Every film created will usually have an audience in mind. Certain aspects and characteristics of people that the producers will feel can take something away from the movie. If someone creates a comedy, they will have a type of person in mind that they feel will enjoy the movie, and it applies for a large majority of movies, with each one being created to have their own audience that they feel will be able to enjoy the film the most.
Take for a example, a film I saw recently, Captain America: Civil War. Definitely not my favourite movie ever, but it presented enough for me to, personally, greatly enjoy what it had to offer. The well developed characters having a conflict over something personal, the fact the villain was pretty much just an average guy who'd had a hard time, and the fact that Spiderman, Ant-Man and Black Panther were all just great characters that we need to see more of. Overall, the film was just an enjoyable watch, but what's most important is as to why it was.
Imagine if Marvel hadn't created this movie franchise yet, and decided they were going to start it, starting with Civil War. Looking at the statistics of some of the early Marvel films, other than Iron Man and the first Avengers, they didn't do very well, because they were just explaining the origins of a character and giving you the most basic information about each hero for you to build up an interest in the more complex characteristics as the films went on. The fact that every movie before this has led up to this moment (except for Thor and Guardians) has, in itself, helped advertise for Civil War and make people more excited, as they did with the Avengers films. Civil War in itself has made me more interested in watching the next Spiderman film, as well as made me interested in seeing Black Panther, two films I was a bit sceptical about simply due to a lack of interest, but has now made me excited. Marvel uses their own movies to advertise and generate hype for their next movies, and it clearly works in their favour due to how well they sell.
The Marvel films have a set audience built already based on the other ones. They like to aim the movies towards teenagers and young adults, as well as a few people surrounding this demographic that they can interest when possible. This will largely be based on the fact that these people will more likely have an interest in a superhero film with a lot of action, explosions and one liners that also have a large on-going plot that both requires watching all of the movies to understand, and to advertise for it. They aim at this demographic that they know will watch it, and have built a loyal fanbase from the quality of their movies, that will watch anything they create, whether it's good like Civil War or not as good like Age of Ultron, because they have advertised and targeted these people and will try to sell their product to them, as they are aware that these are the people who will watch it.
Despite the well known name and the probability it would sell tickets whether it was advertised or not, the only way to sell more tickets is to advertise the product, as it will make people excited and make them want to go watch the film. The first reveal of the film hinted at a plot that would carry over from Winter Soldier and Age of Ultron, showing Captain America and the Winter Soldier in a fight with Iron Man. Later they revealed which characters would be on which team, revealing a new look for Ant-Man and showing Black Panther for the first time, as well as a few more action shots of the Winter Soldier. People were interested in the new character and the new look, theorising a new set of abilities for Ant-Man and discussing their roles in the movie. There was an announcement of two villains being in the movie, but without any details of their roles, that made people interested in seeing how they would tie in to a film about two heroes fighting.
During this time, Batman vs Superman was released, a critically disliked film that the general audience was not fond of. It had a similar premise to Civil War, with two major characters fighting each other, but Batman and Superman were seen as underdeveloped, and they included other characters that had no need to be there, with the "vs" section of the film taking up very little time, and with the two making up over the fact that their mothers had the same name. The failure of this movie made people both excited and scared for Civil War. Some thought that Marvel's developed characters would make the premise better, while others feared that it would go the same way due to involvement of the villains and reunite them over something irrelevant.
We were eventually shown Spiderman. A character Marvel had fought very hard to be allowed to borrow off of Sony, who had bought the character almost 20 years ago. With an alliance between the two companies, a new look for Spiderman and a young actor, people were excited to see him tie into the film. The marketing was huge, but they kept Spiderman a secret for a long time, never officially announcing which team he was on, causing people to speculate about his involvement and cause people to talk about the film, and therefore make them want to go and see it more.
Everyone wanted to invite actors from the film onto their show. Chat show hosts wanted to talk to Iron Man and Captain America to ask them about the film, while others wanted to try and get Spiderman and Baron Zemo to discuss their roles in the film, giving the characters more publicity and enticing people to watch the film. Adverts were shown during movie premieres, on TV and even at sporting events, with a massive Civil War trailer shown at the Superbowl that revealed the Winter Soldier's involvement in the film that naturally made a large American audience excited.
Online people were generating their own hype, discussing the Winter Soldier, Baron Zemo, Crossbones, Spiderman, Black Panther, Vision and Ant-Man to great extents, having arguments about which side would win. The advertising included two hashtags to state whether you supported Iron Man or Captain America, allowing people to debate the film before it came out and who they wanted to win. People would share information and any potential leaks on Facebook and people would endlessly discuss it in YouTube comments or on Reddit posts about their thoughts on the film. People were excited and people were ready for the Civil War.
Earlier in the year Fox had a hit with the movie "Deadpool", introducing a new character portrayed by Ryan Reynolds, that blew up immediately and is seen as fantastic by a large audience. No doubt Marvel saw the reactions to this film and took some inspiration. Two scenes in particular remind me of a Deadpool-esque humour - One in which Captain America throws his shield, which then comes back to him, and Spiderman remarks that the shield is disobeying the laws of physics, and one in which Ant-Man climbs inside Iron Man's suit and claims to be Tony's conscience, and that they hadn't spoken in a while. This seems to suggest that they know people liked Deadpool's humour, and they wanted to incorporate a little bit of that humour into two of their most fun characters in the film. It's also likely that they saw the response Age of Ultron got, where they had a huge break in between action to focus on the Avengers going to the countryside to visit Hawkeye's family, which people were not fond of due to too much attention being given to a character that people simply were not interested in, causing them to change things up to be a quicker pace, and to focus largely on the parts people wanted to see, even during the slower parts, such as the recruitment of Spiderman and Black Panther's backstory, or Hawkeye (the weakest Avenger) fighting Vision (the strongest).
They knew the audience, knew the competition, knew what people wanted and worked with this to create a string of well made advertisements including allowing people a place to debate thoughts and theories, showed off new characters and hinted at a new set of villains with little attached information so that people would want to just find out as much as they can. The film was fantastic from an action and a story perspective, with likable heroes on both sides, some fantastic scenes (Captain America and Winter Soldier tearing Iron Man's armour) and an interesting villain in Zemo that referenced The Winter Soldier, Age of Ultron and other Marvel films to make it tie-in to a well developed franchise, and to create a movie that was, simply put, good. The producers knew what they wanted out of their audience and they achieved it through a well put together marketing campaign and their own previous movie history that helped the film achieve everything it wanted, making the marketing strategy a huge success, with the film quickly becoming the 19th highest grossing film ever, with a good possibility of passing a few films above it in the coming weeks.
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