Marvel Studios' Loki is less than two weeks from its premiere date, and plenty of promotional material from the upcoming Disney+ series starring Tom Hiddleston has been rolled out.
In addition to things like character posters and near-daily releases of clip compilations that have become standard for Marvel's Disney+ shows, the promotion for Loki seems to be going the extra mile.
The Disney+ Twitter account is hosting watch parties of past Marvel movies starring the character on #LokiWednesdays leading up to the premiere, and Tom Hiddleston has been heard narrating promos for the streaming service. Now Disney+ has created yet another tribute to the God of Mischief, this time on the platform itself.
DISNEY+ PRESENTS THE LOKI COLLECTION
Recently, a Loki-themed section debuted under the "Collections" heading of the Disney+ interface.
Naturally, the theme of the section is based on Loki's signature emerald green color, with several images of the character splayed across the top of the page.
The Loki Collection promotes the upcoming series under a header labeled "Coming Soon to Disney+," and underneath this, the "Featuring Loki" section contains all the films the character has appeared in thus far, including:
- Thor
- The Avengers
- Thor: The Dark World
- Thor: Ragnarok
- Avengers: Infinity War
- Avengers: Endgame
It's worth noting that the aforementioned Wednesday watch parties on Disney+'s Twitter account have been following this exact list, in order, leading up to the premiere of Loki.
THE EVOLVING MARKETING STRATEGIES OF DISNEY+
The Loki Collection is the first example of a section on Disney+ being created to highlight a specific character appearing in a Disney+ originals series. (The Mighty Ducks and High School Musical also have collections of their own, but those are for the franchises as a whole rather than a specific character within them)
While the lead characters of WandaVision and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier received their own episodes of Marvel Studios: Legends (as will Loki before his series begins) collections were not created to highlight them on Disney+, nor were there official watch parties hosted on social media leading up to those shows.
This could be because Loki was a more prominent and popular character in the MCU during its first three phases than any of the central characters in the other two Disney+ series that have been released so far. Hiddleston's character has played a key role in all three Thor movies and being the reason the Avengers initially assembled in their first film.
Perhaps the more likely reason, though, is because Disney+ - especially the MCU side of it - is still fairly new, and its marketing is still evolving. As new ideas arise, the promotional campaign for each new project is a little different - and hopefully an improvement - from the last.
It'll be interesting to see if the upcoming Hawkeye series, with Jeremy Renner reprising his role as Clint Barton, ends up getting a similar marketing campaign to Loki when the time comes. Shows like Ms. Marvel and She-Hulk, on the other hand, will likely be different as those series will focus on characters making their MCU debuts and will only feature returning characters on the side, if at all.
Loki premieres on Disney+ June 9.
