Finding an Audience: Distribution Notes for 6/19/09
Home Video
Drooping DVD sales means the home entertainment market as a whole is down $2.6 billion in the global market according to Screen Digest. Part of the decline is from retailers engaging in price wars. But according to PriceWaterhouseCooper global entertainment spending is set to rise between now and 2013. Even then the U.S. is expected to lag behind the rest of the world.
Online/On-Demand
Stan Schroeder at Mashable has a great piece on what would be the needed features of a site that offers Hollywood films online. He nails a lot of the things I would think of on such a site and includes an important caveat: That the site will most assuredly be unprofitable for the first two years of its existence but that it’s worth losing some money in that time in exchange for building an audience for a service that could eventually truly disrupt pirate services and begin to fill in the gaps that are becoming evident in DVD sales.
Insight Research says streaming entertainment – from movies to music – will bring in over $78 billion in sales over the next six years.
Video-on-demand usage rose 21 percent in 2008 according to cable providers. A good portion of that, as Dentler points out, is the free offerings that are available but still it’s good to see orders rising.
PDF Marketing Madness in 60 Seconds: 6/19/09
Advertising/Marketing
New research from Forrester predicts the number of marketing emails received will double between now and 2014, reaching an average of about 25 per day for every adult, or roughly 9,000 per year. That comes with spending that’s expected to roughly double, but a good amount of that spending will be wasted on messages that are never opened or which wind up being marked as spam.
A majority of marketers, according to a report from Forbes, are planning on increasing their budgets for “viral marketing” activities. This makes me want to cry for a number of reasons, including the fact that “viral” is not a strategy, it’s a result. That and other numbers can be found at PaidContent.
The creation of branded content – once seen as a major growth area for online marketing – is now stalling because of shrinking ad budgets, unreliable metrics and more. Some parties are having success but they’re few and far between and usually those with massive distribution channels already built in.
YouTube has introduced the option to view either a longer pre-roll commercial or a handful of in-stream spots. That’s very similar to what you can do on select videos on Hulu.
It’s not that all that surprising that the members of Yahoo’s Newspaper Consortium are more interested in the ad targeting technology than they are in the actual job ads sharing portion of the deal. That focus is only becoming more apparent as we continue down the recession and the job problems that it brings with it.
Another report saying ads work better when they’re presented alongside contextually-relevant content. I look forward to next month when a report is issued showing ads work better when they’re out of context.
TV buyers aren’t so much buying, at least not until the networks make some price cuts. It’s not likely they’ll skip TV entirely, but if they don’t get what they feel to be a good deal in the upfront market they could just decide to wait and buy in the scatter market, a move that the networks would like to avoid since it doesn’t give them as much cash on-hand or let them plan for the year as well.
Media
BusinessWeek will experiment with putting an “enhanced experience” behind a print wall that’s only accessible to paying subscribers. All the content from the magazine will still be available for free to everyone, but subscribers get something extra.
Consumer wants and media wants are, unfortunately, moving in opposite directions when it comes to how online content is monetized.
The Associated Press is negotiating through the press as it stares down the expiration of its contract with Google. It wants terms more favorable to it as it faces the need to reduce fees it charges to newspapers again and basically looks at an increasingly bad business model.
Social Media
Yep, customer service is and should be a major component of a company’s social media plan. But I think the key, as this author states, is in making sure that it’s used in a way that’s scalable. One-on-one interactions like those that are cited in some of the more popular case studies just aren’t going to work over the long hall.
Huh. Turns out Twitter search, often held up as the shining example of monitoring the real-time web, only accounts for a fraction of a percentage of overall search activity. That shouldn’t diminish the role it can eventually play, just means that some people need to settle down and get some perspective.
Picking up the Spare: Star Trek, Whatever Works
Payless ShoeSource will be rolling out Star Trek-branded Airwalks, their house brand, this fall. The release seems a bit oddly timed since it comes so long after the film hit theaters but I’m guessing it will mesh up nicely with the time the DVD hits shelves.
On the heels of the widely acclaimed Countdown prequel series, a new comic titled “Star Trek: Nero” will chronicle what the antagonist from the movie did in the 25 years he was waiting for Spock to come through that worm hole. It will reportedly draw from the original screenplay and feature some scenes that were cut from the finished movie.
In my column I talked about just a couple of the movies in which Woody Allen has had other actors step in and play some variation on himself. Christopher Campbell at SpoutBlog finds 10 Allen Proxies and talks about how each one did with that role.
Twitter Updates for 2009-06-18
- Goals: They're what's for breakfast. #
- "5 words where 1 will do" is for losers. I'm so advanced I can hit the "27 words where 1 will do" level. Eat my dust, slackers. #
- Prince needs to release "When Social Media Mktrs Cry" – to the tune of "Doves" but for me to play when I see awful, awful socmed campaigns. #
- Just once I'd like to see a movie studio put "About the Film" 5th in the menu of site content options. Give "Downloads" a shot at lead-off. #
- @MackCollier: Not a mistake re: Feedburner metrics. Friendfeed subscribers now reporting within FB. http://bit.ly/UR77P in reply to MackCollier #
- @MackCollier: Agree for most part. Haven't dived into it completely. Have some issues but see what they're going for. May write it up later. in reply to MackCollier #
- Bummed I can't be there in person but I will follow the #biro_nup conversation closely. Thank goodness for hashtags. #
- @leahjones: Hashtags are the new categories which were the new links which are the new currency. (I'm going to go wander into traffic now.) in reply to leahjones #
- RT @skarritt: 1 network to rule them all.1 network to find them. 1 network to bring them all & in the darkness bind them. -has a ring to it #
- RT @loopmovie: RT @d0kk: 50 incredible movie posters, from Poland http://bit.ly/QcYBw (via @filmutopia) …This is AWESOME! #
- Deciding to open more windows. So if you're in the CHI area and were wondering when more rain would come, it'll be 5 minutes from now. #
- My dislike for exaggerated metaphors is as deep and wide as the Grand Canyon. #
- @bmwPR: I heard rumors of something. Look for "I'm streaming live, come chat!" msgs from @jratlee. in reply to bmwPR #
- @rejects: I generally do the hyphen thing, but mostly because it lets me not make a decision one way or the other. in reply to rejects #
- RT @JessiO: "where do you see yourself in 5 yrs?" is the most difficult question to answer. I didn't see myself where I am now five yrs ago. #
- @cc_chapman: Totally agree. That's one of the missing metrics I wrote about a while ago: http://bit.ly/8xZVi in reply to cc_chapman #
- The mktg campaign for Year One has what I think is a cool Twitter/voting component: http://ping.fm/cxBxt #
- @megfowler: FIRST! in reply to megfowler #
- Trying to keep my eyes on what's important. #
- Getting my writing on re: Friendfeed's being added to Feedburner. #
- is not unaware of the irony. #
- Dear Sound of My Own Voice: Words just can't describe how much you mean to me. Love, Chris. #
- OK @mackcollier, here you go: http://bit.ly/15Mdlu #
- RT @rklau: From my blog: Social media presentation at SMPS event http://bit.ly/ne3FZ #
- RT @CKsays: Irony: We bag on co's & news for NOT using these tools. And when they do? We bag on them then, too. #
- @CKsays: More than anything we need to offer more constructive feedback "X sucks/doesn't get it" doesn't help anyone. in reply to CKsays #
- @CKsays: No argument from me. No one "gets it" right off the bat and slack needs to be cut appropriately. in reply to CKsays #
- Any other Tweetdeck users unable to send DMs? No matter who it is it says that person is not following me. #
- RT @jamesrocchi: I know that I should wait to see 2012 to be fair, but,with that trailer, I'm going to start laughing at it now. #
- @gregverdino: After thinking about FF for a good part of the day I'm actually going to try and understand it deeper. Cause right now I don't in reply to gregverdino #
- @LenKendall: "Cal…I farted." in reply to LenKendall #
- OK, time to try and finish the day strong. #
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Movie Marketing Madness: Year One
Historical comedies are a mixed bag, to say the least, especially when you dive as far back as cavemen, Roman gladiators and basically anything else that puts the action anytime around or before the birth of Christ. Sometimes you hit a homerun – I’m thinking A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and the first few segments of History of the World Part 1 – and sometimes you don’t – I’m looking at you Caveman and One Million Years B.C, even if you do star Raquel Welch and therefore provide a crucial plot point to The Shawshank Redemption. My point is that for every solidly funny prehistoric comedy you’ve got a handful of duds and serious movies that wind up being unintentionally funny.
The latest entry in the early civilization comedy is Year One. Starring Jack Black and Michael Cera, the pair play a couple of cavemen, but they seem to be living in Biblical times as they also encounter the Roman Empire and other things that seem to be a few millennia later than what you would normally associate with the quest for fire period. I’m sure this is explained within the movie, but as we’ll see it’s not made clear how all this happens in the campaign.
In addition to a stellar cast – Cera and Black are joined by David Cross, Hank Azaria and others – Year One is directed by one of the all-time comedy greats, Harold Ramis, who is also credited with developing the story and as one of the film’s screenwriters. It’s also being produced by Judd Apatow, so the behind-the-scenes talent is impressive on top of the actors.
The Posters
Surprisingly, I’m just seeing two posters that have been created and released for Year One, and neither of them are all that intriguing.
The first one, the teaser, just features Black and Cera standing next to each other clad in their caveman outfits. Black has an expression that looks like he’s trying to figure out some sort of con or other scheme, which is more or less what we expect of the characters he plays. Cera has a blank, overwhelmed and somewhat confused expression, which again is more or less what we expect of his characters. So this one plays into the brands that these actors have built up over the years. The “Meet your ancestors” copy at the top makes it clear we’re supposed to cringe at the antics of these characters because, hey, we’re related to them. That’s a bit on the nose, but I don’t have a huge problem with it.
The theatrical poster uses the same photos of those two actors but crops out everything below the shoulder, showing just their faces in close-up. The same copy point is used, so the only real change between this and the teaser is the inclusion of the credit block between the title treatment and the actor’s faces. There’s not a whole lot of additional commentary that’s possible since it’s not that different from the teaser.
The Trailers
The single trailer – again a bit surprising that there was only one – works pretty well. We start off with an introduction to Cera and Black in their tribe, a tribe they’re eventually exiled from after eating the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
After their exile they wander around, bumping into Cain and his brother Abel, who are as dysfunctional as you’d expect them to be. Then they get to a Roman city and are captured and sold as slaves and, while they’re there, they also try to save a young woman who Cera’s character has been longing after and who has also been captured and sold into slavery.
There’s a bit of comedy in the trailer but overall it comes off kind of flat to be honest. I get the sense that they included a bunch of “jokes” from the film but that much of the actual humor lies in the smaller, in-between moments that exist in the film. At least that’s kind of what I’m hoping for right now.
Online
Load up the official website and you’re immediately greeted with the movie’s poster art, with the guys parted a bit more than they are on the one-sheet to make way for a couple of items you can click on. But if you don’t click something quickly enough – by which I mean within 10 seconds or so – a 30-second TV spot for the movie begins playing. You can still go “Back” though and see the options that were presented, or you can Enter the Site.
Before we do that let’s look at those initial options. There’s “Watch the Trailer,” which starts playing the commercial we just discussed. There’s also “Worldwide Release Dates” and the option to “Register for Updates,” neither of which is remarkable.
What’s worth noting is the “You’re So Year One” section.
The You’re So Year One micro-site is basically a Twitter feed, pulling from and feeding to the @SoYearOne Twitter account. It’s actually kind of a fun combination of Twitter and social voting sites like MyStarbucksIdea, since people can Submit their own “oh snap” type comments along the lines of ” You’re so Year One, you remember when the dead sea was just sick!,” which then show up in that Twitter feed. On the site people can comment on other’s submissions or vote them up or down. Visitors can view submissions either by Most Popular or Most Recent.
I was initially skeptical about this, seeing it as yet another Twitter execution that didn’t quite stack up. But taking another look at it I think it’s actually pretty cool, allowing for a good amount of community participation. I especially like the voting aspect since it gives people a stake in the results. At the bottom of the page there are buttons that allow you to share the site on StumbleUpon, Digg, Facebook, Delicious and Reddit.
Moving on, let’s look at the content after Entering the Site.
“About the Film” contains a one-paragraph Synopsis that’s heavy on the names of the talent involved and, I’m fearful, is indicative of how thin the film’s plot actually is. Cast is here as well but contains just a still photo of that actor and not any information or anything about them, which is a bit odd. There’s also a Soundboard that has about 18 audio clips from the main characters, each of which lights up when you play their clip.
Next up is “Videos,” Which contains the Trailer and a Sneak Peek Video, which is an extended version of the scene where Black and Cera come across Cain and Abel, played by Paul Rudd and David Cross. There’s also a section for TV Spots, but there’s nothing there and it’s still labeled as “Coming Soon,” despite the fact that the movie opens tomorrow. Not sure when that was scheduled to be done, but I’m pretty confident that deadline was missed. It’s especially odd that this is vacant for two reasons: 1) That 30-second spot is featured on the front page of the site and 2) That 30-second spot was a commercial that aired during the recent Super Bowl.
“Gallery” has 13 stills from the film. “Downloads” has Wallpapers, a Screensaver, IM Icons and something I’m seeing more and more, which is Twitter Skins. That last one is basically an image formatted specifically for downloading and then uploading in the “Design” section of your Twitter profile. It’s not a whole lot different from what studios used to do by offering MySpace Skins, just the latest version of that sort of “rebrand with us” marketing tactic.
“Rock Paper Spears” is next, a Rock, Paper, Scissors type game that’s mildly amusing. Along with that is a link to watch a video, hosted on the movie’s YouTube channel, that introduces you to the history of this game. Nice touch, I think.
Also in the more interactive entertainment mold are the “Ancestor Animator” feature, which lets you upload a photo and then integrate it into an animated story that you create. Finally, there’s another link to the “You’re So Year One” site.
At the bottom of the page there are links to the film’s Facebook and MySpace profiles, both of which contain more or less the same material as the official site. There are also options to follow SonyPictures on Twitter or to share the site via social network, bookmarking and news services.
Advertising and Cross Promotion
Sony did plenty of advertising for Year One, both in the form of TV spots and ads both online, outdoor and, I would presume, in print. Most of the TV spots were, as in the case of the one that appears on the official site, simply slimmed down versions of the trailer. What I’m kind of struck by, though, is how much the Cain and Abel scene is played up and featured in these spots. Seems like this one scene is a focal point of much of the campaign. Not sure what to make of that, but it’s interesting.
The TV advertising actually reached a high point, in impact if not in frequency, five months before release when the movie had a spot – the same one that is on the front of the official site – air during this year’s Super Bowl.
That Super Bowl spot was extended by Sony on Crackle.com, with a sweepstakes to win various prizes and and basically explore more of the film in the form of a Sneak Peek, the same sneak peek that’s on the official site, though there are three other extended clips on that microsite as well. You’ll also find those same clips and a bit more on the movie’s FunnyOrDie profile page.
Media and Publicity
Aside from the release of the marketing materials, the first post-production media item of note was when it was announced that the MPAA’s Ratings Board was sticking the movie with an R-rating. That wasn’t the situation for long though, with the filmmakers making some requested trims to the movie and just a day later being awarded their PG-13 , which obviously will help them bring in a broader audience that includes the much-coveted pre-teen and teen demographics.
As you’d expect considering the level of talent involved in the movie there was plenty of other publicity, primarily in the form of interviews with the cast and crew. Unfortunately much of that publicity wound up focusing on potential future projects by those folks, with many of the interviews with Harold Ramis including as many questions about plans for Ghostbusters 3 and interviews with David Cross and Michael Cera coming around to what they know about a possible Arrested Development movie.
Overall
Looking at the campaign from top to bottom I can say that I more or less like it and think it accomplishes the goals of the studio pretty well. The comedy portrayed is going to be, I feel, attractive to the audiences being targeted, especially as they’re likely to be familiar with Black and Cera and the rest of the crew already. So on that level it works, particularly if you break the campaign up into its component parts.
But if you do look at the whole picture that’s been put together for the movie you get the same sense you do looking at a crowd scene in a movie like Gladiator: Only 25 percent of what you see are original elements and the rest is that same picture repeated over and over. Likewise this campaign seems to hit the same four or five notes across all elements. The shot of the guys riding the cart like it’s a roller coaster, Cain beating Abel to death with a rock, the stoning by the Roman crowd…they appear over and over again.
As I said before, I’m holding out hope that this is simply the creators of the marketing campaign picking out a handful of out-and-out “jokes” and reinforcing those time and time again, with the rest of the movie being a bit more subtle and funny. That might be in vein, but considering the talents of those both behind and in front of the camera I’m going to stick with it.
Twitter Updates for 2009-06-17
- Getting this party started both right and quickly. #
- The publishing power we have at our hands – regardless of the tools each of us might prefer – is just massive. We should be awed & humbled. #
- @stevegarfield: OMG. Did he actually say that? Like, out loud? In front of people? in reply to stevegarfield #
- RT @carr2n: Paid Content, which was already pretty swell, just got a little swell-er. http://bit.ly/Orz3F #
- Getting psyched for tonight's Eric Clapton/Steve Winwood concert. If you hear a "squee" from over here tonight, it's probably me. #
- @jaffejuice: You're an international sensation. Good job, Jeff. in reply to jaffejuice #
- @jowyang: How else do you expect people to know how to use it? Even Twitter needs to be "learned" and it's dead simple. in reply to jowyang #
- RT @nickgernert: Doing a series of posts explaining how Platform Services (cnp_studio) fits w/in Voce. Here's the 1st – http://bit.ly/Dtnp8 #
- Listening to the cantor of my LCMS church on 6/16 Issues Etc: http://ping.fm/g457p #
- Brother's here so I'm off to Clapton/Winwood. #
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Changing movie poster delivery?
Photo via http://www.flickr.com/photos/franmoff/
In all the discussion about changing the delivery of films themselves it wasn’t until I read a post by Tim Street that I had contemplated how digital delivery might alter display of movie posters. Tim’s post Death of the Movie Poster talks about someone who’s doing more or less just that, using a Red One camera to shoot a short video that takes the form of a poster but features motion.
Even if the in-theater display of posters doesn’t quite go this far in the near future, it would be intriguing if theaters began installing digital signage along the lines of what is currently being used by National Cinemedia, Screenvision and other indoor ad network operators. The need for physical posters would be almost eliminated as key art would be uploaded remotely and easily changed as movies were shifted between screens. Those display screens could even occasionally show advertisements, prompt people to head back to the concession counter for a special deal or even shoot, via Bluetooth, content to the audience’s cellphones. The possibilities are somewhat endless.
Small businesses embracing social networks, online marketing
Photo via http://www.flickr.com/photos/marzbars/
Over the years I’ve seen countless stories about how the growth of online advertising was, to some extent, dependent on small, local businesses upping their spending in that area. Many of the moves made by Google, Yahoo and others were focused on making those businesses comfortable with online ads, with the major search portals offering free micro-site construction for companies that didn’t have a site already and other incentives to lure them there.
Now, though, those small business seem to have skipped right over traditional online advertising and are increasingly embracing social networks and online community outreach to build their customer base on the web. According to research from Sage North America, over 260,000 small businesses in the U.S. are engaged in some sort of social network marketing strategy. More importantly, a bigger percentage of those companies are feeling more comfortable with those efforts and more are seeing measurable, directly attributable monetary returns from them.
The trend still isn’t universal though, with other research showing that 62 percent of small businesses don’t even have a website. I don’t quite agree with one statement that those businesses have 12 months at most to get a social networking strategy in place or they’re doomed to fail. If the things they’re doing right now are working for them, then diverting resources to do social networking will probably cause them to focus on the wrong things. If, though, they feel like that’s something they need to explore then they need to put the time into setting a strategy that’s in line with their customer’s needs and the business’ goals specifically and not just go do something scattershot that will wind up failing and turn them off the venture entirely.
Twitter Updates for 2009-06-16
- Nothing quite like signing in for the morning and not being able to connect to any Google sites/services. #
- Google down. Google Apps down. Guess I'll get a few other things done, but most of my productivity lies within Google's servers. #
- Year One coming out this week makes me want to watch History of the World: Part 1. #
- Brief digression into disc of movie mktg on Beancast #58 about 25mins in: http://ping.fm/BAtOC #
- Google being borked means I was finally moved to try out Bing.com. And the verdict is: Who cares? I searched. It worked. #
- RT @MackCollier: @benmcconnell has an interesting summary of the Good Guide score, could impact mktg moving forward – http://is.gd/13xhY #
- Looks like I picked the wrong day to forget to wear my break-away pants. #
- Twitter asks "What are you doing?" My to do list asks "Why aren't you doing these?" #
- The mktg campaign for Whatever Works is funny and doesn't try too hard: http://ping.fm/bjkEt #
- The great sched I created for today is garbage because 1) Google outage threw off my morning 2) I forgot half of the stuff I needed to do. #
- About to use the phrase "I've got an itchy Twitter finger" in 5…4…3…2… #
- RT @mmanuel: it's official: voce scoops up web dev team, forms 'voce connect' and rolls out new client wins: http://bit.ly/QGOIB #
- RT @hyku: Some more details on the Voce Connect announcement: http://bit.ly/N0Qq9 #
- Exciting day at Voce. Along with other great news, we have a new website design: http://bit.ly/N0Qq9 #
- RT @nickgernert: We have officially joined up with the family we've been working with for so long. More details here http://bit.ly/Z2cNQ #
- RT @vocenation: In add. to the Voce site & web dev team announcement, we're sharing a mix of new client wins here: http://bit.ly/L2WF0 #
- OK, now that that's out the door it's back to other stuff. Switching from podcasts to some Clapton to get the juices flowing. #
- Citing what were apparently "creative differences" the Sun will no longer be working with the Chicago area. #
- RT @mediatwit: I love the way Time's digital history repeats itself every few years. Wall off content, open it up, wall off, open up, etc. #
- @popstat: Possibly. Just one of those days. in reply to popstat #
- @gregverdino: Travel, mainly. Maybe Europe but we'll have to see how things go. in reply to gregverdino #
- Holy cow. MMM included on MovieMaker's list of 50 best sites for filmmakers to watch. http://bit.ly/rthok #
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Voce Connect – Like Voltron but with fewer swords
Mike just put the official announcement up about Voce Communications hiring cnp_studios and how the result is Voce Connect. From his post:
For several years now, we’ve been working in partnership with the cnp team on a variety of assignments ranging from corporate blogs and community building projects, to newsrooms, microsites, social apps, and the like. Our businesses and our teams were so closely intertwined, it was just, you know, getting weird. Our team would call them on the weekends and sleep on their couches. And their team would come over and take food out of our fridge.
Voce Connect will simply represent Voce’s long-provided social media marketing services with the, well, “formal” addition now of a web development team. If you click over to this Press Page, we have more materials, including a Q&A, that captures why we’re doing this and the value we believe it offers our clients.
Net-net: We know this combination works. Our clients do too. Which takes me to our third and final piece of news:
Along with this announcement there’s a slick new Voce Communications homepage that integrates a lot of awesome content, from the Blog to the Portfolio page and more. It’s also a fantastic showcase for the client wins the agency has secured and the great work we’ve been doing for them.
Having met most of the cnp guys and becoming familiar with their work I can tell you this is a great fit on a number of levels. I’m excited to be part of Voce during such an exciting period.
Movie Marketing Madness: Whatever Works
If there’s a trend in late-era Woody Allen films, it’s that he’s finally owning up to the reality that he needs a surrogate in his movies. By that I mean he’s finally begun realizing that when he writes a “Woody Allen” character in his scripts it’s no longer always appropriate for him to cast himself in that role. Instead he’s enlisting, at least occasionally, other actors to play the stylized version of himself that he channels in his writing. Granted there are really only two instances of this – Will Ferrell in Melinda and Melinda and Jason Biggs in Anything Else – but even so it’s kind of out-of-character of him to even go that far. Also granted – neither of those guys really did that great in the role because they were asked to do an Allen impersonation more than anything else and it just didn’t work out well.
The latest movie to feature an Allen stand-in is Whatever Works, though this time the results might be a bit more on-target. That’s because the person picked to play that role is another misanthropic, sarcastic New York Jew: Larry David. One of the creators of “Seinfeld” and the creator and star of “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” David is kind of a natural choice for the role since channeling Woody Allen, much like channeling himself on “Curb,” isn’t going to be that much of a stretch for him. The two share mannerisms, intonation and a handful of other attributes that make the selection of David kind of a no-brainer and one that’s liable to work pretty well in the film itself.
Speaking of that film, this one brings Allen back to New York after a brief a few trips to Spain, London, Paris and other locations that weren’t The Big Apple. David plays a New Yorker who, deciding his upscale life is kind of unfulfilling, decides to live a simpler lifestyle. While doing that he meets a young Southern girl played by Evan Rachel Wood, whose family he becomes entangled in. The results of that presumably provide much of the film’s comedy.
Let’s see how Sony Classics is handling the marketing.
The Posters
I think the only one-sheet released domestically in the U.S. is the one I included above, with David standing in khakis and a windbreaker against a blank white background, his hands and shoulders in a “What? What do you want from me?” pose that’s as universal as the figures on the door of a men’s restroom.
It might not be the most exciting, creative or original image ever created but I like it since I get the feeling it sells the movie’s strongest asset – David’s performance – without any hesitation. It’s essentially marketing the film to the audience as a feature film version of “Curb” but that’s alright, I think, since that’s what a Woody Allen movie basically is.
Speaking of Allen, he’s nowhere to be seen here. If you know his movies you’ll likely recognize the generic typeface used for the names of the actors and the title treatment as the same one he always uses in the credits, but there’s nothing that labels this as an Allen movie unless you’re into reading the credits block. On the posters for his last few movies his name has at least appeared, even if it was pretty small. But this one drops it completely as a separate component. Maybe that was a move designed to further enhance David’s role, but it seems like the two would compliment each other instead of detract from one another’s role in attracting the target audience.
The Trailers
The trailer, well…let me be honest. It’s one of the funniest trailers I’ve seen in quite a while, despite a kind of rough beginning. It starts off with David talking directly to the camera, with the people around him seemingly aware of the fact that he’s broken off into some sort of monologue. The guys in back of him look surprised at him wandering off and the camera cuts to a child who points out to his mother that they man across the street is talking to himself. That’s an odd note to hit right off the bat. The content of that rant, that this is not the feel good movie of the year and that those looking to make themselves feel better would be better served elsewhere, is a rare moment of self-deprecating awareness from a Hollywood studio and David sells the line with his usual attitude.
Luckily it rights itself pretty quickly. After that introduction we start to get a sense of the film’s narrative and plot. We see David’s character freaking out – in a very nice apartment – about the fact that he’s going to die some day, which his wife takes to mean he’s dying now, which he isn’t. More scenes of him complaining to his rather unpleasant-looking wife are interspersed with some of him hanging out with his group of more middle-class friends as well as him discovering Wood’s character living in the basement of a building. Eventually her mother and father track her down and the relationship between the three of them and David’s character are obviously going to provide many of the laughs of the film.
Maybe it works for me as well as it does because I’m just a fan of verbal humor. It’s pretty easy to see the same sort of lines being delivered by someone like Groucho Marx or any of the great wordsmiths of comedy, which is a testament, I think, to the power of Allen’s writing.
Online
As you might expect from a small movie with few “bankable” stars and an aging writer/director, the official website is not exactly all that and a bag of chips.
The front page reminds you that the film is first opening only in New York and Los Angeles, as well as the fact that it was an Opening Night selection for the Tribeca Film Festival. From there you can Enter the Site.
Once you do the first section is “Synopsis.” I’ll be frank here: How something that’s so short can also be so poorly written is really quite a feat. The awkward phrasing is truly something to behold and does the film no favors. True, it’s not like a lot of random passers-by are going to be coming here, so this won’t be the first impression of the movie for many. But still, this is pretty bad.
The site designers make up for it to some extent with the “Cast and Crew” section, which contains nice write-ups about the major players in the film, at least those who aren’t Woody Allen. In true non-promotional manner, his listing is purely a filmography and contains no additional text or biographic information at all.
“Gallery” has about 20 stills from the film and its production. “Trailer” has, you guessed it, the trailer.
“Links & Reviews” is actually pretty cool, going a way toward the kind of embrace of the rest of the web that I keep talking about. It contains a link to an NY Observer feature on the movie and links to the IMDb profiles for the major players in the film. That’s a good first step and all but it still could go farther, linking out to fan sites and other reviews and publicity items. Still, a nice feature that a lot of sites completely ignore so I’ll give it the credit it deserves.
There was also a Facebook page for the movie that attracted a somewhat surprising 8,000+ fans. The page contained stills, the trailer, reminders about screenings and some extended clips from the movie.
Advertising and Cross-Promotions
Nothing that I’ve seen. A quick search of YouTube and Google News confirms there don’t seem to be any TV spots created or promotional partners signed on. Not surprising.
Media and Publicity
Considering the lack of paid support I guess it’s good the film wound up getting plenty of media coverage and other publicity. In addition to the aforementioned appeared at the Tribeca Film Festival the movie was the subject of a number of news stories. Most of those were interviews with Larry David, Evan Rachel Wood or Woody Allen. There were some that drew the line between this movie and “Curb” but most noted its place in Allen’s cinematic history, as is the case anytime the director puts out a new film.
Overall
You’re never going to get a full-fledged online effort out of a movie like this. (Well…I could probably recommend three or four ways to get more content there by using a WordPress blog admin setup, but I’ll refrain from that.) But the rest of the campaign comes together quite nicely. As I stated this has one of my favorite trailers and a good poster that focuses on an attribute of the film that’s likely to attract an audience.
All put together it’s a decent effort for the latest film from Woody Allen. Not much more to say, so I won’t try.
Intense
Chris Scott snapped this pic of me while we were at Elizabeth Street Brewery in San Francisco after WordCamp a couple weeks ago. I’m considering it for use on all my social media profiles, if for no other reason then that it will scare away all the casual followers.
Twitter Updates for 2009-06-12
- If I've been silent on Twitter the last few days it's because I have "work" "to do." #
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Marketing Madness in 60 Seconds: 6/12/09
Advertising
Izea is readying a Pay Per Tweet program that should come as a surprise to absolutely no one. The details are somewhat similar to what the company offers bloggers and which has been the subject of a ton of discussion over the years. I’ve never been a fan but the company has never been one to shy away from making its case and I have to respect that, as well as the discussion they’ve sparked, which has led to some of the guidelines many of us now see as givens.
The Daily Beast and other online publications are forgoeing traditional banner ads in favor of customer advertising options that they’re offering to buyers in the hopes they’ll see them as breaking through the clutter.
Stories about Google trying to break further into the display ad market have been written for at least two years now, with this being the latest one. This is one area of online advertising the company doesn’t rule and so it’s a prime area for growth for it.
Media
Staci Kramer at PaidContent has some of the best commentary about the meeting a couple weeks ago of some of the biggest newspaper executives about how they’re going to get paid for their content in the near future. This particular post has to do with a proposed universal system for papers to collect payment from sites as well as a single online classifieds program. She picks up the key point, which is that if even one site decides to go it alone and doesn’t stick to the plan it can all fall apart very, very easily. Erik Sherman at BNET makes a strong case for people needing to make a strong case – one that’s backed up by hard numbers and not just lofty opinions and feelings of what’s “right” or “true.”
Speaking of level-headed commentary, Jon Fine provides just that in the ongoing conversation about paying for news content online. He hits the nail on the head when he says that “news” isn’t something you repeatedly go to like a song or movie.
New research shows, unsurprisingly, that time spent with mobile apps is eating into time people spend with other media.
USA Today sees mobile device distribution as one of the keys of its future survival. At the same time it’s developing a subscription-only electronic edition that would replicate in digital format the newspaper itself.
Social Media
Time Magazine runs a cover story on Twitter and gets everyone talking.
Twitter, in response to a lawsuit by St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa, is launching Verified Accounts over the summer. It’s just a trial at first and will focus on people who are seen as being at risk for what is, essentially, identity theft and then spread out to include everyone who runs some sort of “official” account for a person or brand.
I don’t always agree with Jonah Bloom but I do find a lot of common ground with him in his call to not repeat the siloed mistakes of the past, with social media being a siloed unit that acts independently of the rest of a firm or office.
If you’re up at 12AM Eastern you’ll be first in line to take advantage of Facebook finally allowing everyday users – and more importantly brand managers – to grab a vanity URL on the social network. Marshall Kirkpatrick is in no hurry to grab his since, as he points out, he already owns his own website and so Facebook is a secondary concern to him. I agree with Marshall’s points as to why this isn’t an absolute priority, but I will probably grab mine when I get around to turning on the computer Monday morning. If you’re still interested Caroline McCarthy has a solid how-to.
Both blogs and Twitter accounts get abandoned. This shouldn’t be surprising at this point.
Gotta love Turner Classic Movies launching a social network for fans of classic movies. The site will allow members to write blogs, engage in conversations with others and list their favorite stars and movies.
Finding an Audience: Distribution Notes for 6/12/09
Theatrical
There’s a cool self-organized movement afoot called MobMov. Using the site – and being sure to get permission from property owners and others – people are able to organize what are being called “guerilla drive-in” experiences. Basically they find a movie, find a place to screen it and then organize people to the screening, which has the feeling of a drive-in/tailgate party mixture. Love this idea. Love it. [via Costa]
Home Video
Epix has finally launched in beta testing mode. The service is the long-gestating partnership between Paramount, Lionsgate and MGM that’s part basic cable channel and part online distribution platform, though it seems you’ll need to be a cable subscribert to access the movies online. The studios have stocked it with about 100 films right off the bat and, depending on how this turns out, more will be added later on down the road.
Theatrical-to-DVD windows have been wider in the first half of this year than they were in the same period last year, bucking the trend that’s been progressing for the last few years. Some of that is just because of how the calendar has played out but it seems that some movies that have generated long-term word-of-mouth based business at the box off, for example Gran Torino, have been delayed so they can continue to sell tickets.
Online/On-Demand
One of the new features of the iPhone 3GS (which I’m totally getting as soon as I can afford it) will be the ability to purchase and rent movies from the iTunes store directly from the device, which is kind of huge and could lead to a lot more spur-of-the-moment purchases.
Matt Dentler points to the latest story about how VOD is becoming the norm in terms of indie-film distribution. I continue to maintain that there needs to be adequate promotion of the films in relation to even this distribution in order for this model to truly succeed, but many of these studios don’t have the biggest coffers to dive into for marketing.
Best Buy has partnered with CinemaNow to make movies available for purchase through the retailer’s website as well as on specifically-marked devices sold in stores.
