2. Worldbuild your way to a win

$1.3B

The Super Mario Bros. Movie has surpassed 1.3 billion dollars worldwide, making it the 3rd highest grossing animated feature

You'd be hard pressed to fnd a recent, successful launch moment with genuine cultural cut through that hasn't embraced world building as a means of unpacking, diversifying and disseminating their stories to reach and inspire audiences around the world. Barbie is a real outlier here. Powered by partnerships, Mattel and Warner Bros have opened up myriad avenues for people to step into the lurid, unapologetically plastic world of the franchise. From the limited edition Xbox to the real life Barbie Malibu dream house on AirBnB, they've gone hard on everything from licensing to live experience, ofering their audiences multiple inroads to the hype, all unifed by that patented pink.

The Super Mario Bros movie took up similar tactics, pulling on threads from the kaleidoscopic world created by Nintendo to entice newcomers and reward the die hards alike. They leaned into the power nostalgia has on both Millennials and Gen Z and rebooted The Mario Rap. They brought SMB plumbing into the real world, with a real hotline. They even made the mustachioed hero's shoes IRL in partnership with RedWing, before getting Klay Thompson to channel his inner jump man in them.

It doesn't have to all be about scale either. We could take a tiny little leaf out of Antman's book and create world building experiences like the Quantum Cafe with Uber Eats that are micro in scale but macro in the excitement and buzz they can generate by bringing IP into the real world in new and exciting ways.

Opening up moments of cultural crossover, utilizing the full suite of channels and media available, and embracing the power of partnerships is a sure fre way of helping the conversation around your launch take fight.