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Super Bowl XLIV movie commercial recap

So, yeah, the broadcast of Super Bowl XLIV did see the inclusion of a number of movie-promoting TV spots. And while notable films such as Alice in Wonderland, Robin Hood and The Wolfman did get their own spots along with many others, the overall picture looked less…substantial than last year’s did and certainly less so than the 2008 game. Only three studios opted to pay the $2.5M to $3M price tag but that lower number did not translate to higher quality spots, though some were indeed entertaining. When it comes down to it, movie commercials are still just a small portion of a bigger picture – the movie itself – and so to some extent the creativity that drives anticipation and buzz around the commercials as a whole isn’t allowed to fully come through.

And those constraints are probably reflected in the fact that none of those spots appeared anywhere near the top on the surveys and other overviews of audience reaction that have been released since the game. Instead they mostly hover somewhere in the middle, neither loved nor hated. While these surveys are by no means scientific they are, when taken as a whole a decent gauge of the audience’s pulse.

That doesn’t mean there wasn’t online chatter, as there was for most all the commercials. But, again, the movie spots proved to be lukewarm in the audience’s eyes. And just like most all of the commercials there was little to know integration between this most traditional of mass advertising techniques and any social media effort. Indeed the URLs for the movie’s official websites were barely visible, thrown on-screen in the last half a second before the spot ended.

Charts of previous year’s movie-centric Super Bowl efforts show there are ebbs and flows and right now it seems we’re in an ebb as studios balk at high prices and look for higher ROI channels through which to broadcast their marketing messages. It will be interesting to see what next year’s studio roster winds up looking like.

Oscar: Studios look for nomination boost; Poster sells the event as a comedy film

Last week saw the release of the nominees for the 82nd Academy Awards. That means we’re entering into Phase Two of this annual dance. Phase One saw all sorts of studios lobbying and spending like mad on ads designed to garner a nomination. Now the efforts have begun to secure a win. And it’s at this point that studios are looking to cash in on those nominations at the box-office (Los Angeles Times, 2/2/10) with a few extra ticket sales.

It’s also at this point that it’s worth pointing out – as I have in the past – that many of these nominations campaigns are bigger than the ones initially run to get people to see the movies. It’s always odd to me that a studio would take a prestige movie, give it limited marketing in support of a limited release pattern and then spend like their life depended on it to get it an award – or even just a nomination – and then count on that nomination to increase its box office.

ABC and AMPAS have also released the promotional poster featuring co-hosts Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin. The poster makes it look like the network is looking to position the broadcast as a buddy comedy more than an awards presentation.

Valentine’s problems

I was going to take a pass on reviewing the campaign for Valentine’s Day, this week’s ensemble romantic comedy that looks to be treading on ground broken by Love, Actually and He’s Just Not That Into You, but two stories about how people are upset at the marketing briefly had me reconsidering.

First, there’s the excising of Eric Dane’s character from all the marketing materials, which some people are reading as intentional because said character is a homosexual.

Second, the marketers have unleashed the fury of Shirley Maclaine, who appears in the movie and has her own subplot with Hector Elizondo, neither of whom appears in any of the marketing.

Despite the wealth of comedic permissibility inherent in the combination of these two stories I still don’t have the emotional strength for a full column on this one.

Deflating the “social media does harm” myth

When the results of a study by Manpower on corporate social media policies came out last week, most people focused on the finding that only 30 percent of U.S. companies had a formal policy in place.

But what’s more interesting to me is the stat that shows only eight percent of U.S. companies say their online reputation has been harmed by the social media activities of an employee. Considering that’s often the push-back offered by organizations who want to limit employee usage of social media entirely that stat is important.

More importantly it’s important to put the two things together. In other words it would be interesting to see what the percentage of companies who say an employee’s misguided actions have harmed their reputation, but only among those companies who have a social media policy in place, or did when the action was taken.

Virtual attendance

Brook Barnes’ piece (The New York Times, 2/2/10) on whether or not, with so many films being available on-demand at the same time they debut at Sundance and as buzz pops up in everybody’s email inbox instantaneously, is well worth reading.

But pulling back from the microcosm of the film industry and looking at the bigger picture, it’s worth considering whether or not physical, in-person attendance at any industry trade show or event is necessary.

Having run programs myself where contacts were tuned in to what was happening at an event without actually being there, I can say there are pluses and minuses to trying to be “virtual” and yet still get the most out of these events.

On the one hand saying that a team of people will not be in-person but still be following – and amplifying in whatever manner the program is set up to do – the messages coming out of the event seems pretty simple. You don’t have to pay for airfare, lodging or anything else that goes along with such attendance. And in some respects they’re able to follow the overall conversation more closely since they can be receiving inputs from a broader spectrum of people than they would be if they were limited to where in the physical space they are at any given moment.

On the other, though, there are downsides. Personal contact with important people is absolutely more valuable than an @ reply on Twitter or a comment on a blog post. And while the breadth of the conversation that can potentially be covered increases, it’s probably a wash in the end since the whole point of not attending is that the person doesn’t lose a day of their regular duties. It’s not like they can sit there hitting “refresh” on a Twitter hashtag search all day and do nothing else.

I’m not coming down on the idea of virtual attendance. It can be a valuable strategy for influencer relations and audience building. Social media allows for those who aren’t able to be in an actual location to still participate in the conversation and, potentially, add to the value attendees take away with them in the same was as if they were actually there. That’s huge.

What’s important to keep in mind is that, with social media broadcasting available either options carries with it the same substantial amount of research that must be done beforehand. Who’s going to be there that the attendees should try to connect with? What’s the official conference Twitter handle? What’s the agreed upon or recommended hashtag, category or other label? Attendees need to be armed with the answers to these questions whether they’re going to be on the ground or still in the office.

Even more important is the idea that, because virtual attendees are going to be expected to not drop everything else they would do in a day they need some filters…some assistance. That’s where agency partners, in-house specialists or someone else comes in and provides that “Here’s the wheat, here’s the chaff” perspective, allowing the point person – the one who’s supposed to be paying attention to the event’s goings-on – to be their best. That’s what we do.