The genius of Snakes on a Plane
Both Jon Fine at BusinessWeek and Richard Williamson at adfreak have written great pieces on the advertising and marketing of Snakes on a Plane. Both come to roughly the same conclusion, that the movie will likely be a disaster but what a show that’s going on before it comes out.
Someone commented on a recent post of mine that while, yes, people were talking about the movie they were all doing it in a “this is going to suck” kind of way. To that commenter I have to say it doesn’t really matter. Name me a movie from the last five years that has garnered this kind of word of mouth months before it opens. The big budget movies like King Kong and The Matrix sequels primarily had people talking about them in ways that were very news-like. It was the obligation of sites and magazines and newspapers that talk about entertainment to mention them because they were from major studios, had huge budgets and starred big-time celebrities. Smaller movies get mention because they’re movies that we all know we should like. Like Capote, The Dreamers and others they were examined like college term papers with most of their championing coming from the literati of the film press. Not one of them inspired as much pure passion - whatever the root reason for it - as Snakes on a Plane.
That’s why I agree with what Williamson wrote: “Who needs advertising?” There are so many blogs, homemade trailers, fake audio snippets and other consumer-generated content out there that advertising and marketing this movie in a traditional manner is not only unnecessary it could actually be harmful to the film’s success. I’m saying right now there should NOT be TV spots for this movie. DON’T send Samuel L. Jackson on the Tonight Show the week before it opens. LIMIT the number of print ads that are created and bought. Let the fans take this one.
In fact, let’s turn it into phase two of Joe Jaffe’s “using new marketing to prove new marketing” experiment. I challenge New Line to forgoe all the usual steps in the marketing process and leave the movie’s fate in the hands of the keyboard jockeys who have already raised awareness to a huge level. Turn the official website for the movie into an aggregator and clearing-house for the material that’s being created by the audience. Offer to put the best homemade trailers on DVD and distribute that disc to anyone who wants one.
In other words, get out of the way of the brand. The audience is doing your job for you, now don’t screw it up by thinking you know better.
(by the way, I’m blatantly stealing the “get out of the way” line from Mack Collier. Sorry, Mack. It’s just too good a line to go un-stolen.)
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movie marketing, new line
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