Glut of product, lack of franchises result in rising marketing costs

Posted by Chris

April 29, 2008

The average cost of marketing a movie in 2007 was almost $36 million. But this summer some of the studios’ biggest released are costing an estimated $150 million, reports Variety.

The ballooning cost is in large part due to 2008’s lack of sequels and franchise entries, which are slightly less expensive to market than new properties like Iron Man and The Love Guru. Not that there’s a lack of recognizable brands, with Batman, Indiana Jones and the Narnia kids all returning for more.

But a record 25 major released are hit screens, meaning each movie has to fight harder and advertise more in order to try and attract audiences. That glut has weekends crowded with big names and isn’t allowing for the kind of spacing studios usually schedule. For instance Love Guru and Get Smart are opening on the same weekend where this kind of overlapping is usually avoided.

Part of the increased spending is coming from the fact that there are so many more platforms available to advertise on. And since so many movies are going after pre-teens and teens it’s not like most like many of them can avoid mobile or other executions.

Stockholder pressure is also contributing to the rise as investors are quick to find lack of ad spending as a reason a movie might have flopped.

All that’s left now is to wait for inevitable audience backlash. There was some of that a couple weeks ago around Iron Man but it never really took off, which is a good thing.