Mr. Bean's not a smart guy but still he can teach you something about marketing movies. He's a beloved character from TV and movies created by Rowan Atkinson that just floats through life making mistakes and a general fool of himself. Though he doesn't exhibit many positive attributes, the journey of this franchise offers many film marketing lessons. This show was both new and old at the same time. No television show at the time was doing such a level of slapstick comedy, and yet this type of thing was as old as cinema. Here's how Mr. Bean was a genius at marketing, if not much else.

Give Away Small Pieces

Mr. Bean was first a half-hour series show that was on over-the-air broadcast TV. 14 episodes were slowly produced and released over a span of 5 years and it garnered a cult following. Originally shown only in Britain, it also made it's way to the United States via local public television stations. So they gave away free episodes that slowly developed fans that were eager for more from the character.

Sell The Movie

In 1997, two years after the last episode of the TV series aired, a feature film was released. A big world-wide hit ($200m), it also made a lot of money in the United States ($45m). To be certain there were trailers and ads for the movie. They did a lot of the usual marketing stuff but the original series is what planted the seeds of a rabid fan base. Without the series this would be a silly comedy with an unknown star about a semi-retarded British guy that doesn't speak. That's not a recipe for success. In 2007 they released another Bean movie it was similarly successful.

Familiar Stuff, Same Character

They didn't change Mr. Bean to make him more palatable to a wider audience, he was the same as in the TV shows. Familiarity mixed with novelty is crucial for an early piece of work to properly promote subsequent projects. They set up a solid character and world and they just kept to it. They didn't expand it with other main characters, they went with what the series was about explicitly - Mr. Bean.

New Situation, Story

So they had the same emphasis on character and the same world. They could have done as others have done when bringing a character from one media to another and reuse old stories, but they didn't. The same stories on a bigger screen aren't as satisfying as new stories and they delivered. They also understood the medium of cinema and didn't make a 90 minute TV episode but rather a movie.

The creators didn't plan the way it went, but you can use the way it went to plan the marketing for your feature film. They didn't know they were seeding interest for a feature when they were doing the TV series and didn't know they were doing just what their fans want when keeping the emphasis on Bean in new situations. They did this on instinct and general industry protocol. Sometimes the system works, but lots of times it doesn't.

You can't rely on the system to deliver for you, but you can replicate the things it does when it does it right. Produce additional content aside from the feature that you can use to gain interest with. Give this content away so you can get maximum exposure in the shortest amount of time. Establish a character and storyworld and stick with it. Don't cheapen or compromise it to appeal to more people. Give your fans what they want and they will reward you.