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Movie Marketing Madness by Chris Thilk is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at MMM.
It’s all about the marketing story
Aris and Andrew at AdAge have put together a very interesting Summer Movie Marketing Report Card that looks at how each of the major studio distributors have fared in the summer to date with their marketing efforts. They look at what campaigns seemed to work and which didn’t based largely on how those campaigns then translated to box office receipts. The overall report card is supplemented by an interview with the execs in charge of marketing at Sony Pictures, the studio that tops the list.
The two make a lot of good points and rightly call out where a particular studio excelled at one particular movie’s marketing even though the majority of their efforts fell short for whatever reason.
Looking over their list as well as at the campaigns I’ve done campaign reviews for this summer, a theme begins to emerge that really shouldn’t be as shocking as it seemed to me:
When the marketing itself has an interesting story to tell it winds up benefiting the movie that campaign is supporting.
Let’s look at two studios A&A give mixed grades to. For Warner Bros. they give the studio an A for the Inception marketing but a C for everything else. Likewise Universal gets an A- for Despicable Me while the rest of their summer slate gets a C. I might have also given Scott Pilgrim vs. The World an A- based on execution if not success.
But what Inception, Scott Pilgrim, Despicable Me, The Kids Are All Right and other successful campaigns did well is tell their own story in a compelling manner to the right audience segments. And if you look at those that didn’t really work, that’s exactly what they failed to do, instead presenting the movie as a decent entertainment alternative maybe but certainly nothing that was worth getting exciting about.
This is no different from what any other product category is trying to do. The reason you have car companies posting video testimonials online, vodka companies creating risque videos or any other company doing anything else is that they’re trying to tell a story. They want to create a backstory for their brand that resonates with people and leads them to reach for that product amidst all the alternatives.
In the case of a number of campaigns in recent years, Inception and Scott Pilgrim are certainly examples of this as is last year’s Moon, that story is being told more effectively and most clearly by the director himself, showing that when it comes down to it creativity matters.
When it gets down to it, having the director so personally involved in the marketing campaign is no different from the advice that’s given all the time when a company is starting a corporate blog that the CEO or whomever else is most intimatly involved in the development of the brand’s story be the person who’s leading the publishing charge.
Tell a great story in a compelling way and the marketing works. It shouldn’t be that surprising.
In support of the web-based backbone
(This was originally posted on Voce Nation a couple days ago)
By now I’m sure that just about everyone who’s interested in such matters has read – or at least heard a bit about – Chris Anderson’s latest treatise, the one where he declares “The Web is Dead.” In it Anderson makes the case that web-browsing is becoming anachronistic as more people begin using apps in one of a variety of touch-pad environments.
I get what Anderson is saying, but I think he’s making the rhetorical error of believing that there’s a true cultural shift happening because he sees app environments and developments make headlines and this is the experience he has with his friends and coworkers, most of whom are high-tech early adopters. You may recognize this thinking as being similar to that which had Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World being the biggest film of 2010 mere days before it limped to a fifth place finish its opening weekend. Anytime there’s a tight-knit community of enthusiasts who are largely agreeing with each other there’s the risk of extrapolating that group’s passion to the larger population.
We need to, in order to fully accept Anderson’s point, concede that apps in whatever form we’re talking about are different from the software-based programs that people have been using on their computers for 20 years or more. Which, substantively, they’re not. I download the Tweetdeck application to my Mac desktop and it uses the internet but not “the web,” a differentiation helpfully pointed out by Colin Crook in some internal back-and-forth within Voce on this topic. But the experience I have using the Tweetedeck app on my phone isn’t all that different from using that desktop software. Apps are simply the next evolution of software.
Is there a shift away from browser-based functionality? To some extent. People may use Evernote to draft a blog post that they then paste into the WordPress app on their iPad, all using the internet but never touching the web. I’m guessing, though, that outside of some people who think they can do their entire job for a week or more just on a tablet device that doesn’t encapsulate the experience the vast majority of people are having.
On the backend most of these things still have web-based components. The blog that post is displayed after that copy/paste process above is finished still exists on the web. Similarly it’s always been a ridiculous argument to say that feeds are what matters and not websites since those feeds need to be generated from a website in some manner or another.
Look even at Twitter. If you want to engage in an update-based conversation there you need to setup an account, which brings with it a web presence for your username. People may choose to interact via text message but that web presence is essential for publishing. With the introduction of “Fast Follow” it’s possible to follow a profile via text without going through the account creation process, but that’s consumption only. Publishing still requires the web.
Getting even more philosophical, there’s never really been a pure “web experience.” It’s always been through an application, whether that’s Netscape Navigator or Chrome. So the user experience has, to some extent, always been app-reliant.
Nick Gernert, who heads up our Platforms Services team, added the following as well:
The web is beautiful in that it’s platform agnostic. We make a website here and we know it’s going to be working on OS X, Windows, Linux, PS3, Wii, mobile device, whatever (safe for maybe a few browser inconsistencies). There’s a lot of comfort in that as a developer and a lot of efficiency to be gained as a result.
That can’t be said of apps currently. You make one thing for the iPhone, another for a BB, another for Android and yet another app for Mac and PC if you’d like desktop clients. While the experience of these apps can be great and increase your overall satisfaction with the service, they can become a bear to maintain because now you’re supporting five apps instead of one. Suddenly the potential beauty of your app can be its detriment when bugs arise or certain platforms are neglected over the more commonly used ones.
There are price considerations also that move beyond the philosophical and into more practical areas. Data charges are common which limit some usage of the very functions, including apps, that make a smart-phone so smart. And the phones themselves are still more expensive than many people can manage on top of the computer and web connection that allow them to send far-off grandparents pictures of Johnny’s first steps.
The bottom line is that the web isn’t going anywhere in the foreseeable future. Too many services count on it as the backbone of their infrastructure, some precisely because of the fact that it’s accessible regardless of the platform being used.
Note the word “campaign”
I finally checked out a story in Forbes (08/17/10) wherein the magazine’s staff picks out what they feel to be the 20 best social media campaigns of the last 12 years or so. The story, as usually happens with such things, got me riled up a bit. I’m a bit agitated mostly because this is yet another example of a focus in the press on campaigns, meaning those efforts that have a definitive starting and ending date. And I feel like the attention that they receive in the press is disproportionate to that paid to social media efforts that are on-going.
I don’t mean to take away from the hard work and creativity that goes into these advertising and marketing campaigns. There are a lot of bright people that work on them and they turn out killer stuff sometimes.
But on the other side of the coin are programs like the ones we run at Voce that are ongoing and which day in and day out require more than a little sweat equity, both on the part of the agency-side team and those working on the project at the client company. Three of the blogs Voce has designed, developed and continue to help manage editorially were recently featured on Mashable as being among the 15 best corporate blogs out there, a nice bit of recognition.
Those clients – and the others we work with on such programs – are great because every day they realize there’s work to be done and they’re the ones that are going to have to do it. More than that…they want to do it. There’s an eagerness every day to make it happen and put the work in to making the blog work. They know that no one is going to do it for them.
They also know that putting the day-to-day effort in on programs such as these have more long-term benefits than many of the time-specific campaigns that get so much recognition. Josh touched on this topic when he wrote about maximizing long-term search value. So many times I’ve heard about client blog posts being among the top search results for information people are searching for years after that post has been published. Likewise, those strong search showings as well as growing ongoing readership means a number of clients have been able to decrease other marketing spending because the blog is becoming such a direct revenue source.
It’s about time those sorts of programs started being counted among the best social media efforts being run. There’s a commitment that goes in to them that deserves the same sort of recognition that is usually reserved for these nice, tidy campaigns, few of which last long enough to iterate or evolve significantly.
Movie Marketing Madness: The Switch
There’s a great line from When Harry Met Sally about waiting too long to have a baby. While she’s telling her girlfriends over lunch that she’s left her longtime boyfriend because he didn’t want a family, one of Sally’s friends points out that her biological clock must be ticking. But Sally corrects her and points out that, no, the clock doesn’t really start ticking for another four or five years. My guess is that had she not then gotten around to dating – and eventually marrying – Harry she would have said something similar three or four years down the road.
Unwilling to wait until the clock really starts ticking (or maybe because it already has) is Jennifer Aniston’s character in the new movie The Switch. Aniston plays a woman who is tired of not being able to settle down in a relationship with a guy and so decides to have a baby through artificial insemination. This comes as quite a shock to her best friend (Jason Bateman) who has harbored an unrequited love for her for a dozen years. But after drinking too much at a shower of sorts he accidentally spills the “material” she was going to use and, in a drunk panic, replaces it with his own, though he doesn’t remember doing so the next morning. After she does indeed become pregnant the movie skips six years or so and the similarities between the child and himself begin to become evident, potentially providing the catalyst for the two friends to finally get together.
The Posters
The movie’s one poster is pretty simple, adopting the tri-stripe deign that has plagued hundreds of other one-sheets. Aniston gets the top slot, adopting a shocked expression that is designed to make us think something she just. cant. believe is going on off-camera. This is a familiar expression for Aniston, one that’s immediately recognizable from countless episodes of “Friends,” usually resulting from something Ross was doing to try and win her heart.
The bottom is given to Bateman, who’s grimacing while holding a sample cup. If you’ve watched the trailer you know he’s considering what to do with the suddenly empty cup but unfortunately on the poster he looks like he’s weighing how disgusting it might be to take a shot of whatever’s in there.
The poster sells the stars primarily and counts on the audience finding their ability to react to things in a funny way attractive. The copy about it being “The most unexpected comedy ever conceived” works a little too hard to sell the pregnancy angle but without a solid visual to hand on to it does what it can.
The Trailers
The first trailer is utterly predictable and spells out just about every imaginable key moment from the movie itself but is still fairly funny, thanks largely to the efforts of Bateman.
We meet Bateman’s and Aniston’s characters and get a quick insight into their relationship, which is that of long-time friends despite Bateman having feelings for her that he’s never expressed. So he’s supportive if disappointed when Aniston announces she’s planning to be artificially inseminated by a stranger. But an accident in the bathroom with the sample leaves a drunk Bateman with a decision to make, one he doesn’t remember the next day. Cut to seven years later when the resulting child now six years old and Aniston moves back to New York, resulting in Bateman realizing what he did and trying to figure out how to deal with that.
It’s funny enough but doesn’t really leave a whole lot to the imagination, which is likely the point as movies like this need to be as familiar and non-threatening as possible in order to succeed. So it practically pleads with the audience that it’s not going to pull any twist dark endings on them.
Online
The movie’s official website opens up with The Trailer playing with photos from the movie framing that player.
“The Story” gives an overview of the movie’s plot and make a big deal of promoting that the film comes from “the people” behind some other cute semi-independent movies that have come out in recent years. More on that later.
There’s a section for “The Soundtrack” as well as a link to where it can be downloaded in iTunes, though since I don’t recognize any of the artists there I can’t say the emphasis is because they have a collection of hot singers.
Finally, “The Gallery” has about 16 stills from the movie.
The movie’s Facebook page has updates on new clips and other marketing materials being released and other news, including some photos from red carpets and. There’s a big emphasis here on the relationship people have with their friends, up to and including a “Baby Maker” app that lets you combine the faces of you and someone else to see what kind of baby you’d create.
Advertising and Cross-Promotions
There were a number of TV spots that were primarily focused on showing off the verbal sparring between the two stars. Some focused on the pregnancy and some focused on the relationship between the two characters.
Online ads largely took the form, based on my exposure, of video units that played some film clips in one section while another recreated the poster art.
Media and Publicity
Not much in this area. Aniston and Bateman did some press tours and interviews, but there weren’t really any big stories that broke through into real buzz generators. As is usual with Bateman films, some of the press talk turned to the eventuality of an “Arrested Development” movie, with Aniston even getting in on the fun by saying she’d love to appear in that movie if or when it happens.
Overall
OK, so the marketing may have taken a few liberties and engaged in some hyperbole about the pedigree of its filmmaking team, but that’s not that huge a deal to anyone outside of Hollywood insiders.
Other than that it’s an alright campaign but nothing that is going to knock anyone’s socks off. The movie is kind of being discarded as chaff by Miramax, the result of it going through a protracted acquisition game. But the marketing is still funny enough and despite some obvious slacking (I’m looking at you, website) it makes a half-hearted but effort to reach the audience that finds the two stars charming and engaging, presenting a movie that is absolutely safe as an entertainment option to middle America.
PICKING UP THE SPARE
- 08/23/10 – Aris makes a compelling argument that the movie might have been more successful at the box-office if it had appealed more directly to men, especially in the publicity and press components.
- 08/24/10 – Part of the post-mortem includes speculation that Disney – which agreed to distribute the movie even though it was picked up by Miramax, which is now in limbo – may have skimped out on the marketing push. I don’t know if I buy that – I saw plenty of advertising for it – and it may be, as the article then goes on to speculate, that Aniston herself just couldn’t guarantee a big opening despite what amounted to a full effort on her part.
Scott Pilgrim Vs The Box Office
It’s been interested reading the variety of postmortems being written about Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, which despite a massive marketing blitz only recouped $10 million at the box office in its opening weekend. The gist is that the movie’s fanbase and the word-of-mouth they generated for the movie, which was substantial, couldn’t outdo the allure of The Expendables, which promised men lots of good old-fashioned explosions with a collection of action stars from the last 30 years, or Eat, Pray, Love, which promised women a travelogue of a woman who’s just searching for a way out of the craziness of daily life and maybe a love interest or three along the way to finding herself.
Was Scott Pilgrim hard to describe, as many of these write-ups have claimed? Yeah, to some extent. “20-something slacker who’s in a band tries to woo the girl of his dreams but has to fight her evil exes in a video-game like environment.”
So it’s not that the marketing campaign didn’t connect with the core audience. And it’s not that the campaign wasn’t big enough. While it might not be on the scale of Iron Man 2 it certainly wasn’t hiding. The press and publicity activities alone were enough to get the movie on the radar of anyone who wasn’t in complete media lock-down. I’d also argue that it’s not that Michael Cera isn’t a big enough movie star for a couple reasons, primarily that we’ve been told for a couple years now that stars don’t matter.
Instead it’s more likely that most all of this movie’s audience was at Comic-Con.
Not literally, of course, but what we have here is another case of a big marketing campaign failing to activate anyone who wasn’t already going to be part of the audience.
Let me explain what I mean: There are people who may not have considered themselves the target audience for The Expendables but who were lured in by the promise of a decent time watching things go boom at the hands of a bunch of muscled heroes. Likewise There were likely people who wanted nothing to do with EPL but who were won over by the charm of Julia Roberts.
But unless you spoke the language Pilgrim was talking with fluently already the movie probably didn’t prove to be interesting enough to take a chance on.
See that’s what happens with truly original movies – or any other form of artistic expression. They talk to their audiences on a completely different level than anything else. They expect people to be intelligent and well-versed and then reward that knowledge with a product that delivers on the promise, as this movie’s outstanding average critical rankings – an A- – show it did.
Sometimes, though, it’s not worth taking the risk on something different when the familiar is easily within reach. Universal is to be lauded for taking a step into the unknown with Scott Pilgrim and I hope the movie makes a ton of money for the studio over the long-haul.
Is this a marketing failure? Absolutely not. The campaign reached the intended audience and many of them turned out for the film’s opening weekend. It sold the movie well and, presumably since I didn’t hear any significant backlash, accurately. It’s just a case of the alternatives reaching more people by offering something familiar and non-threatening, hindrances that go away once the movie hits home video.
UPDATE: Aris at AdAge and Ben and John at the LAT have good write-ups of just what happened here as well.
