Was ‘The Book of Boba Fett’ Marketed In The Wrong Way?
The Book of Boba Fett has come and gone and that means we are now looking back at the show. One of the biggest questions of the show, in retrospect, is; was this new series marketed properly?
Marketing is always key to the success or failure of a show and The Book of Boba Fett was a very oddly marketed show. A story about Boba Fett with flashbacks, Mandalore, and even Luke Skywalker cameos. An official tie-in to the massive Star Wars franchise with close links to the Skywalker Saga. However, in terms of how this show was marketed it was very much sold as a "Boba Fett Crime Drama" first and foremost. This made it feel like a weirdly marketed show.
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A Crime Show?
Book of Boba was primarily marketed as a show about Boba (obviously) but also as a show about the underworld. It seemed that the show would primarily focus on Boba Fett being the new crime lord of Tatooine, starting his own crime family, and dealing with the other crime lords. It would seem that it would be quite a brutal show and one about crime, underworld shenanigans, and other things. However what they didn’t show was that it would also be a show about flashbacks, focusing on Tatooine, where we would spend time with the Tuskens and learn about the way of the tribes.
Now of course, these parts of the show were really good. They expanded on Boba’s character and gave a bit of an idea on why he was no longer going back to bounty hunting. Again, however, it wasn’t really what anyone was expecting. Especially when that part of the story took a good chunk of what many considered the driving force of this series, which was the "Boba the Crime Lord" stuff. Throughout the series a lot of these scenes come off as underdeveloped, and when that was the main focus of much of the marketing, it left something to be desired.
Mandalorian 2.5
Another thing about The Book of Boba Fett’s marketing that perhaps should have been made clearer is how closely tied in to The Mandalorian it would be. Especially when two of the episodes in the show are going to be a crucial part of the overall Mandalorian story with the reunion of Grogu and Din.
Again, this is inherently not a bad thing in the sense of the series itself, although it is debatable whether or not things from The Mandalorian should have been in The Book of Boba in the first place. Really, the fact is that it wasn’t marketed at all. Which again, makes the show feel more like its own separate entity instead of being part of The Mandalorian series. So marketing the show as "A Mandalore Story" or something could have made this show a bit easier to swallow for those who were unsure of why there was a lack of focus.
So perhaps keeping things secret would not have worked, and did a bit more harm than good when it come to the discourse of the show.
Secrecy or Openness
Star Wars marketing has always been a strange one for sure. It keeps things close to the chest and doesn’t always want to be open when it comes to telling us what the story is all about. However, marketing can also prepare fans and viewers for what to expect, or even what not to expect, when it comes to this sort of thing. Sometimes, a bit of direction and a bit of expectation management can go a long way to helping develop a far more healthy discourse.
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