Studios still off-track when it comes to online advertising
Hollywood apparently still sees online advertising as an unproven new frontier that doesn’t really suit their needs. That’s the only conclusion I can come to after reading a pair of articles detailing how spending by studios on online ads still lags far behind all other media buying expenditures, especially television.
Motion Pictures Association of America member studios are on track to spend just 3 percent of their advertising budget online, less than half the average of what all U.S. industries will spend. This despite the fact that frequent moviegoers, those under 30 who see more than one movie a month, are exactly the same people who are spending more of their time. Almost 80 percent of kids 12-17 are using the internet right now, a number that’s just going to grow over the next few years. That makes it especially odd that the advertising isn’t following those kids more since it’s often that demographic that studios are most heavily counting on and marketing their films to.
It’s also important that studios increas their online spending since almost almost half of internet users use the web as their primary go-to resource for movie information.
This other analysis of studio’s online ad spending hits a number of the same points but highlights what I feel in an overdependence on portal ad buys. Six of the seven top studios are spending their money in large part on portal buys, the exception being Fox, which concentrates its strategy on MySpace which it owns. Yes, portals are still high-usage platforms but people are just cruising through them on their way to YouTube or the blog world that dominates the organic search results.
There’s a difference in how studios are utilizing search advertising, with Paramount and Universal being the only two to utilize paid search for all levels of release. Fox, Disney, Warner and Sony only use paid search for high-level major releases. That might account for the fact that their impression percentage, the number of people who actually click those ads, is so much lower, accounting for less than one percent of total impressions versus Universal’s three percent and Paramount’s seven percent. This only makes sense. High-profile releases are those titles that the audience is alreadly likely to know something about through mainstream news coverage. So searchers are looking for the depth and context that can be provided on sites and blogs that come up organically. Lower-tier and niche releases that have paid search ads get higher impressions because people are going to be searching to find out what the movie is about, something that official websites can provide.
What really chaps my hide is the fact that stuidos aren’t utilizing Google Video, YouTube or other video sharing sites in a substantive way. Not putting trailers and clips on sites like this, that allow not only for viewing but for webmasters and bloggers to embed the videos on their own sites, is basically leaving money on the table. The studios need to see the light of day and logic on doing this as an almost zero-cost to not only spread word of mouth themselves but empower the community to do so independently, a tactic that has tremendous return on investment since 1) The video is already created and 2) Each placement is free since people who are enthusastic about the movie are talking about it organically.
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Comments
After leaving the multi-plex-O-rama today with my son and being $31 lighter, I have to say the best Hollywood has elevated the movie-going experience to since movies were first marketed and since I first went to one is this:
- cup holders on seats - Now there’s innovation.
- That’s to take your mind off the smaller theatre and screen you’re now staring at, er, I mean ‘up’ at since there’s only 6 rows in this mini-room you’re in.
- ATM card can be swiped at the box office AND concession. TRUE innovation as they now they can take my money faster.
- Commercials. WTF? I mean, if I am paying all that cash, sorry, debit card, my money better include NO commercials.
- Promos for upcoming cable show lineups. WTF part 2.
- Trailers. I like trailers. Can’t complain. Although, is Don LaFontaine the only guy in America who can do voiceovers?
- Incessant warnings about politeness. Doesn’t. Do. A. Thing.
- Not even three weeks, THREE, into release and the movie looked crappy and had no surround sound to speak of.
They have done exactly nothing to take advantage of new distribution channels or promotion. Nothing. When download speeds improve even more, and they will, the economics of me spending $31 for two people will not compare to downloading from Netflix for a half or even a third of that - for a month.
Eventually, digital releases will be sent right to our plasmas. The only reason they aren’t now is because the people are not yet willing imo to watch movies sitting at their computer they way they would a DVD popped into the player and their big-ass chair.
But it’s coming. PPV was supposed to offer that, but it’s stalled for some reason. There has to be a new model for feature releases because I really think I saw my last film in a theatre today.
And it was good. That was the only saving grace.
tremendous return on investment since 1) The video is already created and 2) Each placement is free since people who are enthusastic about the movie are talking about it organically.
Enough said…