Movie Marketing Madness: He’s Just Not That Into You

Despite my better judgment I’ve decided to go ahead and review the marketing campaign for He’s Just Not That Into You.

It’s not that the movie seems bad, it’s that I can’t imagine a scenario under which it will be better than I would expect it to be. Let’s set the scene:

The movie, produced by Drew Barrymore (who also co-stars) is actually based on a best-selling non-fiction self help guide that sought to deflate many of the myths women operated under when it came to romance, but in a funny and engaging style. But now it’s been turned into a star-studded romantic comedy of sorts that seeks to intertwine the stories of a number of couples (either current, past or potential) while still seeking to stick to the book’s core points.

Personally I’m of the fear that the finished product will be a mess. I’m a fan of romantic comedies – they can be alternately well made or, failing that, at least moderately entertaining much of the time. But I’m not all that optimistic that it can transcend the audience-pleasing tendencies of Barrymore and the rest of the cast, which someone recently mentioned looked like they had all be culled from a list of stars that were big in 1998.

Alright, enough of this. The target audience is obviously middle aged women who are looking for fun stories of romance so let’s not pretend otherwise and get into looking at the movie’s campaign.

The Posters

The teaser poster is, honestly, a big sign that something’s going to be very wrong with the campaign. It’s a simple design, just the cast list and a small candy heart – the kind you had fun giving away to classmates in the third grade – sporting the movie’s title. Reliance of this kind on something that has such sickly sentimental associations might appeal to the movie’s target audience, and so it can be judged a success, but I guarantee you every guy that looked at this knew in a primal, instinctive “don’t poke the big hairy mammoth that is about to shove its tusks up your hinder” kind of way that this is a movie to be avoided.

The theatrical poster does the only thing it can do with a huge cast of well known actors – shows them all, or at least a decent chunk of them. Most everyone gets a square or rectangle of their own so they can look cute/handsome/beautiful all on their own. Plus, it allows the designers to create a poster that incorporates everyone in the movie without requiring them to come in for an additional photo shoot. Plus, it’s designed in a way that makes it very easy to repurpose as a cover for the reissue of the source book.

The Trailers

The teaser trailer conveys absolutely no storyline whatsoever and is all about presenting a collection of scenes, seemingly at random, from the movie that are mildly funny but present no clear call to actually see the movie.

The theatrical trailer conveys absolutely no storyline whatsoever and is all about making the audience comfortable with how familiar the dialogue and characters are going to be.

What it does convey is a sense that these characters were all born at the age of 32. That’s the only way to explain that no one in the movie has learned any life lessons at all prior to the events depicted in the film. They were not naturally conceived and did not have childhoods or friends and not one of them has gained any insight or awareness through their teenage years. No, they were torn from the thigh of Nora Ephron and deposited into the mortal world where they have to learn all these things at a time in their lives when they should be holding down full time jobs and contributing to their 401Ks.

Online

Don’t be fooled by the official website’s designation of one half of the screen for women and the other half for men. There’s not much that’s actually used by that so just ignore it.

The first section is, of course, “About the Film,” containing a halfway decent Synopsis, Cast and Crew bios and backgrounds and a set of Production Notes you can download as a PDF.

“Videos” contains both of the movie’s trailers as well as a music video (you remember those, don’t you?) by Erin McCarley that includes footage from the movie, most of which is straight from the trailers. What’s shocking about the song itself is that the lyrics are from the point of view of a woman who apparently has just slept with someone in an attempt to find some false sense of love. It’s quite clear about that and it took me a couple listens to make sure I was hearing that right.

There’s also video segment from a handful of the male stars of the movie that seeks to assure men who might be afraid of the movie that they don’t have anything to worry about. It’s titled “Top Ten Chick Flick Cliches that Aren’t In the Movie” and it’s actually quite funny, if for no other reason that you can actually see Bradley Cooper wondering if there will ever be an “Alias” movie. No, seriously, it’s kind of funny. The video is also available as a free download on iTunes.

If you are looking for fun little things on the site you’ll want to check out the “Quiz” and “eHearts,” the latter of which lets you scrawl a message on a candy heart and send it to a friend. There’s also “Date Decoder,” which takes what your date and lets you try and match it up to what they really meant when they said that.

Back to the regular content, there are 12 stills in “Photos” and Wallpapers, Buddy Icons and a Poster under “Downloads.” There’s also a section for the movie’s “Soundtrack.”

The movie’s Facebook page doesn’t have a whole lot, just the trailer and some pictures and not much else.

Advertising and Cross-Promotions

There are a multitude of Partners listed on the movie’s official website, though not very many seem to amount to much in the way of cross-promotion:

Zappos – No link on the site and no details I could find.
Turning Leaf Wine – Just a link back to the movie’s site, no details on what’s going on.
CoverGirl – A contest where in exchange for writing a review of their new Outlast Lipstain you’re entered to win tickets to see the movie.
Health.com – Nothing on the site I could find.
Arden B. – Contest to win an Arden B. gift card and a trip to Cancun, Mexico. The link from the Partners page actually takes you to the appropriate page.
Pama – Nothing but a note that the liqueur will be served at the movie’s premiere.
Simon & Schuster – Link to information on the book.
Funjet Vacations – Nothing.
Fandango – Sweepstakes to win a trip to Montego Bay, Jamaica.
Hautelook – Nada.
3BlackChicks, IESB, CountingDown, BlackFilm, Hollywood.com, Newsday Insider, Shakefire, VideoDetective – All included since they were running a contest to win movie swag.

The one partner of real note is Crest, whose new Advanced Seal Whitestrips are included in the prize pack and which appear in the movie, apparently as part of the product launch campaign. You can read the release on that here.

In terms of advertising there appeared to be a pretty concerted push around the movie, especially in the last week or so before release. I don’t watch that much TV but even I saw plenty of spots for the film within the shows I was watching. I also encountered a smattering of online ads.

Media and Publicity

Not much beyond the usual round of press interviews for the cast. At least not that I saw.

Overall

Like I said, the target audience for He’s Just Not That Into You is not likely to overlap significantly with that for, say, Watchmen. So the advertising, trailers and posters are pretty successful in appealing to that target audience and as such the campaign can be called a success, regardless of my personal takes on the materials.

For those of us not in the target audience, the best part of the campaign is probably the “Top Ten Chick Flick Cliches…” video on the movie’s official site. It’s funny, it’s full of “guy”-centered comedy and just kind of works.

Overall, though, it’s a nice cohesive campaign that certainly presents an attractive product to those likely to be interested in it and so I can’t point to any problems from the studio in executing it.

PICKING UP THE SPARE

2/9/09: Further identification of the movie’s target audience: Anyone with a broken heart. That sums it up very nicely.
2/9/09: Karina’s review on SpoutBlog is among the best of the fairly middling that I’ve seen, pegging the movie as something that often looks like it’s just about to defy convention and then pulls back with a quick, comfortable joke when it’s on the verge of challending expectations.