Harness the Hype: Cobra Kai

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This blog was written by Setup’s Marketing Manager, Madeline Evans.

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There are little to no silver linings when it comes to Covid, but when the holidays hit, and I found myself sequestered to my room for days on end thanks to Omicron, I finally had the opportunity to catch up on the latest shows. And by shows, I mean all four recently released seasons of Cobra Kai. 

Weeks after finishing the show - which is everything to a Karate Kid fan - I was once again watching TV, when a Coors Light commercial came on and my brain instantly thought of Sensei Johnny Lawrence and his Dojo. I’m late to the game, but this triggered the thought that every marketer has while watching media: product placement and its evolution and influence on consumers.

Since I’m not much of a drinker, I didn’t instantly grab my keys to drive to the nearest QuikTrip to get my Coors fix, but the natural exposure over time that triggered my brain to connect the two made me think about our Setup Stranger Things blog featuring important takeaways in current media:

1. The effectiveness of non-disruptive product placement

2. The success of nostalgia 

Non-disruptive Product Placement Effectiveness 

Streaming became popularized out of convenience for the consumer and disdain for constant commercials. Brands have skirted around this decrease in ad viewership by forming clever partnerships with shows and movies. Stranger Things partnered with New Coke to intrigue new audiences about their third season in 2019, and Cobra Kai is famously associated with Coors Light - which, according to the writers, was an “organic” product placement.

Product placement needs to be effective for both the brand and the viewer. Writers need to authentically write the product into the plot so that it isn’t distastefully forced into the story, and companies need to see ROI.

Assigning value to product placement has always been tricky, but newer technology makes it easier to track for brands. According to Forbes, “Nielsen and its new metric that allows for subscription video-on-demand brand integrations to be tracked in ways similar to traditional advertising, revealing both its delivery and incremental reach.” The tracker noted that “Coors beer exposures garnered almost 170 million equivalized and valued impressions among viewers 21 and older through the first four weeks the program was available on Netflix.”

Brands can also identify consumer behavior through social media references, website traffic, and sales correlations. The Marketing Manager of Coors noted that when Season 3 was released in January, sales also spiked. According to Bloomberg, through artificial intelligence and machine learning, advancement in technology will allow companies to know which TV shows are popular amongst certain groups and allow specific brands to gain visibility on those shows depending on who they are targeting. For example, AI could replace a brand of chips depending on who is watching. Marketers need to tread lightly with this, as it may seem as invasive as targeted advertising seen on social media or Google searches. 

Nostalgia in Marketing 

The success of Cobra Kai is attributed to a multitude of factors, the most important being nostalgia. 

Between Cobra Kai, Spiderman No Way Home, and the newly announced We Were Young Festival, companies are capitalizing on the market’s love for youth and “simpler times.” In this day and age where seeing a friend is an entire ordeal, there’s comfort in an uncomplicated past. Whether it is in the form of heroes like Tobey Maguire who graced our first DVD players, or the bands that captured the painful reality of growing older, nostalgia hits home and hits hard.

Since Millennials make up 25% of the consumer market and continue to gain more purchasing power, it makes sense to revitalize older stories or artists. The beauty of Cobra Kai is that its storytelling speaks to all demographics. Originally produced by YouTube Red, a “younger” platform, the show is masterful in its ability to pull in older generations who grew up with Karate Kid by focusing on the original characters as middle-aged men and then tying the characters into today’s world. By taking a beloved story and reenergizing it in a current fashion, fans see the story in a different tone told by a new point of view - for example, there is no stereotypical good versus evil plot line and there is a reason behind everyone’s behavior - and the decade of “the 80’s” almost serves as a character. 

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If brands can learn anything from Cobra Kai, it is that the perfect balance of empathy, relatability, and humanity with a touch of nostalgia (and karate) is a perfect combination to reach consumers, and that partnering with such groups is the key to getting noticed.