The Lightning Strike Strategy: 5 Practical & Tactical Elements Of A Memorable Marketing Event (Part 3)

Rise above the noise. Or else you are the noise.

Arrrrr! 🏴‍☠️ Welcome to a paid edition of Category Pirates. This foundational series shares category design principles, strategies, and actionable frameworks to help you design new and different categories. Thank you for reading. And of course, forward this mini-book to anyone who you think needs to hop aboard the Pirate ship.

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Dear Friend, Subscriber, and Category Pirate,

The most impactful Lightning Strike of 2023 hit between July 21-23, 2023.

It was a clash of opposites—one pink-soaked comedic fantasy countered by a dark biographical thriller. Movie theaters around the world joined in the Strike. And people purchased not one, but two, tickets just to be a part of it.

The Strike was so powerful that society created a name for it, a portmanteau of the films’ titles:

Barbenheimer. 🩷💣

Of course, we’re talking about the opening weekend of Barbie and Oppenheimer. 

Source: Reddit

On paper, these films couldn't be more different. Barbie, directed by the visionary Greta Gerwig, is a vibrant pink journey through a doll's world. Oppenheimer, by the legendary Christopher Nolan, is an intense dive into the life of the father of the atomic bomb. 

Yet, together, they formed an unlikely partnership to become a cultural phenomenon. According to the National Association of Theatre Owners, more than 200,000 people purchased tickets to see both films on the same day. 🤔

• Both films exceeded box-office expectations. Barbie became the highest-grossing domestic release in Warner Bros history, surpassing Nolan's The Dark Knight.

• It was the first time two movies released in the same weekend grossed more than $10 million each in their previews, with Barbie making $70.5 million and Oppenheimer making $33 million on their first days.

• The Barbenheimer phenomenon increased interest in both films, bringing in a total of 18.5 million people during the 3-day opening weekend.

• Barbie and Oppenheimer led the July 21–23 weekend to a total revenue of $310.8 million, making it the fourth-largest aggregate domestic weekend ever.

Barbenheimer is a masterclass in Lightning Strike strategy.

For Barbie, Warner Bros and Mattel spent $150 million to orchestrate a pink tidal wave, featuring everything from movie trailers that became cultural touchstones to a free stay at Barbie's Malibu Dreamhouse. The partnerships intensified the Lightning Strike, with brands like Crocs, Impala, GM, Chevy, Joybird, Burger King, Airbnb, Bumble, Ruggable, and Progressive launching their own Barbie pink-themed marketing and adding fuel to the Strike’s word-of-mouth (WOM) fire. Because “If you love Barbie, if you hate Barbie, this movie is for you.”

Barbie wasn't just marketing—it was a movement.

It created new clothing lines, started cultural conversations around gender norms, equality, and sexism, and even helped some women realize it was time to break up with their boyfriends.

On the other hand, Oppenheimer had a $100 million marketing budget, which it used to highlight Nolan's reputation, the star-studded cast, the film's historical and ethical complexity, and the film’s high-quality cinematic experience. 

The interesting part is that no one expected Barbenheimer.

In the film industry, studios use a marketing strategy called counterprogramming to attract different audiences to theaters. For example, Deadpool (an R-rated superhero film) was released on Valentine's Day weekend in 2016 as an alternative to traditional romantic films. Warner Bros and Universal Pictures used counterprogramming by releasing Barbie and Oppenheimer on the same weekend because they thought people who would watch one film wouldn’t want to see the other—and vice versa.

So, each studio launched separate Lightning Strikes.

These Strikes attracted Supers, and the opposition between the films drove massive WOM that attracted even more non-Supers. 

The flywheels of earned and owned media spun fast, driving and accelerating WOM and building massive demand from nothing. The more people who saw the movies and the marketing, the more they talked. Which drove more WOM for each film. The films were great (having legendary products really helps in category design 😎).

Then something wild happened. 

The two flywheels merged like two giant swells coming together to create a superwave.

Barbenheimer was born. People who wanted to see Barbie HAD to see Oppenheimer. People who wanted to see Oppenheimer HAD to see Barbie. If you didn’t see both, you couldn’t be part of the Barbenheimer conversation.

Source: X

Together, this cultural phenomenon skyrocketed WOM for both movies.

In this mini-book, we’re going to break down Lightning Strikes like this one and give you a template for how to plan an event that engages Superconsumers, generates massive WOM, and turns your category into a solar system, making you the sun that other brands revolve around. 

By the end, you’ll have a better understanding of how to plan, launch, and profit from a legendary Lightning Strike. 

(If you haven’t read Part I or Part II of the Lightning Strike mini-book series, do so for a deeper dive into why Strikes work and how to coordinate one.)

Grab your favorite refreshment, jump up on deck, and let’s talk marketing like a Category Pirate.⚡

5 Practical & Tactical Elements Of A Lightning Strike

A Lightning Strike is a highly coordinated, high-impact marketing campaign that targets your Superconsumers and drives word of mouth among those Supers in a Super Geo for a short period of time. 

The goal is to drive a revenue breakthrough by creating, defining, and dominating a new category of products or services. This sets your company apart and positions it as the Category Queen. You do this by creating a moment, or series of moments, that captures people’s attention. Once you have their attention, you shift their perceptions FROM the current way of doing things TO a new and different way (in category design a FROTO).

Tesla’s AI Day is a highly coordinated Lightning Strike. 

You’ve got all the Superconsumers of Teslas in a Super Geo (Palo Alto, California), collectively getting to know about the groundbreaking things the company is doing. It’s basically one gigantic pitch to Tesla Superconsumers, vendors, and potential employees, recruiting them to the “Tesla is awesome” cult. There’s a reason Tesla gets a huge spike in job applications after this Strike. In fact, Elon Musk calls it a recruiting day.

Lightning Strikes are purpose-built for you to own a problem. And by default, become the solution. They position your product or service as the defining solution in your new category. 

Here are five things to keep in mind as you plan.

1. Lightning Strike as a profit center.

Many people think a Lightning Strike can’t drive revenue.