How to Build a Minecraft Movie Marketing Campaign

Other video game translations on the big and small screen have followed suit, including Universal and Illumination’s Nintendo-derived animated blockbuster The Super Mario Bros. Movie and HBO’s The Last of Us TV series, which were made and marketed in close collaboration with the companies and creatives responsible for the source material. Both Nussbaum and Davin similarly emphasize that Mojang was an equal creative partner on A Minecraft Movie.

“We were building a campaign for a film, but we wanted to make sure it always had that degree of authenticity to the game,” Nussbaum noted. “That partnership with Mojang was critical.”

Mojang’s fingerprints are all over the movie’s marketing, with lead creative designer Jens Bergensten and senior creative director of entertainment and online Torfi Frans Olaffson—both of whom are big names in Minecraft fandom—popping up throughout the promotional materials. The game studio also put the movie at the center of a Minecraft Live event and contributed other in-game promotions.

For example, when advanced tickets went on sale via Fandango, purchasers could secure a jetpack for their next flight across the Overworld. “That type of creative thinking around making a transactional moment an organic moment in the game allowed us to tie the movie world and the game world together, and let fans feel like this marriage was organic,” Davin said. “Mojang was with us every step of the way.”

Family first

The families that play Minecraft together, stay together… to see the movie. With its PG rating and the presence of Black—one of the most consistently bankable stars in the family movie space—A Minecraft Movie is counting on capturing the kid-and-parent crowd who have spottily attended the year’s other offerings, including Snow White and Paddington in Peru.

The campaign has kept its eye squarely on the family demo through digital advertising, kid-friendly outdoor billboards, and the aforementioned partnerships with McDonald’s and Poppi, as well as Acorns Early—a money app and debit card for kids— and the all-things-potato food company Grown in Idaho.

Davin adds that teenagers—many of whom have been playing Minecraft since their Pre-K days—are taking it upon themselves to do their own promos for the movie on social platforms like TikTok. “They’ve grown up with the game, and it’s a mainstay in their lives,” he said. “Our TikTok hub has been really helpful in letting them create their own content and post their own content, and let them be a part of the campaign.”