2006 September : Movie Marketing Madness

Request for information

I’m prepping next week’s column on The Departed but it’s seeming a little light to me. If anyone from Warner Bros. or an agency that works with them wants to help me flesh it out a little drop me a line at chris(.)thilk(@)gmail(.)com.

Music labels using RSS

The FeedBurner blog has a great post about the number of music labels who have their feeds running through FB and how they’re using the feeds to promote different artists or aspects of their business.
But here’s the question I posed to someone I know at FeedBurner: Are there ANY studios doing this? The few sites [...]

Deck the Halls trailer

The trailer for Deck the Halls looks pretty funny, if a recycling of most of the same Christmas movie jokes we’ve been seeing since about 1989. It’s Danny DeVito’s black-comedic instincts that might save this one from cliche-ville.

Theater shuts down because of films

I love this story. A theater in central Illinois shut its doors not because of anything being wrong with the theater, but because of the low quality of the films.
He put his two screens here on hiatus rather than sell tickets to the gross-out and freak-out fare he said Hollywood distributors have made available [...]

Surf’s Up trailer

When I heard that Surf’s Up was going to be some sort of animated film about surfing penguins…well, let’s just say I didn’t have high expectations. But, darn it, the trailer looks kind of funny. That’s because it uses a lot of footage that’s been made to look like it’s old and grainy, like it [...]

Simpsons preview coming in November

Finally the other night I watched this past Sunday’s episode of “The Simpsons.” After the episode was done the announcement came on that the show would return in November, after Fox gets done airing the MLB post-season. As an enticement to tune in, they also announced that when it returns there would be a sneak [...]

Commercials that work

Kate saw a commercial for Little Miss Sunshine that was so intriguing and interesting she actually rewound her TiVo to watch it, is actively seeking it out on YouTube and, most importantly, influenced her thinking on whether to see the movie or not.
In case you were wondering, the above three points should be guidelines to [...]

Curious George DVD gets bunch (get it?) of sponsors

A slew of brands have signed on to help promote the DVD release of Curious George. You can see the whole list of companies who will be producing George-themed packaging by reading the release, including a good amount who were also around for the theatrical release.

Codename: The Cleaner trailer

Cedric, The Entertainer continues to not live up to his moniker in Codename: The Cleaner, the trailer for which you can view here. But hey, they through in a “mistakenly thought to be a gay hook-up from a chat room” joke.
Shoot me now?

Putting all the eggs in one Summer-shaped basket

This MSNBC article gets to the heart of the problem of both big-budget movies AND release windows.
Many films released from January through April are of marginal quality, at best, and fairly inexpensive to produce. Production costs range anywhere from $20 million to $50 million and if these movies somehow make a nice profit, it’s considered [...]

GM wants more from Transformers deal

Madison&Vine passes on word (via Kevin Dugan) regarding General Motors wanting more than just mere product placement from their deal with Dreamworks/Paramount for placement within Transformers. The company is looking to do more than just “give away” cars to the productions it works on.

Employee of the Months ads sponsoring “The Office” - and annoying viewers

Kate Kaye wonders how there could possibly be more demand for online video ads than inventory based on her experience watching deleted scenes from “The Office” online. In-between each one or two minute long clip she was subjected to a commercial for for Employee of the Month. And, to add to the annoyance factor, it [...]

Kazakhstan counters Borat with huge ad buy

The Kazakhstan government has taken out a four-page ad supplement in the New York Times to try and protect its image from the assult it’s about to take in the form of the movie Borat. The ads don’t mention the movie specifically but are obviously aimed at countering its portrayal of their people as bumbling, [...]

Stomp the Yard music contest on MySpace

Sony has launched a contest on a MySpace page inviting aspiring musicians to submit their songs for possible inclusion on the Stomp the Yard soundtrack. Songs have to be submitted by 11:59 PM on Oct. 9th and they will be judged by, as the site says, a panel of MySpace music employees and industry executives.

Wells on the Good German poster

Jeff Wells makes the same connection I did between the title treatment and overall look on the poster for The Good German and the poster for Casablanca. It’s definitely intentional and meant to harken back to a different era of movie making - and marketing.

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