Movie Marketing Madness | Movie marketing news, reviews and opinion by Chris Thilk.

Still no marketing numbers

For the second year in a row the MPAA has left average production and marketing cost numbers out (Los Angeles Times, 3/10/10) of its annual state of the industry report. The trade group once again falls back on the “getting those numbers would be hard” rationale, which you’d think wouldn’t hold up under any sort of scrutiny.

There’s good reason for making those numbers available, even if they are just averages. Despite a spokesperson’s instances, those numbers *do* mean something. When you put them up against that year’s box-office numbers you’re able to get an idea of return-on-investment, which may be the very thing the organization is trying to avoid people getting a glimpse of. After all, if box-office takes went up 7.6 percent – which is just what they did in 2009 compared to 2008 – but production and marketing costs went up 15 percent it doesn’t look all that great.

Now that may be an exaggeration since from 2007 to 2008, when marketing and production costs were last reported, the rise was only 6.3 percent. But considering Hollywood’s fascination lately with event movies that cost a bundle to produce and which are then supported with carpet-bombing ad campaigns I’m going to guess the it’s gone up significantly. Especially with the increased costs associated with everyone’s newest friend, 3D.

Eventually you’d think the MPAA is going to have to reinstate those numbers. But I’m not going to hold my breath. Instead I’ll just be disappointed they’ve chosen to not provide the industry with a recap of its health that’s a bit more inclusive.

Repo Men’s interesting barcode campaign

If you’re one of those folks who’s looking forward to Repo Men, the upcoming movie about a future where human organs are sold and can be repossessed, you may want to check out what Universal is doing with their new mobile-based promotion for the movie.

The studio has created outdoor ads (MediaPost, 3/2/10) with barcodes – something that plays a part in the movie’s story – that passersby can scan with their iPhones. When they do so they get a batch of video content and other movie ads sent to their phones.

Now I think this kind of thing is a good idea, even though I probably would have taken a different approach than to just reward interaction with an ad with more ads. But the idea of using barcodes as easy entry points to a brand experience is a good one and one that more companies can – and are – taking a look at implementing.

Location-awareness apps and movie theaters

If I’m involved with a movie theater, be it an individual art house or nation-wide chain, I’m taking a serious look at how I can integrate location awareness apps and services into what I do and how I can use them to draw people into theaters. There’s so much potential there, especially in light of some of the new features the two big players – Foursquare and Gowalla – are making in advance of SXSW and the announcement of more analytics coming to Foursquare for businesses to tap in to that it would honestly be silly for them not to.

Not only are there a metric ton of things a theater could do that are going to create direct consumer incentives – free popcorn for the Mayor, every 10th check-in you get a poster…I could do this for hours – but there are things that could be done that have the potential to change behavior or reward consumer behavior that is in the theater’s best interest. Another level of incentives could be created for those people who are there to see smaller movies or films that have been there for a few weeks, the ones for which a higher percentage of the ticket price is kept by the theater.

Theaters should already be looking at who’s checking in to their location and finding ways to use the information that’s currently available. And with additional information being added all the time..well…with great metrics come great responsibility. And despite the news that 2009 saw a 10 percent rise at the box-office theaters can’t afford to rest on their laurels or become complacent, not with the number of options available to people rising by the minute. Considering these location-awareness apps represent what many consider the next big thing in social networking, not to mention the fact that so many people also broadcast their updates to other networks thereby increasing the reach of that message, it would make a ton of sense for theaters to consider them as a word-of-mouth tool.

Read Fans, Friends and Followers for free

For a limited time – the duration of the SXSW festival – you can download a free PDF version of Scott Kirsner’s latest book, Fans, Friends and Followers, for free.

Scott is using SXSW as an opportunity to promote the book by giving it away in this way. If you read Scott’s CinemaTech blog the book is a great extension of that and. It also serves as a great primer for The Conversation, the discussion event he organizes and which I’ll be attending/speaking at later this month since it deals with artists who have tried new and interesting ways to connect with audiences and promote their work.

You can read my review of FFF from last year here. The free ebook will be available now through March 21st.

Collective marketing

The same notion that Andy Sernovitz has for businesses – when you’re so small it’s difficult to make a splash team up with people in a similar situation and pool your resources – has flitted around my mind when it comes to independent film. There are so many filmmakers out there who might not be able to afford a full publicity team for each individual movie, but if they were to band together and all chip in they could engage someone who could help generate some buzz, some bookings or whatever else they feel is important at the time.

It’s the same idea that led to the creation of studios (and most any other business) in the first place: While the creation of each film is a unique process there are other logistics – bookings, ad creation etc – that can be more efficiently handled a unit that handles everything instead of requiring each filmmaker to also work on their own poster art and call theater owners individually.

But smaller filmmakers can tap in to the same efficiencies by banding together and contracting for pop-up screenings of a handful of movies in a single location for a limited time before taking it elsewhere. Then contract with someone to manage some social network marketing that can build buzz and actually bring people to those screenings.

There are a handful of other things that could happen through a handful of passionate filmmakers working together and each one of them takes what might be a drop in the bucket or is no more powerful than the time and effort one person has to put into it and turn it into a substantial effort that winds up benefiting everyone in the group.