More on The Wackness backlash
Alex left a comment trying to explain why exactly there was such a strong negative reaction to Sony Classic’s purchase of The Wackness. That purchase, according to him and others, is going to spell the doom of the movie since Classics has a poor recent track record with the film’s they’re shepherding. As I did, he name drops Fox Searchlight as a studio that would do better with this movie.
Since I’m all about trying to drive the conversation forward and offer constructive criticism, let’s take this opportunity to not just bemoan the movie’s fate but look at what Classics could do to drive awareness and box-office for the movie.
- Buy a BlogAds campaign: Strip off two percent of the marketing budget already alloted for the next James Bond film and run a BlogAds advertising campaign that is targeted at independent movie fan sites.
- Sponsor IndieWire for two weeks leading up the movie: Drop a little bit of coin to see if you can put a banner ad at the top of IndieWire’s email newsletter for 10 days.
- Sponsor new tools at movie-centric social networks: See if there’s something that the teams at Flixster, Spout, IndieWire or some other social network that’s centered around film have been wanting to add but haven’t for lack of cash. Then pay for it to be developed, implemented and branded.
- Engage the community: Find the people who have loved the movie at Sundance or other venues and create some sort of program that will get them excited about spreading the news of the movie. Give them funny weekly tasks to carry out or ideas for The Wackness-themed lists they can post about. Then open this up to everyone else.
- Give those writers some sort of reward: Give Alex an exclusive interview with Sir Ben Kingsley. Fly someone else out for a dinner with the director. Engage and reward the brand enthusiasts.
- Highlight their reviews as part of the campaign: Make their blurbs about the movie featured content on the Website for the movie. See if they’d be interested in speaking with a writer from a publication such as The New York Times if that publication is writing a story about the movie. They already love the movie, so turn them into authoritative voices on what’s so great about it.
- Provide content they can link to/add to their site: If you have word-of-mouth already working in your favor as is the case here, make sure you keep the embers growing. Badges, widgets, videos should all be made available so that they’re prompted to write not one, not two, but 12 posts about the movie, each about the new materials that’s been released.
- Make sure that people who want to see it can see it: Oh yeah. I’m talking wide release and broken window here. I realize this is the most far-fetched of the ideas but it is an option and needs to be considered.
So there. Now we have a pro-active list of things that can help Sony Classics not drop the ball on the release and marketing of The Wackness. It’s better, I think, to try and provide solutions and points for discussion than to just be miserable things didn’t work out like you hoped they would.
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Comments
GREAT ideas Chris, this is what SPC needs to read! I’m in a big discussion now since indieWIRE wrote a response and even quoted my comment previously. I especially like #5. 
And #6, hot damn this is good stuff.
Here’s the indieWIRE article: http://www.indiewire.com/biz/2008/01/park_city_08_so.html
And my response to it: http://www.firstshowing.net/2008/01/30/discussion-continues-on-sony-pictures-classics-purchase-of-the-wackness/
Please, if ANYONE from SPC is reading this, implement these marketing tactics. Not only does Chris Thilk REALLY know what he is talking about and the ROI is easily proven with each of these methods, but the results will satisfy all of the “bloggers” who are currently upset with SPC and, so we’re hoping, this could actually make Wackness big. Chris, you really nailed it on the head here.
Ryan - that’s the reason why so many films fail, “you” and the people who can’t handle the “blogger” world just ignore it and treat it like crap and it comes to bite you in the ass later on.
Although I’m not sure if you’re a blogger, too, since you’re site is a blog…
Being pro-active? Treating bloggers with respect? Engaging the community? This is too much.