If you frequent social media then you could not have possibly missed Ryan Reynolds' witty commercials. From Deadpool promos to Aviation Gin advertisements, he and his marketing team have been killing it lately.

It all started with Deadpool when in 2014 a leaked test footage of the movie went viral and forced Fox Studios to greenlight the movie. With a meager production budget of $58M, the movie went on to become the second highest grossing R-rated film in history, earning $783M worldwide.

Working with a limited marketing budget, Ryan and Fox's marketing chief Marc Weinstock took the unconventional marketing approach - guerrilla marketing, which in retrospect align perfectly with the unconventional anti-hero character of the movie.

From insane stunts like this

To his bizarre tinder profile

The absurd billboards which probably had more pictures taken of than any other movie billboard in history

And the ingenious TV Spots and Teasers

In hindsight, it looks so well put together and seems to have worked because the character is unique and interesting but the truth is, it takes a lot of work to create content which resonates with the audience and do it consistently across almost every single marketing channel is a feat that deserves admiration.

After the phenomenal success of deadpool's marketing campaigns, Ryan moved to apply similar style of advertising to American Gin, an alcohol brand where he is the major stakeholder since 2018.

The content marketing strategy remains the same(as Deadpool), only the narrative changes for American Gin's marketing campaigns.

Here's one where Ryan explains how Aviation Gin is made. It's .. exceptionnel.

The intent here is not to get people to buy (not directly) but to engage with the content. Instead of focusing on the product, they built a narrative around the brand in a witty context, something you would never expect from an infomercial.

You cannot bore people into buying your product, you can only interest them in buying it ~ David Ogilvy

Us human beings, we love stories and we don't like being sold to. Content marketing came into existence because it was the only form of marketing left in the saturated market. In principle it is quite simple - Provide value, focus on content not product, inform but don't promote.

That being said, it's also worth noting that this works for Deadpool and Aviation Gin because Ryan and his marketing team have worked insanely hard to accomplish all that they have. It's one thing to know what to do but executing it the way that they did is a whole another story.