Welcome to Digital Gravity by Orbit Marketing
Welcome back to Digital Gravity 🪐
Every Friday, we share strategies to help you level up your sales, marketing, and lead gen.
This week, Maddie explores what the movie industry’s increasingly unhinged popcorn buckets can teach us what it takes to actually get noticed.
Enjoy 👇
The Popcorn Bucket Industrial Complex 🍿
There was a time when going to the movies meant two things:
A large popcorn
Financial regret after paying $11 for it
But somewhere along the way, movie marketing departments said:
“What if the popcorn bucket itself… was the event?”
And now we live in the era of the unhinged movie popcorn bucket.
Not a normal bucket.
I’m talking about:
Buckets shaped like Darth Vader.
Buckets that light up.
Buckets that look like the car Barbie drives.
Buckets like the Dune sandworm one, where you have to reach your hand through rows of giant plastic teeth. (you know the one. the internet certainly did.)
Buckets so large they qualify as carry-on luggage.
People line up to buy them before they even see the film.
Honestly?
I love it.
Because it’s ridiculous in the best possible way.
The bucket has one job:
Hold popcorn.
Instead, it’s become:
A collectible.
A social media post.
A reason someone says “we should go opening weekend.”
People don’t post photos of “standard theater bucket #3.”
They post the weird one.
Which brings us to The Devil Wears Prada 2.
AMC just announced the popcorn bucket is… a designer handbag.
A purse.
For popcorn.
Somewhere, Miranda Priestly is whispering, “groundbreaking.”
And people are absolutely going to buy it.
Not because it holds popcorn better.
In fact, it almost certainly holds less popcorn.
But because it’s fun.
It’s specific to the movie.
And it’s immediately postable.
Also, because walking into a theater carrying a popcorn purse is objectively hilarious.
(calling it now: the “I have purse” TikTok sound is about to do numbers.)
Meanwhile, in B2B marketing, we’re hearing things like:
“We should develop an AI-enabled thought leadership asset.”
The movie industry is over here saying:
“What if the popcorn bucket were a purse.”
And guess who’s getting posted on TikTok.
The lesson isn’t that B2B brands need popcorn buckets.
Although I would personally respect the confidence if Salesforce released a limited-edition CRM-shaped snack container.
The real reason these work is simple:
They’re visual.
They’re specific.
And they commit fully to the bit.
Three things most marketing ideas lose somewhere between the brainstorm and the approval chain.
Sometimes the best marketing idea in the room is the one that makes someone say:
“Wait… can we actually do that?”
Because the difference between a normal popcorn bucket and a handbag popcorn bucket is simple.
One holds popcorn.
The other holds attention. 🍿
–Maddie
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