The first official Avengers: Doomsday trailer hit 503 million views in 24 hours, while premium-format ticket presales reached $16.5 million on day one — five months before the film even opens.
Marvel’s massive budget certainly helped. But those numbers also came after a two-year campaign with bold announcements, public missteps, and stronger follow-up moves. And whether you’re launching software, a physical product, or a service, the principles behind what worked (and what didn’t) apply directly to your business.
Here’s what the Avengers: Doomsday rollout teaches you about creating hype for products.
1. Start with a moment people can’t stop talking about
In July 2024, Robert Downey Jr. walked onstage at San Diego Comic-Con wearing a Doctor Doom mask. He pulled it off and said four words: “New Mask, Same Task.”
The crowd lost it. This was the guy who’d defined Tony Stark for over a decade, returning to the MCU — as the villain. Within hours, the debate was everywhere. Was this brilliant casting or a betrayal of Iron Man’s legacy? Did Marvel just make the best move in franchise history, or the worst?
It didn’t matter which side you were on. What mattered was that everyone had a side.
That’s what a strong launch moment does. It doesn’t just announce something. It creates a reaction. The announcement itself becomes shareable content. People screenshot it, quote-tweet it, make videos arguing about it, write articles dissecting it.
For your product, this means your announcement should provoke a response, not just deliver information. A press release gets filed away. A surprising reveal gets shared. Think about what would make your audience stop scrolling. Maybe it’s a founder video revealing something unexpected, a public demo that shows a result nobody thought was possible, or a partnership that catches people off guard.
The goal isn’t controversy for its own sake. It’s memorability. If your launch moment doesn’t give people something to talk about, you’re relying on ad spend to do the work that earned attention could’ve done for free.
2. Exclusivity can backfire if you don’t control the narrative
Between December 2025 and January 2026, Marvel rolled out four short character teasers exclusively in theaters, attached to Avatar: Fire and Ash screenings. The idea was to reward moviegoers with content nobody else could see. The teasers showed Steve Rogers starting a new chapter of his life, Thor preparing for another battle, the X-Men’s arrival, and a Wakanda-Fantastic Four crossover.
The exclusivity fell apart almost immediately.
All four teasers leaked before their official online releases. AI-generated fakes added even more confusion, making it harder to tell real footage from fabrication. But here’s the interesting part. Once Marvel released the teasers publicly, they took off, eventually generating more than a billion combined views.
The problem wasn’t that people didn’t care. The gate didn’t hold.
The lesson here isn’t that exclusivity is bad. It works best when the content is genuinely valuable, the gate holds long enough to matter, and the people outside it feel anticipation rather than resentment.
Early access programs, invite-only betas, and VIP previews are powerful tools when the thing behind the gate is worth the friction. An invite-only beta for a product that genuinely works differently than anything else on the market creates real buzz. A “limited preview” of the same landing page everyone can already see creates frustration.
Before you gate anything, ask yourself two questions. First, is this good enough that the people who see it will sell it for you? Second, will the people who can’t see it feel pulled toward your product rather than pushed away from it?
3. Don’t make your audience wait longer than the payoff justifies
At CinemaCon in April 2026, Marvel screened a full Avengers: Doomsday trailer for theater industry insiders. The reaction was electric. Kevin Feige brought out the Russo brothers, Robert Downey Jr., and Chris Evans. The crowd responded so enthusiastically that they played the trailer a second time.
Then Marvel sat on it.
For three months, fans heard secondhand descriptions of footage they couldn’t watch. They read breakdowns of scenes they couldn’t see. Industry insiders raved about it. Meanwhile, fans were left waiting without anything new to bridge the gap.
By the time the official trailer dropped in July, the anticipation was enormous. But so was the frustration. And frustration erodes the goodwill you’ve built.
Every day between “we’ve got something incredible” and “here it is” costs you momentum. The tease-to-delivery gap is where hype goes to die. If you tell people your product is amazing but won’t let them see it, try it, or buy it, you’re training them to tune you out.
For your launch, this means setting a specific date the moment you start teasing. “Coming soon” without a timeline is a liability, not a strategy. If you do a private demo, a beta reveal, or an insider preview, have a public release date locked before you show it. The energy you generate from the tease needs somewhere to go. If it doesn’t, it evaporates.
4. When you finally deliver, make the scale match the buildup
After months of teasers, leaks, and CinemaCon hype, Marvel dropped the official trailer on July 20, 2026. They didn’t just post it. They built an event around it.
The numbers tell the story. The trailer earned 503 million views in its first 24 hours, making it Disney’s most-viewed trailer in history and the second-biggest trailer launch ever (behind only Spider-Man: Brand New Day’s 719 million).
But Marvel didn’t stop at views. Infinity Vision tickets went on sale alongside the trailer, and first-day advance sales reached $16.5 million. That was especially notable because the initial sale covered premium-format inventory rather than the film’s full theatrical footprint.
Your reveal should be a conversion event, not just a content moment. Marvel didn’t drop the trailer and then wait a few weeks to sell tickets. They bundled the emotional peak with an immediate call to action. The moment someone was most excited was the same moment they could act on it.
For your product, this means aligning your biggest marketing push with immediate availability. Don’t announce on Monday and launch preorders on Friday. Open signups, drop a limited first batch, or activate a waitlist with instant confirmations at the exact moment your audience is most engaged. Give people somewhere to put that excitement immediately.
5. Turn a competitive collision into shared attention
Avengers: Doomsday and Dune: Part Three are both releasing on December 18, 2026. In most industries, this would look like a scheduling disaster, with two titans splitting the same audience on the same day.
Robert Downey Jr. and Timothée Chalamet saw it differently.
At a public screening in January 2026, Downey addressed the collision head-on. “We both have films opening on December 18,” he said, “and we decided to coin it. We’re thinking Dunesday.” Then he added: “We’ll see if we’re still friendly by then.”
The reference was clear. “Barbenheimer,” the 2023 double-feature phenomenon that helped Barbie and Oppenheimer earn a combined $2.4 billion worldwide. By naming the overlap, Downey and Chalamet turned a scheduling conflict into a cultural event. “Dunesday” became its own story, generating headlines and social conversation that benefited both films.
This runs counter to the instinct most businesses have, which is to see a competitor’s presence as a threat. Sometimes it is. But when two products share a moment, whether it’s a release date, a seasonal window, or an industry event, the combined attention can lift both higher than either could reach alone.
If a competitor launches near your product, consider whether the overlap is worth leaning into rather than running from. A joint live event, a shared hashtag, or even publicly acknowledging the timing can generate more coverage than either launch would attract solo. You don’t necessarily need a formal partnership to benefit from shared attention. Sometimes simply acknowledging the collision gives audiences a story they can run with.
6. Your second impression can rescue your first
The July trailer set records, but reaction was mixed. Critics and fans took issue with its CGI-heavy look and crowded, spectacle-first approach.
Less than a month later, Marvel released a “Special Look” at D23 in August 2026. This time, they got specific. The two-minute clip spent most of its runtime on Doctor Doom, showcasing his backstory, his connection to the Fantastic Four, and his conflict with the heroes. Vanessa Kirby’s Sue Storm described a Victor von Doom who “was always the smartest guy in any room.” The tone was darker and more focused.
The response was noticeably warmer. Fans praised the stronger focus on Doom, and plenty argued that this was the trailer Marvel should’ve released first.
The takeaway isn’t that your first launch can be sloppy. It’s that you don’t get only one chance. A stronger second impression can change how people see the same product.
Whether Marvel planned the Special Look as a response or not, it addressed some of the criticism surrounding the first trailer. There was more Doom, more story, and a clearer threat. The Special Look wasn’t a redo — it was a refinement.
For your product, pay close attention to early reception and make the next touchpoint answer what people felt was missing. That could mean a revised landing page, a new demo angle, or an updated pitch deck that addresses specific objections. You don’t always need a relaunch to shift perception.
7. Increase the tempo as launch day gets closer
Marvel’s campaign has stretched across years, but the cadence accelerated as release day got closer. The first public trailer arrived in July, followed by another major look at D23 in August. The film opens December 18.
The closer major beats land to one another, the more the campaign can feel like acceleration rather than repetition.
Contrast this with the earlier theater-exclusive teasers, which were spaced weekly over a month but didn’t build on each other. Those felt disconnected. The later campaign had more momentum because each major beat gave people something new to react to.
Urgency helps concentrate attention. A long drip campaign can give your audience permission to look away when every beat carries the same weight. A concentrated burst makes it clearer that something is happening now and they shouldn’t miss it.
For your product launch, consider what an accelerating timeline would look like. Instead of three months of weekly emails at the same intensity, you could run a focused two-to-four-week campaign where every touchpoint escalates. Reveal in week one. Go deeper in week two. Bring in social proof in week three. Launch in week four. Each step should raise the stakes from the previous one, not just repeat the same message in a new format.
8. Create a proprietary experience when you can’t compete in existing channels
When Dune: Part Three reportedly locked up IMAX screens for its first three weeks of release, Disney faced a problem. One of its biggest releases of the year couldn’t rely on IMAX during its opening stretch.
Their response was to create a premium-screen brand they could own.
Disney launched “Infinity Vision,” a certification that groups existing premium large-format theaters under a Marvel-backed brand. It wasn’t new technology. It was a new brand for an existing tier of theaters, repositioned as the definitive way to watch Avengers: Doomsday.
It worked. Many Infinity Vision screenings sold out quickly after tickets went on sale. The format became part of the marketing story itself, and coverage about the sellouts amplified the film’s hype.
When you can’t win in someone else’s arena, build your own. If a competitor dominates a distribution channel, a platform, or a format, fighting for scraps in their space is usually a losing strategy. Creating something you can own and name gives you positioning advantages that competing head-to-head doesn’t.
For your business, this could mean launching a proprietary community platform instead of fighting for visibility on a competitor’s dominant social channel. Or creating a signature event series instead of sponsoring someone else’s conference. Or building a unique onboarding experience that becomes a selling point in its own right. The key is naming it and framing it as something people can’t get anywhere else.
What this teaches you about your next launch
Marvel’s Avengers: Doomsday campaign wasn’t perfect. The theater-exclusive strategy lost its exclusivity almost immediately. The three-month gap between CinemaCon footage and the public trailer frustrated fans. The first trailer drew legitimate criticism.
But the overall arc worked. A shocking announcement dominated conversation for weeks. The campaign accelerated as release day approached. A reveal event generated half a billion views and converted that attention into immediate premium-format ticket sales. A stronger follow-up addressed complaints about the first trailer, and Marvel turned a competitive disadvantage into a branded experience.
The result was $16.5 million in first-day premium-format presales, heavily booked Infinity Vision screenings, and a “Dunesday” narrative that turned a head-to-head release-date clash into additional attention for both films.
These principles aren’t exclusive to studios with nine-figure budgets. A memorable announcement that gives people something to react to. Tight timing between tease and delivery. Immediate action bundled with your biggest moment. Responsiveness when the first version misses. The willingness to build your own stage instead of renting someone else’s.
That’s how you create hype for a product. Engineer moments people care about, then give them a reason to act while they still do.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does creating hype work for small businesses, or is it only for big brands?
Hype isn’t only about budget. A small business can create a memorable announcement, build anticipation, and time its reveal so people can act while interest is high. You don’t need Marvel’s reach to use the same underlying principles. The goal is to create moments that matter to your specific audience rather than trying to reach everyone.
How far in advance should you start building hype for a product launch?
There’s no universal timeline. What matters more is how the pace changes as launch day gets closer. Marvel’s campaign stretched across years, but its major marketing beats became more frequent closer to release. For many businesses, that could mean a longer awareness period followed by a focused two-to-four-week push where each touchpoint builds on the last.
What’s the biggest mistake businesses make when trying to create hype?
One of the biggest mistakes is teasing for too long without delivering. The gap between “something amazing is coming” and actual availability can drain the excitement you’ve built. If you create anticipation but don’t give your audience a clear timeline or next step, they’ll eventually tune out.
Can you create hype for a service, or does it only work for physical products?
Hype works for any offer that solves a real problem or delivers a noticeable result. Services can generate buzz through surprising demos, exclusive early access, compelling case studies, or a strong point of view. The key is giving people something specific to react to, not just announcing that a service exists.
Get new small business insights by email
Practical ideas and useful articles to help you make better business decisions.
We empower people to succeed through practical business information and essential services. If you’re looking for help with SEO, copywriting, or getting your online presence set up properly, you’re in the right place. If this piece helped, feel free to share it with someone who’d get value from it. Do you need help with something? Contact Us
