Case Study: Sherlock Holmes

• Sherlock's musty image provided a challenge.
• An iconic British institution but one with baggage. 
• Wet Sunday afternoons
• Black and white TV drama
• Stuffy
• Old fashioned
• How could they make it exciting and relevant to 21st century audience?
• Bringing Sherlock Holmes to a new generation
• Directed by British director Guy Ritchie
• Script inspired by original books
• Starring Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law
• High octane blockbuster
• Marketing strategy had to restore Sherlock Holmes' image to its original glory
• Positioning 
• Before Bond there was Sherlock
• British
• Iconic
• Unconventional
• Witty
• Suave
• Intelligent
• Talked About
• Event Movie
• Familiar but exciting
• Action Adventure
• Blockbuster
• Franchise
• Comms (Communtication) strategy has 3 key parts
• Modernity
• Confidence
• Heritage
• TV advert for online game kick-started campaign 6 weeks from release
• Brings players together to work as Holmes + Watson - ensured many people's 1st exposure to the movie was in contemporary context.
• Closer to release, TV ads ran in finals of most talked about programming in the UK.
• High impact premium outdoor campaign included spectacular digital sites.
• Iconic London imagery featured in un-missable print placements.
• Brought modern Sherlock to Baker St Tube station 
• Bespoke wall tile vinyls juxtaposed new action hero with outdated deer-hunter wearing Sherlock.
• A Madame Tussauds wax work of Robert Downey Jr as Sherlock, generated fantastic publicity.
• Released Sherlock audio walk in conjunction with The Guardian, used modern technology to guide people around. 
• An event level publicity tour and premier. 
• Awareness and interest tracked well above the norm.
• Sherlock had surpassed original box office target of £15 million by 73% by 3rd week of release. Result = £26 million. 
• 744k DVD units bought.