April 06, 2004

Proctor & Gamble's 'Tremor' Teen Marketing Arm Used by Film Studios

I had read about 'Tremor', the teen-centric word-of-mouth marketing operation started by Proctor and Gamble in 2001, but I wasn't sure if or how the film studios were using them.

This article in the latest issue of Forbes shed some light on it:

Caitlin Jones is Hollywood's kind of pitch gal. Several months ago the 16-year-old received an e-mail announcing DreamWorks SKG's new teen flick, Win A Date With Tad Hamilton!, and was asked to help the studio pick the movie's logo. A few weeks later when she went to a movie theater, she was thrilled to see a trailer for the film and discover that they'd picked the logo she liked. "Oh, my God," she told a friend who was sitting next to her, "I voted for that logo!" She beamed. "So they do listen. It does matter." Jones, a junior at St. Joseph Hill Academy in Staten Island, N.Y., couldn't wait to spread the word. "I told a bunch of friends at school," she recalls. "I told my next door neighbor. I told well over 10 or 20 people." And, of course, she plans to see the film, taking a handful of pals with her.

Based on the article, it looks like Dreamworks uses them fairly regularly for teen-targeted films.

What the excerpt above fails to mention, however is that 'Win a Date with Tad Hamilton' had production costs of $22 Million and estimated marketing costs of $25 Million.

Grosses for the film through March 29th were just shy of $17 million -- pretty unconvincing from an ROI standpoint. Perhaps there are a few successes with film marketing under Tremor's belt, but their website is lacking information on past campaigns.

Related Links:

Tremor

Forbes.com: Kid Nabbing