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From Kat · Marketing & Storytelling
My (Kat) thoughts about The Oydssey
Why did they work so hard when they really didn't have to???
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Hey friend,
I want to tell you about going to see The Odyssey, because what happened in that theater has been sitting in my head ever since, and I think it actually has something real to say about this work we’re all doing.
I spent most of the pre-release campaign being kind of cynical about it. When I see marketing that’s working, I want to understand WHY before I let it work on me. What I know from doing this for a long time is that when something is over-marketed, it’s usually compensating for something. Or lots of things.
But the more I looked at it, the more hopeful I actually started to get.
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The marketing.
What Nolan’s team did was something I found genuinely impressive from a strategy standpoint. They sold IMAX tickets a full year before the film came out with no trailer, no photos from the set. Just the name Christopher Nolan and they sold out immediately — goals. Scalpers were flipping tickets for over $200. Someone drove 900 miles by minivan with their whole family to see the 70mm format in the one theater that had it.
From a PR perspective, this level of trust is truly goals, lol. Every film Nolan has made was a promise kept, and by the time The Odyssey existed, his track record was the only marketing he actually needed. The press tour wasn’t really about the movie at all — and let’s be honest, people have had upwards of 3,000 years to read this epic poem (it's NOT A BOOK!). It was about making people feel connected to the people who made it. The cast showing up in unexpected and hard-to-get-to places, behind-the-scenes footage from six countries, stories from the set leaking into the conversation naturally.
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“Connection converts to curiosity.”
One article covering the campaign
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They made people care about the people — not just the cast, but the crew as well, who poured themselves into something unprecedented. And then those people had to go see whether it was worth it. That kind of marketing works on me. Careful, intentioned, strategic.
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The part that really got me
He didn’t have to do any of this.
Nolan had the name recognition. He had the audience. He had the budget and the studio and the track record that would have made a standard press tour more than enough. Nobody was going to skip a Christopher Nolan film because he didn’t take the cast to Paris. But he went full send anyway. He shot in six countries on IMAX film cameras that had never been used on a commercial feature before, he built a whole new operating system for the camera, and he did it because he had the opportunity to make something extraordinary and he felt like it would be worth it. So he just did. He did it for the art of it. He literally did not have to do this for money. It was just... because he thought it would be awesome, and it was.
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The theater.
Tbh, the IMAX version was loud in a way I was not prepared for. It was aggressively loud and I spent most of the movie covering my ears, but I was absolutely captivated. There’s a moment in the film where Agamemnon is standing behind the gates of Troy, after the horse worked, after the impossible thing they’d all agreed to try finally actually worked, and it’s just so badass.
The Greeks had spent ten years outside the walls of Troy unable to get in because the wall itself was built insanely strong, but also because of the soldiers behind and above it. They didn’t stand a chance getting through by force. A decade of showing up, fighting, losing people, watching Achilles die — which was a big, big deal — watching the whole thing drag on past any reasonable expectation of an ending. The ancient sources say the soldiers weren’t just disheartened, they were demoralized. Many of them were understandably pushing to pack up and sail home, especially because they all pretty much agreed this fight was stupid to begin with.
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And then.
Odysseus, who never wanted to be there in the first place, came up with an idea. The famous Trojan Horse trick. After ten years of trying the straightforward approach, the breakthrough was something almost embarrassingly simple — and it worked in a single night.
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That feels oddly familiar, doesn’t it?
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The specific kind of thinking it took.
After ten years of the obvious approach not working, the answer wasn’t to quit or to just "try harder" at the same thing. Nope nope nope. It was to think COMPLETELY differently. It probably sounded laughable and ridiculous when he said it out loud. They trusted the weird idea after everything, and to still believe it was worth trying.
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I got into social media because I believed, and still believe, that it’s one of the most powerful tools for human connection we’ve ever had — for finding people who are afraid of the same things you’re afraid of and deciding to do it anyway. To build something real with people you’d never have found otherwise. That’s what I saw in it from the beginning and it’s still what I see in it.
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The track record.
And this work — the SEO, the content, the showing up even when nothing seems to be moving, making the right decision even when the shortcut is right there — is a track record being built one day at a time. Every weird idea, shot in the dark, hopeful day after a painful night.. it will pay off. Be a Penelope - fiercely loyal.
You’re building the same legacy.
Kat
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