ‘the hot priest’ of Fleabag fame, and the emotionally repressed Irishman, Connell Waldron in Normal People. This would prove to be an essential anchor that the press and digital marketing campaign would capitalise on throughout the release period, and this essay will showcase how this manifested in the campaign and supported the release in the UK territory.
Searchlight Pictures have just emerged from a very busy period of activity, and much of this success can be laid at the feet of the team that are involved from the very beginning, with Searchlight involving marketing and distribution at an early stage, ‘make things they know how to sell.’ This is a luxury that smaller studios do not have as independent films tend to suffer from a lack of a vertically integrated supply chain that restricts these lower budget films from benefitting from marketing activities at an earlier stage. Star power is arguably one of the ‘most crucial’ marketing assets that a film could have. Searchlight leveraged the power that Mescal and Scott command, as their ‘built-in audience theoretically lowers risk and gives marketing a jump-start.’ Film for Thought has also noted how despite Scott playing the leading role, the marketing activities did not discriminate on screen time and gave Mescal even weighting with Scott to propel the film in the noisy environment of the digital realm. Social media is no longer nice to have, it is a necessary requirement for studios and distributors now, with digital channels and tools needing to align closely with the target audience. Digital channels, social media and star power were all essential aspect of Searchlight’s approach.
Collateral review
Poster
In September 2023 the first poster for All of Us Strangers was released. Andrew Scott is at the forefront, while Paul Mescal appears prominently in the background. In the bottom right-hand corner, the parents of Scotts’ character and an image of him as a young boy appear translucent and small. The poster gave more prominence and credence to the dynamic between Mescal and Scott, relegating the grief-heavy, familial storyline to second place. The actual film however gives equal weighting to the romance and family storylines, allowing them to ‘coexist’ together on screen.
Trailers
Released in September 2023, the initial two-minute trailer was set against the emotive Elvis Presley song ‘You Were Always On My Mind,’ a song which cleverly underpins both the romantic narrative as well as the grieving one. In December, a shorter trailer was released which although shorter, gave more credence to the Mescal/Scott relationship. Both the posters and trailers cleverly depicted the duality of the romance and grieving aspects of the film which could be viewed either way.
Digital
The digital presence for All of Us Strangers focused on meeting its audience ‘where they live; in other words, on the digital platforms, they frequent. Generation Z dominate the Tik Tok app with 44.7% of users from this young demographic. Short form video content which originated on Tik Tok and is prevalent and frequently repurposed on YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels is what Generation Z knows best. Herein lies the dilemma for studios who are pedaling long form content (films) to a generation that responds best to short form.
Tik Tok videos and other short form content was the digital presence of choice for Searchlight and engagement delivered, as according to Tik Tok data, the tag that categorises videos with both Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott has accumulated over 55 million views. The two stars Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal engaged with Vanity Fair, Buzzfeed, Lad Bible, Elle UK, GQ and MTV for their YouTube channels, all of which generally involved a lighthearted quiz or game. These quizzes provided the audience with their insatiable need to get a ‘360 experience for Gen Z audiences that goes well beyond film,’ by accessing the private lives of their most admired stars. This form of content heightened engagement as it only reinforced how the film’s ‘faux romance has translated into an irresistible friendship.’
In terms of the approach, Searchlight capitalised on star power using ‘internet boyfriend’ approaches to target its audience. Some media outlets even went so far as to intimate that the stars were their readers own boyfriends. Searchlight succeeded not in ‘buying attention,’ in drawing in an in-built community of fans of the stars through low-cost marketing digital techniques. This audience frenzy online was essential to the awareness of the film gathering momentum as it piggybacked on the notion that new characters that hit the zeitgeist and are embraced by a particular audience serve as characters ‘to love (and lust) after.’
Press and Media
The press coverage of the film included a lot of ‘above the line’ marketing activities such as TV appearances that succeed in appealing to a mass audience including the UK’s most revered chat show, The Graham Norton and Ireland’s staple Friday night slot, The Late Late Show. In both interviews, the two stars appeared jovial telling entertaining on-set stories and cementing the two stars as firm friends in real life, adding to the attractiveness of the romance between the two well-known stars. The two stars doubled down on the notion that their chemistry was real, with Scott noting in an interview ‘Sometimes you just have chemistry. I don’t necessarily mean physical chemistry or whatever.’ It’s clear that the interviews to mass audiences were tonally upbeat, the film’s premise was mentioned but as Film for Thought noted before ‘it was not at the forefront of the message.’
It would be too simplistic to say that the essential storyline of the film as one that deals with grief, loss and tragedy is not mentioned throughout the campaign trail. Rather, this discussion about the topic of the film was discussed through different mediums. The two stars spoke at length to the media and press in long-form interviews about the sensitive subject matter, with a particular focus on gay publications such as Out Magazine and The Gay Times.
Territory review and box office narrative and market segment eg. Gen Z and millennial
All of Us Strangers premiered at Telluride in September 2023 and ‘wowed’ critics at the screening. It also screened at the London Film Festival in October which greatly assisted in its target territory of the UK and created anticipation for its ultimate release in the New Year.
It is clear from the review of collateral that All of Us Strangers certainly benefitted from the ‘marketing muscle’ that supported this film, particularly in the digital space. It made its highest takings on its opening weekend, and even passed the $1 million mark on the following weekend from 2nd – 4th February. Its opening weekend was described as a ‘strong £1m start,’ crucially passing the one million mark which is telling for a relatively independent film. In terms of its success in the territory of the UK, its widest weekend release saw the film in 547 theatres. It can be said that this success in the theatrical window provided a clear ‘benchmark of value,’ both for audiences and for Searchlight.
The audience for All of Us Strangers largely embraced the relative deception that this film used to market itself, with Film for Thought previously summarising that in the end ‘audiences can’t even see or admit to the inconsistencies between the product (the film) and the sell (the marketing).’ In fact, the audience largely reveled in how its cast delivered on their specific involvement in a particular genre, with one of the most popular Letterboxd reviews summarising “Both stranger and simpler than I thought. It’s so desperately sad, but where every tear and every ache is something of a lifeline.” It is after this point, post-consumption of a film where film marketing essentially ends and the consumer makes sense of their experiences. Audiences had been targeted to see a sweet love story, but were amazed, rather than incensed at having got more than what they bargained for.
This relative deception can be viewed as a hedged bet, and does not always work. There has been a recent trend in recent months of studios marketing to audiences by selling them one dream and then giving them another. This has backfired in some ways with Mean Girls 2 which was not marketed as a musical lest it put audiences off and have been subjected of claims of ‘false advertisement.’ This approach however paid off with Wonka not being marketed as a musical deliberately to avoid ‘stigma’ associated with musicals. It could be stated that All of Us Strangers essentially marketed a love story which was half true, and the audience happened to be very receptive to the other half of the supernatural story.
Post-release and SVOD on Disney Plus
Searchlight was keen to continue to exploit the success of the movie post-theatrical release. It was announced that the film would be released for home viewing on Disney Plus in March. The reduced window has worked to its benefit, and the fact that it is available on Disney again showcases this dichotomy of what is sold and what the film actually is. The route to Disney Plus was the correct strategy as this generation believe strongly that SVoD platforms are a complementary to seeing films in the cinema. It was also tied up in a limited offer deal that encouraged viewers to subscribe for a reduced price in order to benefit from the discount and see the All of Us Strangers film.
Alternative routes / proposals
On reflection, All of Us Strangers was a commercial hit for a relatively low-budget film because of its carefully crafted marketing campaign, however its penetration of the industry awards circuit never quite gained momentum. It is possible that despite a strong start on the festival circuit at the end of the Summer, its December release essentially buried it and halted momentum. There is also the school of thought that contends that the Academy prefers to award ‘important’ films, which of course this film is as related to its LGBTQ representation, but the supernatural ghost story element is not typical Academy fodder as they prefer genres that ‘leave fewer questions unanswered.’
It is also worth noting that at the same time, Searchlight Pictures were in the middle of a much more high-profile film, Poor Things which was nominated for eleven Oscars and ultimately went on to win four, which may have impacted the capacity available. While Poor Things reached extraordinary heights for Searchlight Pictures in both the commercial and awards category, its peer All of Us Strangers outperformed expectations commercially but was not recognised in the awards circuit. Alternative routes that could have helped redirect the film into Poor Things level of success could have been doubling down on press interviews on the meaning of All of Us Strangers, its representation of a largely unexplored subject on screen and championing the gay narrative. A proposal to reduce the Buzzfeed-type bitesize content could have taken away the seriousness of the subject matter, and the reduction of this could have succeeded in launching the film into a more serious sphere that is generally commanded of films that are nominated for Academy Awards.
Conclusion
All of Us Strangers is an excellent example of targeting an audience where they live, and engaging with the consumer ‘for the film from the outset.’ It’s clear from this film marketing approach that rather than marketing to an audience directly by ‘asking consumers what they want.’ Searchlight took a broad view of the market orientation and satisfied an audience’s expectations through their film. It fed audiences with what they subconsciously wanted and what they clearly responded to with regards to the romance, but it over-delivered and satisfied an unconscious need for this demographic to experience a true ‘emotional epic,’ which they may not have seen otherwise. As Film For Thought previously summarised, despite its dark subject matter which it did not allude to in its marketing campaign, ‘it’s a key example of how Searchlight Pictures successfully marketed a tragic tale via a thirst trap.’
FILM FOR THOUGHT 