At one point the highest grossing film of all time, Titanic was really the fortunate result of a hobby. In the words of James Cameron, “I made Titanic because I wanted to dive to the shipwreck, not because I particularly wanted to make the movie… when I learned some other guys had dived to the Titanic to make an IMAX movie, I said, ‘I’ll make a Hollywood movie to pay for an expedition and do the same thing’.”
TV, Film & Gaming
Need to save your company from going bust? Ask Tom Cruise to use your product. Ray Ban was struggling in the early 1980s, selling 18,000 pairs of its Wayfarer glasses. But just when the company was about to discontinue the range, Tom Cruise wore them in the film Risky Business and sales increased by 50%. Three years later, when Top Gun was released, Ray-Ban saw another massive increase of 40%. By the end of the decade Ray Ban was selling 1.5 million pairs annually.
In 1992 the 100-year-old Wensleydale creamery was in danger of closing, but luckily Wallace & Gromit came along. The iconic TV duo helped to revive the cheese’s popularity, and when the 2005 full-length film, The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, was released, sales increased by 23%.
The White Lotus, the hit HBO show, is driving more tourism to the Four Seasons than an ad campaign ever could. “Maui, the resort in Hawaii, experienced a 425 per cent year-on-year increase in website visits and a 386 per cent increase in availability checks during season one alone,” according to Marc Speichert, group EVP.