Lucasfilm Teaming With Five Major Brands for Rogue One Promotional Campaign

Just like with Star Wars: The Force Awakens last year, it sounds like this year will bring you plenty of opportunities to see Star Wars products on the shelves to support the release of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. In a press release Monday morning, Lucasfilm announced partnerships with five major brands: Duracell, General Mills, Gillette, Nissan, and Verizon, in a global branding and promotional campaign.

"We are extremely pleased to be working with such a remarkable group of promotional partners for Rogue One," said Lynwen Brennan, General Manager of Lucasfilm in the release. "This first in a series of Star Wars standalone films represents an exciting new era for both Star Wars and Lucasfilm, and the partners joining us on this exciting journey have each designed a stellar campaign capturing the spirit and camaraderie of Rogue One."

Each brand will have featured campaigns for the film, not just tie-in products (though a Rogue One branded Nissan Z series would be awesome). Last year, you couldn't walk down a grocery aisle without seeing something Star Wars - soup, creamer, cereal, even fruit (seriously) all held that logo and image. With Rogue One, Lucasfilm has a unique challenge and opportunity. As the first Star Wars Story film, this is largely an experiment in a way - if a standalone story that's outside of the core "Skywalker Saga" films, those with episode numbers in the titles - can be a major success, it will change Disney and Lucasfilm's focus going forward.

But there's also a matter of educating the public, and much of the public is still confused that this film takes place before the original Star Wars, and that it won't feature the characters who made a big impact on fandom last year. Hopefully for Lucasfilm, campaigns like these will help that goal along.