#ForceFriday: Is the Force Strong with this Social Media Campaign?

Posted on by Marcus White

Anticipation for Star Wars merchandise is as ingrained in the franchise’s DNA as its iconic characters and oft-repeated lines. It’s hard to believe, but there were no toys available when the original Star Wars was released in May 1977. Toy manufacturer Kenner, like the most of the world, wasn’t expecting much George Lucas’ space fantasy, and only produced a small amount of merchandise tied to the film’s release. With no more toys on the horizon for the Christmas season, Kenner released an “Early Bird Certificate Package,” a cardboard box depicting what some of the toys would like, and that offered a voucher for fans to claim four action figures. 

38 years, six “Star Wars” films, and a sale to Disney later, Lucasfilm and its current merchandising partners had no problem releasing toys and other merchandise ahead of the film’s release, but were still able to tap into fans’ insatiable demand for Star Wars stuff through a comprehensive social media campaign leading up to the release of merchandise from the franchise’s seventh film, The Force Awakens, on Friday, September 4th. Or, as the Star Wars marketing team called it, #ForceFriday. The campaign sought to direct users to purchase the new toys, books, and other merchandise related to the movie, and increase global awareness of that merchandise and the December release of The Force Awakens. While #ForceFriday was reasonably successful in these areas, its reach was largely confined to English-speaking countries, and mishaps involving the amount of merchandise available for purchase created some negative buzz surrounding the event.

First announced in May, #ForceFriday took place over a three-day span. Beginning on Wednesday, September 2nd in the United States, the Star Wars YouTube channel hosted a livestream over an 18-hour period, gradually unveiling the soon-to-be available products via live “unboxings,” and partnering with 15 different YouTube channels and personalities. These took place in 15 different cities in 12 countries, in an effort to ensure that #ForceFriday was in the collective minds of whichever Star Wars fans were awake at that moment.

The livestream created a palpable buzz for fans on Twitter, with over 22,000 unique tweets and nearly 26,000 retweets containing #ForceFriday on September 2nd and 3rd, according to RiteTag. But the hashtag saw its biggest usage on Friday itself: 68,400 unique tweets and 100,700 retweets contained the hashtag, representing 1,573,000 potential views, by far the largest potential reach for #ForceFriday in the last 30 days.

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The boost in popularity wasn’t limited to #ForceFriday, but expanded to other Star Wars related hashtags. The hashtags #starwars and #theforceawakens both saw similarly significant growth in reach and volume on September 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. Like #ForceFriday, both hashtags reached monthly highs on those days.

#starwars Volume and Reach

#theforceawakens Volume and Reach


For Disney, Lucasfilm, their merchandising partners, and retailers, the campaign is big business. According to Fortune, projections for revenue from merchandise sales from the film range from $3-$5 billion globally, including $1 billion from toys alone. For reference, Disney purchased Lucasfilm for $4 billion in 2012.  It’s not quite clear yet how much of an impact the social media campaign has had on merchandise sales. But, creating strong awareness on social media as the Star Wars team has done should only help meet those projections.

Despite the substantial growth of the hashtag and projections for strong merchandise sales, #ForceFriday’s impact was largely contained to English-speaking parts of the world. 3 of the top 5 countries to tweet using the hashtag primarily speak English, while over 75% of the tweets containing #ForceFriday were in English.

#ForceFriday by Language, Country


This is particularly surprising for a franchise with worldwide popularity like Star Wars. This surprise is compounded considering that most of the official Star Wars accounts in other countries where English isn’t the primarily language used the hashtag #ForceFriday.

With over 75% of Twitter’s accounts belonging to users outside of the United States, Star Wars may have been better-served to create country-specific hashtags to increase awareness among its fans in countries that don’t speak English, and make them feel more included. Doing so could have potentially taken away from the uniformity of a single worldwide hashtag, but with over 81% of the tweets containing #ForceFriday from users in the United States and United Kingdom, it’s unlikely that separate, language and country-specific hashtags would have taken away from the broader social media campaign.  In addition to the lack of outreach to users outside of the U.S. and the U.K., #ForceFriday was the subject of a counter-hashtag, thanks to some fans’ dissatisfaction with the lack of available merchandise on the day of release. Although retailers didn’t predict customer interest as inaccurately as Kenner, many fans were unable to purchase merchandise on September 4th, leading some to tweet using the hashtag #FarceFriday. While  the issue was largely out of the Star Wars social media and marketing team’s control, better communication with retailers and manufacturers could have prevented the situation. Considering the incredible anticipation surrounding the film and the strong impression the campaign made on social media, shortages should have been expected.  But, because of LucasFilm’s unique relationship with Star Wars fans, it’s especially important that Disney and LucasFilm avoid any negative associations with the brand, considering that Disney plans to release one Star Wars film per year beginning in December.

Lucasfilm’s #ForceFriday social media campaign successfully increased awareness of products tied into the December release of The Force Awakens, as well as of the film itself. But, the campaign was not without faults, as the Star Wars team could have improved its reach into countries outside of the U.S. and U.K., as over 81% of all tweets containing #ForceFriday originating in those two countries. Additionally, properly anticipating the demand for merchandise and improving communication between Lucasfilm’s merchandising partners and retailers could have prevented vocally dissatisfied customers who used the hashtag #FarceFriday.

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