So, to recap, the poster campaign for the first Iron Man was basically a bunch of teasers showing how cool the suit was followed by a couple of final posters in a sort of Star Wars style with a lot of things happening. Despite these differences the sell was clear, especially when coupled with the trailers: Iron Man himself.

The campaign for the second Iron Man feels a lot less focused. Three posters. The suit without the helmet, pointing to the “everybody knows Tony Stark is Iron Man” aspect of the film. Iron Man and War Machine fighting together (”He is not alone anymore!”). And the new villain.

That is a quite a few ideas, being sold separately from each other. Not that movies haven’t been sold with a scattershot approach before, but when comparing this to the first campaign it strikes me as a less compelling campaign. This is perhaps exacerbated because the new characters aren’t nearly as cool as Iron Man himself.

However, getting people to see Iron Man 2 shouldn’t be too hard. The first film was broadly seen and broadly liked. So throwing a bunch of things at the wall to see what sticks should be enough to convince people that there is something here for them if they liked the first one. And the posters, taken individually, are all pretty good. So I don’t think the problems I have with the campaign will mean much in the end.

(Via IMPAwards)

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