Movie Marketing Madness

Time off for some thinking

Posted on May 12, 2008
Filed Under MMM Stuff | 8 Comments

I’ve reached a point where I feel like I need to make a decision on the future of MMM. I just need to figure out where it - and I - am going and how it’s going exist moving forward. There are things I want to do, there are things I don’t want to do and there are realities of my life outside the blog that must take precedence. Work, family and church are all important to me and I need to align my responsibilities in those areas with what MMM means to me - indeed I need to figure out what exactly MMM means to me and why - in order to be the person I would like to be.

So I’m taking a week off from posting in order to, as Bono says at the end of Rattle & Hum, dream it up all over again. Talk to you all later.

–Chris

The Incredible Hulk Facebook application

Posted on May 9, 2008
Filed Under Facebook, Movie Marketing, Universal Pictures | Leave a Comment

Universal has created a Facebook application for The Incredible Hulk that you can grab and add here.

The app is pretty basic and mimics a lot of the functionality of the widget that was released a while ago for the movie. The main window plays the trailer and you have the option of selecting the teaser or a behind-the-scenes video that either is or is very similar too the National CineMedia FirstLook package that mixes a handful of interviews with footage from the trailers. It’s also got the usual choices of viewing photos in the screen and reading a story synopsis.

Speed Racer CandyTracks game and Facebook gift

Posted on May 9, 2008
Filed Under Facebook, Movie Marketing, Tie-Ins, Warner Bros. | Leave a Comment

Seems there’s a spare that needs to be picked up in terms of my MMM: Speed Racer column from yesterday. One is something I missed and the other is a new thing I just noticed today.

First the thing I missed. Topps created a branded online advergame for themselves and the movie called CandyTracks.com. The racing game (natch) lets you choose between either a Topps or movie-themed car to race around a candy-themed track where you collect a specific candy as power-ups and other items for repairs and such. You can play a single race in demo mode or log in to a contest.

Also on the Speed Racer front is a new gift you can give to your Facebook friends, the Mach 5 itself. It’s the featured Gift of the Day on the front page of my profile and you can see what that looks like below.

A few housekeeping notes

Posted on May 9, 2008
Filed Under MMM Stuff | Leave a Comment

Just wanted to share with you all a few quick notes about things here at MMM.

First off, I had been planning on writing an MMM: Prince Caspian column for next week but have decided not to. There are a couple bits of thinking behind this. First, Indiana Jones 4 comes out the week after that and that column is going to need some prep time. Plus, Speed Racer was column number 199 and I kind of like the idea of saving #200 for Indy. Seems fitting.

Also, I’ve taken out the Iron Man widget from the far right sidebar since that movie has opened now. In its place are two new widgets, one for Quantum of Solace and one for Hancock. The Hancock widget comes with a contest that lets you accumulate points for every page you post it on (you have to register but can grab the widget without doing so) and how many other people grab it from you.

That’s about it. Just wanted to keep you all up to date, especially my RSS readers who may not see the widgets on the site.

–Chris

Give a What Happens in Vegas toilet seat on Facebook

Posted on May 8, 2008
Filed Under 20th Century Fox, Facebook, Movie Marketing | Leave a Comment

While on Facebook earlier I noticed that today’s featured gift was a toilet seat, something that was being brought to us from What Happens in Vegas.

The dismantled toilet seat, you’ll remember, is featured as part of the punchline to a gag from the movie’s trailer.

I’ve seen a number of movie-sponsored gifts you can give your Facebook friends, but this one seems like the most overtly-branded I’ve come across. I could be forgetting some but I don’t remember any others that have had the movie’s title on the picture like this.

Send a Mamma Mia e-card for Mother’s Day

Posted on May 8, 2008
Filed Under Movie Marketing, Universal Pictures, Websites | Leave a Comment

Universal has added a Mother’s Day-specific e-card to the official website for Mamma Mia that you can send to your mom. You can customize the card with names and such and then, when it’s received and played, music from the movie starts up with the little words at the bottom like on a sing-along video.

Movie Marketing Madness: Speed Racer

Posted on May 8, 2008
Filed Under Movie Marketing Madness, Warner Bros. | 1 Comment

I’ll start off, in the spirit of complete honesty and transparency, with an admission: I do not really share the “Speed Racer” cartoon as a cultural milestone with many of my peers. I think I might have caught it a handful of times in my younger years but it never held my interest to any extent. So while I’m familiar with the general concept (Young and extremely appropriately named young man tries to drive fast while assorted bad guys attempt to thwart him in his attempts to drive even faster) I cannot sing the theme song word-for-word, my first cartoon crush was not on Trixie (I would never cheat on you, Scarlett) and I just generally don’t know the world as well as some others of my generation do.

It’s that audience that Warner Bros. seems to be selling this big-screen adventure of Speed Racer to. At least it’s one of the audiences they’re aiming at. After all, nostalgia is a powerful motivator (cough, Transformers, cough). The movie, which has been directed by theWachowski Brothers of The Matrix Triilogy fame (or infamy depending on where you stopped watching), seems to follow the same basic outline of fast driving and outside interference as the cartoon. Emile Hirsch stars as Speed, with ChristinaRicci as Trixie and Matthew Fox as Jack Racer X, who must lead them off the island who seems to hold the secrets of the greedy corporate interests trying to derail Speed. If, that is, he ran on rails. Cars don’t generally. Unless you’re talking about theme park rides. I may be digressing.

The other audience being sought by Warner Bros. is actually young kids. Visually the Wachowskis have laid out a movie that’s like the trippiest video game ever, with the pumped-up brightness of everything in the film and a camera that never seems to stop moving so fast the background becomes a brightly hued blur. Also, the filmmakers delivered a finished product that’s been rated PG, meaning anyone can get in to the theater without a problem.

The only problem is that the lighter rating has the potential to turn off some of the Generation X audience who might be looking for something that’s a little darker or more violent in their nostalgia (cough, Transformers, cough). But it’s likely the combination of the two audiences could compliment each other, with enough younger kids coming in for the visuals to offset anyGenXers who decided to skip it and go see Iron Man for the second or third time now that they know to stay through the entire credit sequence.

Before diving into the movie’s campaign formally let me share something I said to Tom last week, something that might bode ill for the movie’s prospects: No one is talking about Speed Racer. At least it doesn’t seem to have a fraction of the online buzz Iron Man does. While that movie was positioned largely as an action flick more than a comics adaptation – at least to the mainstream audiences that was what the campaign looked like – it also targeted the same people who obsess over comics and related cultural trivia. And it’s coming just two weeks before Indiana Jones, which is also making a play for theXers who were teenagers when the last installment came out.

Unfortunately for Speed Racer there’s just enough of a lull after Iron Man for Indy to build some last minute momentum. So because it’s not first out of the gate and isn’t the return of an iconic film character Speed might suffer from the exhaustion of an audience catching their breath between gigantic campaigns. That unfortunately is borne out in numbers collected just days before the movie’s release that show it tracking very poorly and potentially losing the weekend to Iron Man should that movie remain strong.

But nothing is set in stone and I’ve been wrong before so let’s just look at the campaign WB put together.

The Posters

The first poster appeared a while ago, showing just the title character’s mid-section as he grasped his helmet in his hand. No face or anything like that, just the helmet with the Mach 5 in the background. While this was very cool to look at online it was even cooler in theaters, where the poster waslenticular and moved as the viewer moved around it. Eventually Warner created a page that simulated that effect for the online audience.

It’s not much but it did certainly set the stage for the rest of the campaign, of which it was the first major element, I believe. The branding was there, alerting people that the movie was coming, and it conveyed the style of the visuals pretty well. The motion of the poster also set the stage for people to expect that speed would be the central focus of the push, with a campaign whose every element would try to include that sense of motion.

Next up were a series of character posters. There was one for Speed, one for Trixie and one for Racer X. Each one is color-coded based on the character’s wardrobe preferences and features their transportation of choice in the background. These were pretty good but, while they’re very exciting to look at with their popping colors I don’t think they do a lot to increase the connection between the audience and the characters. That’s simply because they’re the one character-centric component of a campaign that otherwise is focused on visuals. Still, they’re not bad and would definitely have been a noticeable omission if they hadn’t been created.



Further emphasizing my point, it’s almost impossible to find any human beings on the final theatrical poster. The central component of this one-sheet is the Mach 5 as it speeds around a curved and looped track with Racer X’s car in close pursuit. The people are in there somewhere, but the focus visually is on the car and the track, with everything else being drowned out by those two items. Again, this is a good poster that conveys the movie’s central focus well, but it’s counting on snappy graphics to bring people in.

And right there I think you have a sense of how this movie is differing from most of the other tentpole releases this summer: It’s the only one that seems to be sublimating character for visuals. Iron Man, The Dark Knight, heck even The Incredible Hulk have all taken pains to make sure it’s the character every bit as much as the special effects that are drawing people in. I can’t help but think it’s this sterility in approach that’s contributing to the lack of buzz around the movie and its poor tracking. People are engaging with the characters that they’re seeing as more fully fleshed out rather than something that just looks wicked cool.

The Trailers

Unsurprisingly, the first teaser trailer (though it didn’t really tease much so that’s not a completely accurate description) opened with some cartoonish graphics and the first few bars of the cartoon’s theme song, making it clear this was going to be a nostalgia effort. After that, though, we’re thrown into the action. We get glimpses of all the major characters, including John Goodman as Speed’s father, SusanSarandon as his mom and Ricci as Trixie. The trailer gives off the impression that even the live-action elements are as much a cartoon as the computer-driven special effects that dominate the racing sequences. There’s a little hinting at some sort of conspiracy to keep Speed down by a corporate bigwig but that’s about it before the trailer is over.



The second and third trailers are virtually interchangeable. Neither one goes all that much deeper than the first one did into either character development or story points. Again, there’s a conspiracy that’s hinted at more than anything, with Speed intoning that he has “to do something” but what he’s railing against isn’t made all that clear. Racer X continues to act more than a little mysterious, but no reason is hinted at whatsoever as to why he’s such a shadowy figure. Each one features some new racing footage and it’s all very impressive but the live-action stuff is just about the same between the two.

The fourth and final trailer finally breaks out of the mold a bit. It starts off showing Speed as a young child in school with his teacher frustrated that driving fast seems to be the only thing he’s capable of thinking about. Believe it or not this is substantial character development for this campaign. There’s a little more divulged about the corporate powers that are intent on getting in Speed’s way of becoming the best racer ever, which also makes this trailer a cut above the rest of the pack.



Taken altogether, it’s really easy to cut out those middle two spots. They don’t add all that much more than the first trailer revealed and weren’t as meaty in terms of story revelation as the final one so they don’t contribute much to the campaign. About all they seem to be intended to do is show off the graphics and visuals of the movie, both of which you can see pretty clearly in the bookend spots or even on the posters. But the visuals are a major selling point for the movie so it’s easy to see why the studio would want to highlight them as much as possible, even if nothing is actually added to the audience’s understanding of the film in the process.

Online

The first thing that appears on the official site - which is chock full of content even before you “Enter” - is the trailers and TV spots that begin playing as soon as the site loads. Two trailers and two TV spots are right there in the middle of the page player.

Also there is a Synopsis that actually dives into the story and characters more than I would expect, Downloads that include a handful of Buddy Icons and Wallpapers and a Gallery of about 20 pictures or so.

Also on the page is plenty of information on how to spend your money on the Speed Racer brand. There’s information on the movie’s IMAX release, something that’s likely to be a big draw for those really looking to experience the movie’s look and feel. Also is a link to the official site for the movie’s video game and a mobile store where you can find games and other swag for your mobile device.

Finally before we go into the main site is a link to the movie’s Facebook page. There’s not much there that’s all that exciting, just some wallpapers and other stuff you can download and big ads for some of the movie’s tie-in partners and a couple of videos.

OK, let’s enter the site.

You’re presented with two options for entry, one if you’re a kid one if you’re an adult. Going the adult route first you’re then shown the worst website background ever, a spinning red and white spiral that even caused me to feel like I was having a seizure in the two minutes it took for the content to load.

“Trailers” contains a scant two trailers, one of which is the International version that caused so much of a ruckus when it was released a couple of weeks ago. I’m not sure why all the trailers wouldn’t be there, but that seems like a silly place to skimp, especially with all the money that was likely spent on that background that keeps spinning around and around. You can download both trailers, which is a nice touch, but it’s not enough to make up for the lack of content.

Seven posters are included under “Posters,” including two character one-sheets that I hadn’t seen before. For a change you can actually download these by clicking on them, which opens up a pop-up, and then right-clicking.

“About” contains both the same synopsis we saw earlier and some Production Notes. While the Prod Notes look great, it’s impossible to read them with that stupid swirling going on in the background so I couldn’t honestly tell you if they’re any good or not. You’ll find the usual Cast and Crew notes under “Bios” and a list of site updates (but no RSS feed) under “News.”

“4 Min. of Footage” is exactly what it sounds like, a four-minute clip from the movie.

The same gallery of pics we saw before is contained under “Photos” while “Art” has some cool Concept Art and Storyboards you can check out. “Downloads” is again pretty much what we saw before, but with the addition of iPod-ready videos you can grab.

Rounding out the site is a section leading you to all the promotional “Partners” of the movie and a “Coloring Book” that seems oddly out of place on the adults section of the site.

If you go back to the main page and re-enter the site, this time choosing the Kids option, you’ll get more or less the exact same content. Only this time it’s presented with an old-school Turbo-esque video game look to it. You can access content at random by clicking on the billboards that you speed past or just mouse-over the car’s dashboard and select from the labeled button and levers you see there.

Advertising and Cross-Promotions

For Joel Silver, the producer of the movie, the realm of product cross-promotions is relatively untrod territory, largely because he’s used to creating R-rated action movies that don’t lend themselves well to such efforts. But in his first outing he’s gone all out, including giving partners access to movie artwork - specifically images of the Mach 5 - early in the process, something that let them get a jumpstart on their individual efforts and give the studio more time to provide feedback.

It should come as no surprise that the partners that signed on to help promote Speed Racer in the hopes the positive brand association will rub off on them skew heavily toward companies related to the automotive industry. There are others, to be sure, but the automobile vertical is heavily represented here.

AutoTrader.com helped out in a big way. The site ran a sweepstakes that awarded the winner $30,000 to use toward the purchase of a car on one of its sites or through one of its print publications. The site also gave tickets for the movie to those buying a special kind of premium ad listing and even created a fake ad for the Mach 5 that ran on the site. It also took a replica of the Mach 5 to three Major League Baseball ballparks in the weeks leading up to the film’s release.

Also in the automotive realm was the deal with B-K Motorsports and Yokohama Tires. B-K’s Mazda LMP2 car was decked out in movie logos and the drivers even sported uniforms meant to resemble that worn by Speed. Yokohama was using the deal for its part to promote its high-performance tires - indeed they were named the “official” tire of the Mach 5 in the same way such racing deals are done - in an effort that included a co-branded commercial you can view on the Yokohama site.

Insurance company Esurance had its own efforts going. A co-branded site featured the movie’s trailer as well as other video content including an exclusive collection of behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with the movie’s cast. As with many of the rest of the promotions there was also a sweepstakes with prizes including a trip to the movie’s premiere.

They also created a co-branded TV spot that pitted esurance’s spokes-cartoon Erin against Speed Racer’s Mach 5 in a race to a movie theater.



It would make sense for the race car circuit to get in on the game as well, wouldn’t it? Well that’s just what happened, with Bobby LaBonte’s #43 Cheerios car sporting Speed Racer paint at the Crown Royal 400 race a couple weeks before the movie’s release.

One non-auto-related company joining the cross-promotional push was shoemaker Puma, for which this was the first major movie-related deal they’d struck. Puma created a Speed-Racer branded shoe and promoted that shoe – and the movie – in-store with trailers and signage, as well as its own sweepstakes.

Warner Bros.’ corporate sibling Time Warner Cable did its part to promote the movie by tying it to its RoadRunner high-speed internet service. TWC started running spots that pointed viewers to a Speed Racer branded site where they could view view trailers and other exclusive movie content as well as play games and enter a sweepstakes to win a Mazda Speed 3. TWC could also access a 20-minute fake documentary on the Racer family that was put together by the studio and which will be available on DVD exclusively at Target stores.

Another Time-Warner property, AOL, also helped back in December when the trailer for the movie was set to make its debut. AOL’s Moviefone had the exclusive premiere of the trailer and on the same day the first real photos from the film were shown off at Cinematical, which is owned by AOL. In the days after that the trailer would be promoted on the AIM welcome page, with other sites in the AOL network also getting the word out about the trailer’s appearance.

Going back to Target, the retailer is the movie’s official retail partner and creating in-store and print ads that feature the Speed Racer products it’s selling as well as offering special gift cards that come packed with a USB flash drive pre-loaded with exclusive movie content.

In terms of pure advertising, the studio has been running a steady stream of TV spots and also doing a bit of outdoor advertising as well. Like I always mention, it’s dangerous to draw assumptions from personal experiences, but I don’t watch much TV and I’ve seen a ton of commercials. Likewise I’ve seen buses and bus shelters around Chicago sporting Speed Racer ads and character posters for the last month or so leading up to the release.

Speed Racer was also one of the movies included in Warner Bros. deal with National CineMedia that had the studio creating exclusive packages for NCM’s pre-show FirstLook block of content. Standees like this one were also placed in theaters across the country that, as you can see, take the movie’s poster and expand it into three dimensions.

MTV also worked with Warner Bros. on a promotion on MTVN’s cable properties that had two components. One was a text-to-win trivia contest, with winners being sent to the movie’s premiere where they could compete for a real Mach 5 by racing remote-control cars. The other part has MTVN channels speeding up the promos they run for other shows on the networks as well as “shaking” the sites for those networks while the movie’s trailer plays.

Overall

It’s hard for me to contextualize the Speed Racer campaign. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with it or with any particular component of it. Far from it I think there’s some excellent stuff in there. Yeah, the trailers were too many and the website gave me an extra-sized headache. But those are minor stylistic quibbles.

I won’t belabor the point of Iron Man sucking the wind out of Speed Racer’s campaign, but it’s certainly a factor that has to be considered when it comes to buzz and word-of-mouth surrounding this push.

But the campaign, when judged on its own merits, is a good one. It hits most of the notes it needs to for the audiences that are trying to be reached and does so with the best selling points it has to offer. I’m not sure it’s great, but there’s certainly nothing “wrong” with it that could be identified. Yeah, the trailers got kind of repetitive and the website design gave me a whopping headache, but those are aesthetic quibbles that certainly don’t have an objective point of view.

If anything, I think I would have liked to have seen more things you could do online with the Speed Racer brand. Some more interactive features that really got you involved in the world of the movie and the characters would have gone a long way to creating the very connection that seems to be lacking from many of the campaign’s components in favor of a focus on the car and the visuals.

Other than that it’s a completely serviceable campaign that, unfortunately, seems to have failed to break through the clutter caused by other movies and other entertainment options in general.

Igor trailer

Posted on May 8, 2008
Filed Under Movie Marketing, Trailers, Weinstein | Leave a Comment

I was a bit hard on the Weinstein Co. when the poster for Igor, their computer-animated kids flick was released. I basically surmised the movie wouldn’t get the support it needed to become a hit and so why were they even bothering.

But I like this trailer for the movie quite a bit. The movie is about Igor. Or, more specifically, an Igor. See this society of scientists comes comes complete with a lower caste of Igors that exist as laboratory assistants and switch-pullers. But this Igor wants to be an inventor himself, setting up what amounts to a class struggle.



Like I said I like it more than I was expecting to. But that doesn’t mean I wasn’t thinking of Young Frankenstein the entire time. If the filmmakers were able to work in a Marty Feldman look-alike character or even just include a line about how the “rates have gone up” from previous generations my estimation of the movie would go up even higher.

The Rocker trailer

Posted on May 8, 2008
Filed Under Fox Atomic, Movie Marketing, Trailers | Leave a Comment

I don’t even know what to say about this trailer for The Rocker, starring Rainn Wilson (Dwight on “The Office”) as a former drummer for a hot band who’s given a second chance to rock out when his nephew asks him to play in their band at the prom. Wilson is so obviously insane and so obviously committed completely to bringing the character to life it’s a little scary to watch, especially when you compare him to other comedic actors that appear to put so little effort into their roles. (Yes I’m looking at you, Eddie Murphy.)

The trailer sets up the story pretty well and takes us on a tour of the major set-pieces of the movie, including a number of scenes of Wilson’s character getting hit in various parts of his body. It’s very funny, but while the physical comedy is great I think it’s the way he slightly emphasizes “rent” when he says he won’t rent his password to porn sites to his nephew that had me laughing the most.

Noise trailer

Posted on May 8, 2008
Filed Under Movie Marketing, ThinkFilm, Trailers | Leave a Comment

I was kind of meh about the poster for Noise but the trailer has me completely sold on the movie. Tim Robbins stars as a man who’s been driven to the brink of insanity by the constant chirping of car alarms in New York City. As a result he becomes an anonymous media celebrity when he decides to take matters into his own hands and starts fighting back against the aggressive machines.

The trailer presents the movie as a dark comedy with heaping helpings of social commentary. While that’s not exactly going to draw people in the suburbs away from Iron Man and other big-splash releases it should go a long way toward attracting the slightly off-kilter crowd.

There’s a temptation to compare the movie to Network, the famous movie that introduced us to the phrase “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!” but I think that’s both too easy and might do Noise a disservice since it seems much more inclined to go for a laugh than to play it completely straight as societal indictment like Network did.

New Bangkok Dangerous poster

Posted on May 8, 2008
Filed Under Lionsgate, Movie Marketing, Posters | Leave a Comment

Is anyone else completely creeped the heck out by this new poster - the third by my count - for Nicolas Cage’s upcoming action flick Bangkok Dangerous? I’m not quite what’s more disturbing about it. Is it the odd position of his right hand and arm that seem to be coming out of his body at an odd angle. Or the fact that he seems to be doing the Kids in the Hall “Crush Your Head!” sketch? Or is it the vacant stare on the wax-figure like face?

Whatever the case, I do get what they’re trying to do here. The inclusion of an action pose by Cage with some flames at the bottom of the poster positions this much more like an action flick. It’s also much more in line from a brand-identity point of view with the trailer that was released a while ago.

It wouldn’t be bad but for the handful of things that are just oddly disconcerting about it. Certainly better for a mainstream audience, though, than the first couple of efforts.

Star Wars: Clone Wars poster and trailer announcement

Posted on May 7, 2008
Filed Under Movie Marketing, Posters, Trailers, Warner Bros. | Leave a Comment

Warner Bros. and Lucasfilm have sent out the official poster for Star Wars: The Clone Wars, the animated series that’s also getting a theatrical release.

As you can see, the poster introduces the main characters that will be the focal point of the movie and the later series. Anakin, Obi-Wan, Yoda and the Padawan learner of Anakin’s all get put right in the middle with lightsabers drawn as an army of clone troopers masses behind them.

It’s a bright and visually very alluring poster that should work well at getting people who are fans of the franchise excited about the movie/show. It certainly shows off the animation’s unique look and promises that it will use the animated format to do things even the movies that were increasingly animated (aside from certain performances) couldn’t do.

The official Star Wars site also has the details on when and where we can see the trailer for movie:

Star Wars fans will get an unprecedented look at the newest intergalactic adventure on Thursday, May 8, when the world-premiere trailer for the upcoming CG-animated movie Star Wars: The Clone Wars debuts across five Turner networks simultaneously.

At 7:58 p.m. in all U.S. time zones, Cartoon Network, TNT, TBS, CNN, and Boomerang will debut an action-packed, two-minute preview of the animated adventure from creator George Lucas and Lucasfilm Animation. It marks the first time a theatrical trailer has received a simultaneous, cross-network airing on Turner Networks. The trailer debuts in theaters on Friday, May 9, along with the first poster for the movie. The poster is available for pre-order exclusively at StarWarsShop. Check it out here.

New Accidental Husband trailer and posters

Posted on May 7, 2008
Filed Under Movie Marketing, Posters, Trailers, Yari Film Group | Leave a Comment

Yari Film Group has sent out a new trailer and a bunch of new teaser-type posters for their romantic comedy The Accidental Husband, starring Uma Thurman, Colin Firth and Jeffrey Dean Morgan.

The three posters all represent the idea that a book by Thurman’s character - a relationship advice specialist with a regular radio show - has been defaced by Morgan’s character - a firefighter whose fiancee broke up with him after getting a little bit of her advice. It’s similar to Universal’s Forgetting Sarah Marshall poster strategy, though this at least features someone’s face. I still have the same sort of problems with it, though, especially since I don’t see the movie’s title, do see a URL for a character site but also see an MPAA rating. But they’re cute and pink and it’s easy to draw the conclusion that this is a romantic comedy.

The new trailer that accompanies them hits many of the same notes the first one did and, just like that first one, manages to show the entire movie - complete with inevitable conclusion - in just the span of a couple minutes.

New The Love Guru trailer

Posted on May 7, 2008
Filed Under Movie Marketing, Paramount Pictures, Trailers | Leave a Comment

Paramount has released a new trailer for the Mike Myers comedy The Love Guru that you can view below.

I haven’t been as harsh on the campaign for this movie as some others have been. The first trailer in fact worked quite well for me and I genuinely laughed at more than a couple parts. There are one or two humorous bits in this new version as well but overall it’s not as strong an effort as the movie really needs at this point. I’m not saying it’s bad, but it’s definitely not the laugh-riot it needs to be. Something like the automated pillow that makes the backing up beeping sound is funny as an idea you throw out while stoned, but it certainly shouldn’t be something you choose to highlight in the promotional campaign for a movie.

Plus, the trailer commits the “Sin of Toys,” that being the inclusion of an introduction containing footage that’s not actually in the film. Yeah, it’s a decent joke, but the point is to be selling the movie here.

Become a new media douchebag

Posted on May 7, 2008
Filed Under Off Topic | Leave a Comment

Via Cathy Taylor comes this spoof of the Common Craft videos, this one dubbed “New Media Douchebags in Plain English.” While I know a lot of people who fit the description provided in this video, Rex Hammock - whose site is shown as a printout at one point - is most assuredly not one of them

We now resume your regular Movie Marketing Madness programming, already in progress.

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