Miramax is getting serious about forging marketing campaigns and promotional partnerships with other Walt Disney Company divisions, according to Variety.
To kick off the move, Miramax Executive V.P. of Business Affairs Michael Luisi has been given an expanded role that will put him in charge of developing partnerships with Disney divisions such as ESPN, ABC and Hyperion. While Miramax has conducted these sorts of promotional activities in the recent past, the move signifies an attempt to systematize these activities, to improve Miramax’s brand recognition, and to better integrate Miramax into the company as a whole. The move also mirrors Disney’s move towards greater divisional symbiosis. The best example has been their recent success with the ‘Pirates’ franchise, which began as a theme park ride and has led to increased park attendance and merchandise sales.
Miramax has grossed a little over $17 million year to date on six releases, down drastically from the division’s peak of $427 million in 2001. The sharp decline in revenue reflects the division’s shift in focus from larger budgeted tentpole productions under the Weinsteins to a mix of lower-budgeted independent fare and foreign acquisitions.
With the burgeoning growth on India’s online population, Bollywood movie marketers are ramping up their online marketing efforts, according to The Hindu Business Line.
According to the article, over 38.5 million Indians have Internet access, and although broadband penetration is in its early stages, over 1.5 million homes already have high-speed access. There are also an estimated 20 million Indians living abroad who are interested in keeping up with the latest Bollywood productions.
Indian film marketers have noted that young, tech-oriented professionals with disposable income are highly likely to use the web to discover movies to see in theaters:
Says Rajnish R., Head - Digital Marketing Revenue and Strategic Business, MSN India: "People who use the Internet are twice likely to go watch movies in multiplexes (than those who do not). Indians abroad go online to read movie reviews before they book a ticket or buy the DVD. So, the adoption of online media is attractive to new-age producers, who themselves are Net-savvy."
Online promotions on large portals such as MSN India typically cost between 800,000 and one million rupees ($17-25K dollars). Promotions on Indiafm, Bollywood's #1 movie portal vary from 50,000 to 1.2 million rupees ($1100 -$26,100) depending on the targeted regions and audience.
Individual film sites are also become more common, and traffic has been booming – Hungama, a top online promotions company for Bollywood, noted that some of their larger sites attract up to 12 million page views a month. Online interactive contests are also becoming popular, and are now sporting major corporate sponsors.
The migration to more sophisticated online marketing methods mirror’s Bollywood’s increasing marketing savvy in other channels. Recent calls for more integrated marketing have increased lately, even culminating in top talent calling for the emulation of Hollywood-style marketing.
The Indian film industry sold more than 3.8 billion tickets in 2005, grossing over $1.14 billion dollars, according to a recent article on Bloomberg. By comparison, Hollywood grossed nearly $9 billion dollars during the same calendar year.
News Corp.'s Fox Filmed Entertainment today announced plans to target the Christian audience with the formal launch of the FoxFaith Home Enertainment Division.
FoxFaith will acquire up to twelve films a year, with a minimum of six theatrical releases a year under partnerships with AMC Theatres and Carmike Cinemas. The label will target evangelical Christians, a group whose beliefs have traditionally been at odds with secular Hollywood fare (including some of the racier content seen on Fox's broadcast network). The label has also partnered with the Dove Foundation, a non-profit that offers seals of approval to qualifying films free of offensive content.
Productions will be based on bestselling Christian fiction and will have production budgets under $5 million. Recent updates indicate they will be acquisitions, and not studio productions Additionally, the films will receive marketing support nearly equal to the production budgets, a significant figure for marketing low-budget films. This will complement Fox’s already hefty grassroots database of 90,000 congregations and 14 million evangelical households.
As we reported here over a year ago, FoxFaith has been making major inroads into the Christian marketplace in the DVD arena. Since the launch of the FoxFaith initiative last June, Fox has shipped over 30 million faith-based DVDs. As the DVD distributor for ‘Passion of the Christ,’ fox has sold an impressive 15 million units and established a considerable competitive advantage in marketing to the Christian community.
Another interesting element to this announcement: As opposed to the rest of Hollywood’s alignment of their theatrical and home video divisions along genre lines (Foreign, American Independent, Horror, etc.), Fox is throwing that paradigm out the window by aligning them along demographic lines, first with Fox Atomic, and now FoxFaith. It’s doesn't seem like much of a stretch to imagine a FoxAsian or FoxWomen specialty unit. After all, this model has been put to the test via specialty cable networks for several decades, but the web has given the model even more promise. With the lower cost of marketing to a known cohort, the centralization of these communities in online social networks, and the ease of building up reusable grassroots databases over time, Fox may have discovered a winning formula for combating the fracturing of the mass audience. The Weinsteins Company has placed a bet on this model as well with Our Stories Films, a specialty studio catering to the African-American audience.
Today AOL announced that they will release the horror film 'Incubus' as a "direct-to-download" exclusive on AOL RED, a teen-centric entertainment site.
Starring Tara Reid, the feature-length film follows a group of six teens attempting to escape from a government paranormal research lab. AOL plans to sell downloads for 7.99 or five day rentals for $3.49. Purchasers can begin watching the stream as it downloads. The film will be available for download beginning on October 31st, and AOL will have a 30 day exclusive window before the DVD hits stores. AOL plans to promote the release with a user-generated content contest where fans can submit homemade horror shorts. No specifics on prizing was mentioned.
At first glance, this looks like a creative way to build buzz for both AOL RED (who heard of it before today, anyway?) and the DVD's release. However, given the fact that the target audience spends more time online than watching television, this little promotion may have stumbled on a new window. If they're successful, that is…
In running a website about marketing, sometimes we forget that the online space is not the center of the marketing universe. After all, the online marketing budget for most films amounts to only 10-15% of the total marketing spend. Now granted, that number is rising every day, and you do get more bang for your online marketing buck, but other forms of advertising -- namely print, television and outdoor -- are still the single biggest percentage of the movie marketing spend.
In recognition of that fact, Movie Marketing Update is starting a new feature called "Movie Ads in the Wild." Several times a month we're going to show you what marketers are doing on the street, in theater lobbies, on billboards, and in the local newspapers. This week's installment comes to you from New York City -- more specifically, Park Avenue between 17th and 23rd streets in Midtown, with a little dash of Queens to boot.
Starting out Broadway at 19th street, we pass a wall of
"coming soon" posters outside of a six-plex. 'Casino Royale' seems to catch
the eye the most out of the four we see here.
Walking cross-town to Park avenue, we found a poster for 'The
Guardian' hanging above a parking garage entrance. Not the greatest of
placements -- you have to be looking up to notice it. It's also a shame that nearly a third of the poster is wasted with an illegible credit block (but we get it, its in the
contract...)
Still crossing over to Park, we noticed some great 2x2
wild postings at a construction site promoting 'American Hardcore'. Music releases and events are heavily promoted this way in New York, which makes this particular technique a good fit for this film. Its hard to see in this picture, but there is a mention of the "Vans Warped Tour," one of the film's promotional partners.
Just a few feet away from the 'American Hardcore' posting,
we see an old Jet Li ad from a few weeks ago peeling away. Sometimes the layers of old postings get so thick that they simply shear off of the plywood under the weight of glue and paper, and other environmental conditions like rain, wind, graffiti artists, and drunken fratboys can wreak havoc on your ads. In prime areas, your adverts will need to be re-posted weekly, otherwise they simply get posted over by competitors.
Turning on to Park Avenue, we see a phone booth (which are less common than you think) with an ad for 'The Grudge 2.' Note how much
better the ad works without a massive credit block?
Looking up Park avenue, we see the massive, 60 foot noggins
of DiCaprio, Damon and Nicholson in the distance.
Here's a closer shot of the massive 'The Departed' ad at the
corner of 23rd Street and Park avenue. You can barely see the workers affixing the
ad from a gondola hanging just below DiCaprio's head. I didn't get a close
enough look to see if they were painting or postering, but its a massive
undertaking in any case. You can see the last vestiges of blue in the lower left from
the 'Lady in the Water' ad that was there during the Summer. If my memory serves me well, this ad changes four to six times a year -- anyone have an idea how much this particular space goes for? If you do, or just want to guess, drop a note in the comments.
On my way into the Subway I found yet another ad for 'The
Departed.' . Nicholson looks like he
aged in reverse by twenty years. And don't get me started on the quarter of the ad wasted on the credit block...
Okay -- here we are in Long Island City, a 10 minute
subway ride away from Midtown. Upon exiting the station, I found this
jumbo-sized wild posting for 'Gridiron Gang.' This 4x6 foot poster is
right on the corner of a very busy intersection with heavy car traffic.
Unfortunately, whoever designed the poster made the release date illegible
from any more than a few feet away. Note that the poster to the left is
already partially covered with a competing music poster after a week.
Just a little bit down the street we've got a big 6x6
wild posting for 'A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints.' This is a smart
location right next to a bus stop, but the poster needs some help -- the
key art is too small and the talent's names should have been arranged better. The actual neighborhood may be a bad placement, however, because the local demographic isn't likely to be interested in seeing this, in my opinion.
And here's where my journey ends -- at the Sunnyside Cinemas, a neighborhood first-run theater.
This 'Babel' poster is displayed under the Theater's marquee next to the box office window.
I would be surprised if this particular film actually plays at this theater, since they mostly run genre and family fare. Note the ridiculously low ticket prices for New York City,
by the way (and that's probably the last remaining matinee pricing in New
York as well.)
According to Broadcasting & Cable Magazine, the Children's Advertising Review Unit of the Council of Better Business Bureaus has asked Disney to stop marketing the PG-13 'Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest' to children on Nickelodeon.
A self-regulating arm of the ad industry, CARU made a formal complaint about ads that ran in tandem with the film's theatrical release in June, three months after they had aired. Disney responded by saying they had no plans on rerunning the ads, and stated that they had relied on Nickelodeon's clearance department to ensure proper ad placement.
CARU frowns on advertising PG-13 films to children under 12 because the MPAA rating indicates the presence of content that "may be unsuitable." However, as the B&C notes, 'Pirates of the Caribbean' toys, games, food and a whole bevy of other licensed products are heavily marketed to children despite the film's rating.
It will be interesting to see how close and timely CARU's scrutiny will be when Disney launches the third installment of the franchise next year, and what changes Disney will make regarding ad buys on younger-skewing channels. As reported for Q3 2006, the Disney Consumer Products division’s income rose 70% over the previous year to $105 million, much of which was due to sales of Pirates-themed merchandise.
In an effort to keep you abreast of the latest trailers, clips, posters, ads, websites and more, we're kicking-off a daily round-up of new movie marketing collateral releases. To get your collateral mentioned send an email to news@indiescene.net.
'Casino Royale' -- New Flash leaderboard ad on Adverlicio.us
'Fearless' -- New Flash leaderboard ad on Adverlicio.us
Other Collateral and Ads of Note:
Heavy 'Jesus Camp' PPC ad placement on liberal blogs, to include Google video ads. Here's an example of a text ad (scroll to the end of the article.) Looks like they also did a banner buy on the same site.
Big Blogads buy for 'The Ground Truth' across liberal blogs -- see an example at Dailykos. Also note the 'Jesus Camp' ad.
According to recent reports on CNNMoney.com, Wal-Mart is ramping up its movie download service efforts amidst the recent launch of Amazon and Apple’s services.
The single largest seller of DVDs in the world, Wal-Mart accounts for upwards of 40 percent of all DVD sales, mainly from highly popular new releases from the studios. The article speculates that the move is part of Wal-Mart’s effort to maintain this dominance.
Wal-Mart is still working out the pricing and delivery options for the service, which may include free or discounted downloads with purchase. Downloads would be available at walmart.com, and the company is also considering in-store burning kiosks as well.
Wal-Mart’s moves come just weeks after it was widely reported that they threatened not to sell titles of companies making download deals with Apple. Earlier this year, Wal-Mart refused to carry Disney’s 'High School Musical' after it appeared on iTunes prior to release in stores.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Sony Pictures Entertainment has signed a six-figure promotional partnership with The Netherlands-based Heineken Brewing Company to showcase the company's product in the upcoming James Bond action thriller 'Casino Royale.'
Promotional activities will include heavy product placement in the film, to include scenes with new James Bond actor Daniel Craig drinking the beer. While the on-screen placements seem to counter the "shaken not stirred" vodka martini image usually seen in Bond flicks, it may work well with the new tougher, "man's-man" approach the producers are taking with the Bond character. Plans are also in the works for a special tie-in commercial starring Bond girl Eva Green, which will be directed by Oscar-winner Stephen Gaghan ('Syriana,' 'Traffic'), who will have access to the actual production sets for the ad.
No word yet as to how this new beer-swilling, Bond will sit with fans, but the initial backlash to Craig's casting seems to be cooling. On the promotional side, the number of official partners has been cut back significantly from 2002's 'Die Another Day,' which was criticized for going over the top with irrevelant tie-ins. Smirnoff will remain the offical vodka for this installment, will produce a custom commercial, hold an on-pack promotion tied in with the film's release.
The James Bond franchise has grossed nearly $1.3 Billon dollars domestically since the release of 'Dr. No' in 1963, according to Box Office Mojo. 'Casino Royale' hits theaters November 17th.
This morning, MySpace and Twentieth Century Fox announced the launch of the Black Carpet Screening Series, which will enable MySpace registered users a chance to see early previews of films before they hit theaters. The move is the biggest studio social networking promotion to date, and also marks MySpace’s first foray into a worldwide exclusive event.
The first advance screening will kickoff on September 20th, which will showcase 'Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan,' a full two weeks ahead of the film’s November 3rd premiere. Members in Canada, Germany, the U.K., Ireland and 20 U.S. cities will have a chance to attend local screening events. Users will have to add the Black Carpet profile to their friends list, as well as the film they are interested in seeing, and they will then receive bulletins with details on cities and showtimes.
This looks like an exceptionally smart move by Fox to harness the viral effect of social networks. In effect, it is a brilliant marriage of the proven word of mouth Generating capability of advance screenings to MySpace’s 40 million member social network, and this move will enable the positive word of mouth to spread faster than face-to-face contact. It will be interesting to see which films they choose beyond ‘Borat;’ After all, we have seen how much of a double-edged sword instant word-of-mouth can be.
Nonetheless, this move furthers the synergy between MySpace and News Corp., and looks like a broadening of the studio’s recent efforts to court the youth market with the launch of their Fox Atomic label. It will be interesting to see if further synergies between MySpace and Fox Atomic develop, and also how the other studios will react.
Today Warner Home Video announced that they will be releasing 'The Lake House' simultaneously on standard DVD, HD DVD and Blu-ray formats.
With a September 26th street date, Warner will be the first studio to release titles in all formats. They will also be releasing the film as a combo disc, with a high definition DVD on one side and SD DVD on the other side, priced at $39.99. The Blu-ray version will be available for $34.99 SRP. And a standard DVD will cost $28.98. The bonus materials will be available on all versions, though Warner did not disclose if they would be in high definition on the HD DVD and Blue-ray versions.
'The Lake House' is a time-travel romance starring Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock, and is a remake of a recent Korean film. Warner may be banking on the geek appeal of the film’s plot and Keanu Reeve’s Matrix pedigree to appeal to the early adopters who are currently the biggest segment of the high definition player owners.
In theatrical release this past summer, 'The Lake House' took in $52.3 million domestically and $49 million overseas, coming in at #38 for 2006.
Lionsgate and Warcon Records teaming up next month to put on a ‘Saw III’-themed live music show in support of the upcoming feature film and soundtrack.
“A Musical Evening Inspired by the Soundtrack of SAW III” will kick off at New York’s Webster Hall on October 19th. The evening will feature appearances by bands from the film’s soundtrack, with headlining acts to include Helmet, The Smashup and Hydrovibe. Shawnee Smith, who stars as “Amanda” in all three ‘Saw” movies, will emcee the show, and other cast members will be on hand for appearances as well.
A special ‘Saw’ museum will also be set up on the premises, which will include actual film props, torture devices, and the creepy ‘Billie’ puppet. There’s also an opportunity to join a “Circle of Blood” fan club, which will entitle members to gain early access to the venue for a meet and greet with cast members and the bands and a big bag of ‘Saw’ swag.
The informational site for the event is here. Advance tickets are also available through Ticketweb.
The ‘Saw III’ soundtrack will drop on October 24th, and the film hits theaters on October 27th. The ‘Saw’ franchise has grossed Lionsgate over $247 million to date in worldwide box office and has sold-through over 1.8 million DVDs, according to Nielsen Videoscan.
In a special presentation yesterday, Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the new iTunes movie store, which will enable users to buy and download feature-length films.
The initial slate of 100 movies includes an offering of titles from Disney-affiliated labels Pixar, Miramax, Touchstone, as well as Disney-branded films. A forthcoming deal with Lionsgate is expected, but was not announced during the presentation. The films will be priced at $14.99 for new releases and $9.99 for catalog titles, but customers who pre-order new releases can order them for $12.99. The video files will use the H.264 codec and will be at 640 x 480 resolution, which is “near DVD” quality and suitable for viewing on standard TV sets.
Apple also gave a sneak preview of a new product tentatively called “iTV,” which is a set-top box that will enable users to stream downloaded movies, music, and photos from a computer to a consumer’s television set. The wireless box will also have HDMI output, which should be able to address the studio’s piracy concerns. The iTV release date is slated for sometime in 1Q 2007.
When compared to the lackluster release of Amazon’s Unbox service last week, the Apple offering looks like an improvement if they can secure a wider base of content partners. However, the pricing structure for DRM-hobbled, low-quality video without packaging or special features seems too high. For example, for $20 dollars, you can pick up Miramax’s ‘Kinky Boots’ DVD on Amazon, and for that price you will get DVD quality video, Dolby 5.1 sound, two featurettes, deleted scenes, commentaries, and foreign language tracks. You can play it on any DVD player in or out of the home, and if you wanted to, an individual with minimal technical knowledge can rip a DRM-free version to play on their iPod (albeit illegally). Therein lies the real problem: creating a downloadable product that offers consumers the same level of choice for the same price as a physical product, or reducing the price to reflect the true value to the consumer.
Perhaps the recent conjecture is right - maybe the studios aren't interested in seeing downloads cannibalize DVD sales just yet.
According to Variety, AMC Theaters and RKO Distribution have announced plans for a recurring film series next year.
Called the “RKO Distribution Film Series,” the six film slate will run for 12 weeks in 16 markets starting next February. Each film will play run exclusively at AMC theaters for a minimum of two weeks. If the films take off, they could be held over or expanded according to the agreement. If the series is successful, a second slate of six films will bow in August.
The deal falls under the recently launched AMC SELECT program, which is designed showcase specialty and independent films at 72 AMC theatres in 39 markets across the country. AMC has dedicated at least one screen at each participating theatre to indie programming. Recent titles that have run under the AMC SELECT moniker include ‘An Inconvenient Truth,’ ‘Little Miss Sunshine’ and ‘A Prairie Home Companion.’
Earlier today, Nokia and Warner Brothers announced a deal that will make special Warner Brothers content available for consumer download through the Nokia Content Discoverer client, which is available in millions of Nokia devices worldwide.
The multi-country agreement will create a dedicated Warner Bros. "storefront," embedded in capable phones, from which subscribers to the service can download images, tones, games and video clips. The content selection will include a combination of free and promotional material from Warner’s basket of franchises and recent films, including brands like Looney Tunes and DC Comics and recent films like ‘Superman Returns,’ ‘V for Vendetta,’ and ‘Batman Begins.’
The Nokia service is available on over 40 different Nokia models, which are expected to reach over 20 million consumers worldwide by the end of 2006.
Clickstar will make Morgan Freeman’s latest drama '10 Items or Less' available on the web just two weeks after its release in theaters, according to a recent Los Angeles Times article.
The company also announced that the film will be available for purchase and rental on DVD in tandem with Thinkfilm’s theatrical release. ClickStar, Freeman’s joint venture with Intel, will handle web distribution. Thinkfilm announced theatrical distribution rights earlier this week at the Toronto Film Festival.
Directed by Brad Silberling, the film follows a washed up former A-lister (Freeman) who, while prepping for a role in a low-budget movie, strikes up a friendship with a fiery-tongued checkout clerk (Paz Vega) at a local market. According to the Los Angeles Times, Clickstar produced the film for under ten million dollars and shot it guerrilla-style in under three weeks with handheld HD cameras.
Thinkfilm has yet to announce the theatrical premiere date.
Guba, the online video sharing site, today announced that their month long price reduction experiment yielded a 1000% increase in sales and a doubling of their site traffic.
For the last 30 days, Guba has offered new release movies priced at $9.99, catalog titles at $4.99 and TV episodes for 49 cents, though the offerings cannot be burned to a DVD. These prices are at a substantial discount to the current pricing structure at Amazon's Unbox service ($14.99 and up for new releases, $9.99 and up for catalog titles) and the forthcoming Apple download store, which is likely to bow new release movie downloads at around $15 dollars.
Guba currently has deals with Sony Pictures and Warner Brothers, offering 500 and 200 titles from each library, respectively. In all likelihood, Guba is serving as a low-risk pricing test bed due to its lower profile and smaller user base, which is probably enough to keep Wal-Mart from getting nervous. As of late, the mega-retailer has been annoyed at the prospect of downloads being priced below their DVD wholesale pricing of $17 for new releases, and has used their muscle to influence online pricing moves.
So what is the optimal download price for a burnable, DRM-managed feature-length movie? Take the poll below to give us your opinion.
Netflix, the online DVD rental service, announced a new feature that enables their subscribers to watch a stream of movie trailers personalized to their movie tastes.
The feature, called “Previews,” consolidates all available movie trailers in one area on their site. Netflix's recommendation engine selects the appropriate trailers and calculates the order in which they are shown based on a subscriber’s rental and rating histories with the service. The previews run sequentially and without interruption. Subscribers can then add movies to their rental queues directly from the "Previews" page.
Netflix will launch with 1,000 trailers in the "Previews" section, but it plans on increasing that number to between 5,000 and 10,000 trailers by the end of the year.
Yesterday evening, Universal launched a newsreel-styled promo video on YouTube for their upcoming release ‘The Back Dahlia’', reports Adrants.
In addition to using recreated footage and archival crime scene clips, the four minute piece also utilizes vintage clips of other early twentieth century crimes to help set the tone. Exopolis, a creative shop specializing in design and development for broadcast, print and interactive, produced the promo.
This video furthers the vintage aesthetic of the film’s marketing campaign. Earlier this week, a special promotion with the Los Angles Times featured a special wraparound which included vintage clips. The Black Dahlia is an adaptation of James Ellroy's 1940s-set novel about two Los Angeles detectives heading the hunt for the killer of newbie actress Elizabeth Short. Directed by Brian De Palma and starring Josh Hartnett, Aaron Eckhart, Scarlett Johansson and Hillary Swank, the films hits theaters on Spetember 15th.
According to Variety, a new study released by Statistics Canada showed a substantial increase in theatrical revenue and attendance last year.
Canadian theatrical receipts rose 16.6% between the 2003-04 and 2004-05 periods to C$446.3 million, or $401.7 million, according to a survey of the film and video distribution businesses by the agency. Attendance figures were up as well, and according to the article the growth came predominantly from an over 20% rise in drive-in attendance. Per-family spending on theater-going averaged $101, up from $95 the prior year. Canadian DVD revenue growth was flat, with sales of $1.6 billion.
Anyone with any insight as to why Canadians are in love with the drive-in experience, let us know. Here’s a list of Canadian Drive-ins if you’re curious.
Update: Here's a link to the full report. It has a wealth of interesting facts and data that Canadian movie marketers might want to note, including a growth in market share of Canadian-produced content.
The Starz Network will be broadcasting highlights from the Hollywood Reporter's 35th Annual Key Art awards tonight - you can check local times here. It looks like there will be encore presentations as well.
For those not in the know, the Key Art Awards are held annually to recognize movie marketing achievement for all forms of film ad collateral including posters, trailers, print ads and TV commercials. This year's event was hosted by comedian and Saturday Night Live alumnus Kevin Nealon.
If you never had a chance to review the winners, the full listing is available here. VNU Media also sells illustrated programs highlighting the best of the print work.
PixelPlay and New Line Cinema have partnered to offer a 'How to Eat Fried Worms' game on PixelPlay's DishGAMES service, available via the DISH Network, according to a joint press release.
Gamers will have the chance to win 10 different prizes, and the top three scorers will win a "Worms Prize Package" featuring a Samsung portable DVD player, 10 movie tickets from Fandango, a New Line DVD Pack, a ‘Fried Worms’ movie poster and a 17 piece stainless steel cookware set, ostensibly to cook up homemade worm delicacies. The game went live on the service last Friday in tandem with the film’s theatrical release.
The game is available free to all DISH Network subscribers, which currently number over 12.4 million throughout the U.S. The promotion will be available on the service for the remainder of the summer.
According to Zap2it, CBS has partnered with Warner Brothers for the premiere of the new crime drama ‘Smith.’ The pilot will be solely sponsored by the upcoming Scorsese film The Departed, with “limited commercial interruptions.”
The Warner Brothers sponsorship of the ‘Smith’ pilot takes care of a tricky scheduling dilemma faced by CBS. With the premiere running over an hour before commercial breaks, CBS would have had to trim down the episode, limit commercials, or run an extended premiere.
'The Departed,' a hard-boiled crime drama in the vein of Scorsese’s past work, is a natural fit for 'Smith.' The series also stars Ray Liotta, who had his big breakout role in the Scorsese classic Mafia hit 'Goodfellas.'
‘The Departed’ features an ensemble cast including Leonardo DiCaprio, Jack Nicholson, Matt Damon and Martin Sheen, among others, and will premiere in theaters on October 6th.
With the brutal heat wave making headlines across the country, the marketing team behind ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ have spun current events into a creative series of advertisements, according to the “Marketplace Report” broadcast yesterday on American Public Media:
Global warming might seem like counter-intuitive programming for folks trying to escape the heat, but the new ad campaign for the documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" has used the toasty weather to its advantage.
Newspaper ads for the film now list scorching temperatures in several US cities.
"It's kind of unusual in the 7th, 8th week of release to have fresh ad campaigns going out to keep a film in the public eye. I think it's been pretty effective."
The film has grossed just under $19 million through July 24th (very impressive for such a "didactic" documentary), and the platform release up to the current peak of 560+ theaters has been handled exceptionally well by the Paramount team. Keeping a film"fresh" during a long roll-out is one of the biggest challenges in film marketing, and tying into current events on both the publicity and advertising fronts is a smart approach to achieve that end.
The film is likely on track to gross in the $20-22 million dollar range, and has a good chance of usurping ‘Bowling for Columbine’ for the number three spot on the list of top-grossing documentaries of all time (‘Fahrenheit 9/11’ holds the top spot at $119 million, and ‘March of the Penguins’ is at #2 with $77.4 million).
According to Variety, New Line has decided to forgo any pre-release screenings of their upcoming horror film 'Snakes on A Plane.'
In a move calculated to reduce the chances of any poor critical reviews or buzz-killing word of mouth, the earliest the public and critics alike will be able to see the film is Thursday night on August 17th. No press screenings or sneaks will be available.
Holding back press screenings for genre and action fare has become a common practice lately, mostly because the films' core audience is typically made up of genre fans who don’t read newspaper reviews. However, for the rest of the public, a lack of early reviews is starting to be interpreted as "this film sucks." New Line is spinning this move as “a chance for fans to see the film first.” However, if you look at past films that have withheld press screenings, it doesn’t bode well for the quality of 'Snakes.'
Recent films that have withheld press screenings include: 'Aeon Flux,' 'Cursed,' 'Phat Girlz,' 'Scary Movie 4,' 'See no Evil', 'The Benchwarmers,' 'The Fog,' 'The Hills Have Eyes,' 'Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Family Reunion,' 'Ultraviolet,' 'Underworld: Evolution', and 'When a Stranger Calls.'
If we've missed any, please add them in the comments.
Lionsgate has teamed up with in-theater ad & promo outfit National CineMedia and Horror rag Fangoria Magazine to launch a one-night-only advance screening event for the upcoming horror thriller 'The Descent.' The special screening will take place next week on July 26th at 8:00 p.m. - nine days ahead of the film's August 4th wide release. The event will be held at 47 participating Regal, United Artists, Edwards, and Cinemark around the country in key markets including New York, Los Angeles, Denver, Miami and Atlanta, among others (a full list of markets is available here). A regular admission charge will be in effect, and tickets can be purchased either online or at the box office the day of the screening.
The producers of the film have created exclusive behind-the-scenes content created especially for the event, and Fangoria has created a microsite to promote the screenings as well. Lionsgate has also linked to the advance ticket sales site from the film’s homepage.
Based on the numerous positive early reviews from fan boy and genre sites such as AICN, Joblo.com and bloodydisgusting.com, the potential for good word of mouth arising from this effort are high, especially since the structure of the event is designed to cater to the "mavens" of the horror genre – Fangoria readers eager to see both the previously-unseen U.S. cut as well as the exclusive extras. Collateral for the film has also been exceptional, with one of the most compelling one-sheets, trailer and web sites of 2006.
This isn't National CineMedia's first foray into movie marketing promotions – Last year, they conducted advance screenings to promote MGM’s 'North Country', as well as a one day re-release of New Line's 'The Wedding Crashers' earlier this year in support of the DVD release. Both screenings also had "special features," including a live satellite Q&A for 'North Country' and exclusive "uncorked" extras for 'Wedding Crashers.'
According to Variety, last week Paramount Vantage and The Sierra Club teamed up to promote the release of ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ with “robo-calls” – the same sort of prerecorded telephone calls that are usually used to promote political candidates.
On July 7th, approximately 300,000 of the automated calls were placed in New York and four other key markets. The call was a 38 second message from Al gore urging the listener to get out and see his film about global warming, which began like this:
"Hi, I'm Al Gore. The fight against global warming is not about right vs. left, it's about right vs. wrong. That's why the Sierra Club and I are asking you to see my film, 'An Inconvenient Truth,' this weekend.”
According to the article, this is the first time this technique has been used to promote a film, and at least one studio executive believes that this is just the tip of the iceberg. The real question is if people will consider this sort of "push" advertising as an intrusion or not. If done well and correctly targeted, it may work for certain genres of films -- political documentaries and comedies come to mind. And If this technique could be paired with Moviefone-like ticketing capabilities, the ROI tracking capabilities would be a huge boon to movie marketers.
‘An Inconvenient Truth’ has grossed $15.6 million since its release in late May.
Warner Independent Pictures has made the first 24 minutes of 'A Scanner Darkly' available as an online exclusive at IGN FilmForce. You can watch the extended preview, - nearly the first quarter of the film - at this link.
While the studios have been releasing clips under ten minutes on a fairly regular basis, this is without a doubt the longest preview released by a studio or specialty division to date. This shrewd marketing move is undoubtedly meant to drum up interest preceding the film's expansion onto 190 screens this weekend, up from 17 during the opening weekend. In its first weekend of limited release, 'A Scanner Darkly' earned over $392K, averaging just over $23K per screen.
The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) announced the launch of a new online consumer panel called “My Movie Muse” today. According to their release, the site will allow interested, qualified consumers to register so that they can participate in online surveys on issues affecting the organization’s member companies, including topics such as theater attendance, home video rental, advertisements, and piracy. The site plans on commissioning quarterly generalized surveys, and will also conduct “one-off” surveys that relate to specific demographic groups as the need arises.
The My Movie Muse site plans on enrolling 7,500 participants this year, and plans on doubling that figure in 2007. An international version of the site is also in the works.
Registration is currently open to the public at mymoviemuse.com, although it appears that studio employees or individuals involved in the market research of movies are ineligible to participate.
According to a new study released by market research firm Knowledge Networks today, much of the buzz surrounding mobile video content is currently little more than marketing hype.
The company's research discovered that more than half of the subscribers of mobile video services such as Verizon’s VCast don’t bother to actually view any video content, and thirty percent of Video iPod owners have never used the device to view videos. However, among laptop users, more than 90 percent use their device to watch video content. The study also showed a growing acceptance for ad-supported content in the form of pre-rolls.
Knowledge Networks derived their data by surveying 2,400 consumers between ages 13 and 54 who owned devices capable of accessing mobile content, and also held individual interview sessions to gain deeper insights on individual consumer behavior.
The bottom line for movie marketers: Unless your film is highly targeted to the same demographic as consumers of video content on cell phones, the user base and consumption habits don’t warrant the investment in video-based marketing content – at least not yet. Producing content for video iPods is advisable, however, simply because the costs for encoding the content alongside the encoding costs for web streaming are marginal. In fact, if movie marketing video content is uploaded to popular video sharing sites like Google Video or Guba, their software will convert the content automatically.
According to a joint release, Fandango, the web’s largest online movie ticketing site, has been selected as a Preferred Partner by rich media ad developer PointRoll. The partnership will enable Fandango to serve dynamic, location-targeted rollover ads that will enable users to search for and purchase movie tickets within the ad, when the consumer’s intent to purchase is at its highest.
PointRoll has been a major developer and ad server of rollover and other highly interactive flash-based ads for the film industry since 2000, and with the steady increase in broadband penetration, they are now delivering up to six billion ad impressions yearly on top-tier destinations like Yahoo!, MSN and AOL. The partnership comes amidst a robust growth period in the online movie ticketing business, which, according to Jupiter Research, is projected to grow at nearly twenty percent a year for the next three years.
With the advanced tracking capabilities of the PointRoll system, studio movie marketers will be able to measure the actual return on investment for their rich media campaigns, which will give them similar tracking capabilities to text-based advertising systems like Google Adwords.
The De Beers Group, the Johannesburg-based diamond mining and trading company, has announced plans to spend $15 million dollars to counter any potential bad press from the release of 'The Blood Diamond,' the Mining Journal reports.
Slated for a January 2007 release, the Warner Brothers film stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a man involved in a diamond smuggling ring. According to reports, the film depicts the exploitation of diamond miners in Sierra Leone and the plot implies that "conflict diamonds," or diamonds used to fund the ongoing civil wars in Africa, are still prevalent. This contradicts the stance in the Diamond Industry that the problem has been eliminated. However, with the promotion of the film beginning during the holiday season, the $15 million will go towards an education campaign touting "conflict free diamonds" in TV, print and online channels in an attempt to counter a public backlash.
Twentieth Century Fox has partnered with Buzztone, a New York-based youth marketing agency, to conduct an online promotional scavenger hunt for the home video release of 'Night Watch.'
According to a joint press release, fans choose between "the forces of darkness or light" and then are tasked to find lost objects scattered across the web. Clues have been hidden on a wide slate of niche horror websites, including MonstersandCritics.com, HorrorFind.com, Bloody-Disgusting.com, and FemmeFatales.com, among others. In addition to a $2500 dollar grand prize for the top scavenger, Fox is also offering DVD players and horror DVDs as additional prizes.
A disappointment for Fox during its theatrical run, the film earned a meager $1.5 million during its U.S. release. However, the film is among the most successful releases of all time in its native Russia, earning more than $30 million.
The 'Night Watch' DVD hit stores on June 20th, but fans have until July 20th to participate in the promotion. You can visit the promotional site at buzztone.com/nightwatch.
Indie distributor Echo Bridge Entertainment recently launched an "adults-only" pinball game to promote their upcoming theatrical release of their comedy 'Beer League', according to Adotas.com.
Created by Soap Agency, an Australia-based interactive firm, the game features graphics and content matching the movie's racy themes. The film, with a production budget of $2.8 million according to IMDB Pro, stars Artie Lange (The Howard Stern Show, Mad TV) as an unemployed slacker who inspires his softball teammates to improve so they can remain in the local league. In the tradition of "New Dude Cinema," the film is liberally laced with gross-out humor and sexual innuendo, and Soap's effort matches the tone by peppering the game with "unsafe for work" action to boost its viral appeal.
'Beer League' is slated for a limited release on September 15, 2006.
According to Digital Bulletin, Twentieth Century Fox is launching a viral site that will use user-generated content to promote the U.K. release of 'Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties.'
Located at worldwidewhiskers.com, the site enables users to create a special "cat profile," which allows the user to pick attributes like color, food favorites, and pastimes. Users can then scour the globe to find other "cat buddies" that share similar interests.
The site, which is available in nine languages, was designed by Substance, a U.K. based interactive agency. 'Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties' is slated to open in the U.K. on August 18th. The film has grossed $11.05 million since its U.S. release on June 16th.
According to Clickz, Technorati, the blog search engine, is scheduled to announce a multi-year movie marketing agreement with Paramount Pictures today. The article states that Technorati will aggregate relevant blog posts about Paramount films for use on the films' websites, and will provide ads and custom content as well. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The first film to get the Technorati treatment will be "An Inconvenient Truth," Al Gore's new film about global warming:
Posts will appear today on the film's promotional site, Climatecrisis.net, which was created by Paramount. Aggregated information will discuss the film as well as the general topic of global warming. Paramount editors can highlight interesting or controversial posts on their own site. The site also features RSS feeds on global warming-related topics from major news sources.
The aggregated content will not contain full text posts, according to David Sifry, Technorati founder and CEO. "It's to drive people back to the blog. [Bloggers will] feel empowered. It's kind of like 21st century letters to the editor. It's setting the agenda. And for the studio, it's showing the power of the people formerly known as your audience. Rather than ask people to blog on their site, which has proven somewhat difficult for many film companies, they're collecting it."
From a movie marketing standpoint, Gore's film is the perfect choice due to the sheer size the democratic and activist blogger pools. However, it may be more difficult to promote films that have a less easily segmented audience, so it will be interesting to see which films they decide to promote on the site in the future.
Another interesting angle is that this partnership may spur individual bloggers to write posts about a given film for a chance at getting traffic from the film's official website, something we haven't seen before. We're also assuming that the aggregation will have to be hand-culled, since an automated system could lead to spam, or worse, a situation where a Fox or Sony related-post could appear on the Paramount site.
DVD Distributor New Video launched a viral game called the "Silly Walks Generator" to promote their recent DVD release of "Monty Python's Personal Best" for A&E Home Video. The releases are six new DVDs featuring the best bits from all six Pythons plus new content. The game, which has a pretty slick interface, lets you pick a famous Python character and animate them into a "Silly Walk." Our favorite is the knight with the dead chicken, of course.
The viral component comes in when a walk is sent to a friend. I played around with it for a while, and I have to say, it's pretty cool. It took me a second to figure out that the space bar moved the character around, but I tried the animated tutorial, which explained all of the controls. The game comes from a company called Transmote, which, according to their profile, has developed some pretty sophisticated Flash Games for the cable networks (most recently Court TV).
This is the first viral game we've seen dedicated to a DVD release (please correct us if we're wrong) -- what's interesting is that they drive purchases to ten different retail partners - perhaps that's a way of generating "good mojo" with their distribution channels.
There was a great piece on The Reeler yesterday about the difficulties facing the marketing and distribution of Foreign film. Framed by the recent shutdown of Wellspring, Berney talks about the challenges faced in marketing the recent Picturehouse releases '13 Tzameti' and 'Ushpin', and he describes the difficulties in breaking out of the typical art house and in finding the core audience. It's definitely worth checking out...
Without an announcement, New Line has pulled the sexually-themed portion of the flash game on the 'Running Scared' website, according to Variety. The move comes amidst pressure from the National Institute on Media and the Family, who had made several requests to pull the game. While the game generated considerable buzz throughout the blogosphere (as can be seen here) those conversations didn't translate into box office dollars for the Paul Walker action vehicle -- 'Running Scared' generated a paltry $3.4 million during its opening weekend.
Marketing horror films has always required a mix of creativity, brashness, and the occasional gross-out. Fox Searchlight followed the latter to a tee this week when they sent out fake severed ears in a clever styrofoam clam-shell to promote the upcoming release of 'The Hills Have Eyes'.. You can check it out here, if you dare.
Before you congratulate the marketing team at Fox Searchlight for their originality, however, you should know that the guys at Lionsgate sent severed hands out to journalists when they promoted 'Saw' a year and a half ago.
Three times a marketing trend makes, and we're waiting to see what the Weinsteins do with the next Dimension release...
According to the website craignotbond.com, an international group of James Bond fans is organizing a boycott of the next James Bond film, Casino Royale, due to the casting choice of Daniel Craig as James Bond. In a release posted on their website, the group gives a straightforward explanation for the boycott:
Even in the movie business, the old saying that 'the customer is always right' holds true. Since EON and Sony Pictures have chosen to ignore their most loyal customers, we have no choice but to boycott the 21st James Bond film, Casino Royale.
We call upon Bond fans around the world to join us in this boycott. If we all stand together, and stay home when this ill-conceived movie is released, it will send a message to EON [the production company] once and for all, that the sacred trust of Ian Fleming's iconic hero James Bond belongs not to them, but to all of the James Bond fans across the globe!
There has not been a response from Eon or Sony regarding the boycott yet. These days, casting choices are an important part of the marketing game, and its hard to see how the choice of Daniel Craig, a rough-edged character actor, helps the Bond franchise. Will hard-core Bond fans really stay away, or are these empty threats? Our hunch is that EON will stay with Craig and milk the "controversy" for all its worth.
'Karla', the controversial film about the infamous Canadian killers Karla Homolka and Paul Bernardo, is finally coming to Canadian screens on January 20th. However, according to the Ottawa Sun News, Montreal-based Christal Films will adjust the marketing, promotion and playdates due to the sensitive nature of the film's subject matter.
According to the article, the film will be advertised on television, but will not be trailered in theaters. Plans for a premiere have also been scrapped. Additionally, the film will not be shown in St. Catherines, Ontario, where the murders actually took place.
The film has been the subject of scrutiny since its announcement:
The movie has been the subject of intense debate. It was pulled from the Montreal World Film Festival last year after sponsors, including Air Canada, complained. Passions were rekindled when Homolka was released from her Montreal-area prison last July and became the subject of a media frenzy. And Premier Dalton McGuinty urged Ontarians to boycott it.
There's no word yet if a U.S. distribution deal is in place.
Lions Gate's $14.1 million loss for the Second Quarter of 2005 is mostly attributed to a $26 million dollar loss from marketing the late summer releases 'Lord of War' and 'The Devil's Rejects,' Reuters reports.
According to company statements, Lions Gate spent a combined $35 million to market both titles, but neither of them generated the theatrical revenues to make up for the spend. However, the studio is still confident that they can make up the deficit on the home video front. That is, of course, if they can keep the additional marketing spend required for the home video release under check.
In analyzing the marketing-to-production spend for these movies, you can see why the industry is freaking out about rising marketing costs. The combined production budgets for both of these films was approximately $49 million dollars (roughly $42 million for 'Lord of War' and $7 million for 'The Devil's Rejects' according to IMDBpro.com). That would put the marketing costs at around 71% of the production budget -- an alarming figure at any rate.
Consider for a moment what Dawn Taubin was quoted as saying when interviewed for in article about the recent Warner Bros. layoffs:
"Marketing costs are just skyrocketing, and if we don't address this we are going to put ourselves out of business"
That 71% percent the Lions Gate spent looks even worse when you compare it to marketing spend figures touted in that same New York Times article:
Consider this: the average cost to market a film domestically in 2004 was $34 million, roughly half the $64 million average price tag to make one, according to the Motion Picture Association of America. Blockbusters cost even more to market: as much as $60 million.
Given Lions Gate's strategy of marketing lower budget pictures as if they were bigger releases, they could potentially get themselves into a whole heap-o-trouble with even a minor slump...
General Mills will be giving away coupons for free Movielink downloads as cereal box promotions, according to the Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal. The $5 coupons will be in specially marked boxes of Honey Nut Cheerios, Lucky Charms, Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Golden Grahams, among others. The code will allow the customer to rent a digital version of the movie of their choice for 30 days, according the the article.
A joint venture of Paramount, Sony, Universal Studios and Warner Bros., Movielink's content is made up of the partnering companies' catalog titles, and they also have non-exclusive distribution agreements with Disney including Miramax) Lions Gate and others.
After many years of being the official "idea before its time," Movielink's time may have finally arrived. And with consumer acceptance of digital downloads quickly coming to a head, they really need to think about building their brand. Partnering with General Mills gives them the broad exposure outside of their core audience, which until now has probably been tech savvy early adopters. Movielink coupons in boxes of sugar cereals will help them reach teens -- the most voracious of digital content consumers.
According to the 'Kong is King' fan site, Universal is planning to issue a limited edition King Kong MasterCard on October 1st:
The new card, an illustration of Kong on the the front, depicting a poignant moment on Skull Island, is the ultimate design for fans eagerly awaiting the release of the movie. Consumers may pre-register for the card by visiting the official KING KONG movie website and clicking on 'Get the Card' - and in the months leading up to the film, have the opportunity to receive King Kong theatrical updates, sneak-peeks at Limited Edition Kong merchandise and much more.
Universal has had their branded card for several years now, but this is the first time an affinity credit card has been issued to promote a film. The card is part of a broader effort by Universal to cultivate long-term awareness for 'King Kong', and with over 300,000 monthly visitors and 65,000+ forum posts to the Kong is King site, they definitely seem on track.
Brandweek has a nice wrap-up on last week's Star Power Conference. For those of you not in the know, the conference, hosted by the Promotion Marketing Association, helps studio marketing execs meet-up with potential marketing partners. Some key points include:
Mobile marketing to reach the 18-34 segment -- as we all know, reaching this market has become increasingly difficult with the fractured ad landscape. Companies like Fox and Warner Bros. have been using mobile marketing to reach this market with some success, but the main caveat is that the telecoms are still trying to figure out their business models.
Shrinking DVD windows -- This has been a hot-button issue as of late, and the studios have been shuffling around their marketing teams to optimize joint efforts.
Product placement overkill -- to better optimize efforts, companies like Universal are setting caps on promotional partners for titles, especially after the 'Cat in the Hat' promotional partner overkill in 2003.
In a statement released at Cannes today, European culture ministers and film industry execs claimed that the web will be a critical component in freeing Hollywood's grip on their domestic film industries:
"The advent of film online offers immense opportunities for the film industry both with regard to access to new audiences and with regard to wider circulation of European films, including on international markets," they said in a statement.
"Audiences are often currently deprived of access to certain films -- either for geographical reasons or because more artistic or experimental films have difficulty in being screened widely."
Personally, I think this statement reads like its the "world wide web" circa 1996. Online distribution is not a panacea, but rather just another form of "bucket" that content is carried in, just like DVDs, VHS Tapes, and 16mm prints that preceded it. The studios have become adept at using technology, and their adoption of the internet as a marketing channel hasn't been any different. Okay -- I admit, they were initially slow in "getting" it (and a few still haven't), but it would be hard to deny that their online marketing skills are getting better by the day. Realistically, if European countries wish to compete in the digital film distribution arena, they need to be more effective and innovative in finding online audiences than American movie studios. A proprietary content delivery system and quality content are paramount as well...
Posted on Tuesday January 18, 2005 Filed under Movie Marketing
According to Business Wire, Vince McMahon's World Wrestling Entertainment and Stone Cold Steve Austin have come to an agreement for a three-picture deal under the WWE Films banner. The new division is slated to produce 2-4 films a year in-house. Distribution and home video plans have not yet been disclosed.
According to WWE Films Producer Joel Simon, the company will leverage its entire product line to market action and horror flicks to its extensive male fan base:
WWE's investment in its film products will include using all its various media platforms and marketing expertise to promote these films to the public. "There is a synergy within WWE that allows us to put our entire marketing and media infrastructure behind the opening of a WWE movie," stated Simon. "We can promote our movies within our television programming, at our more than 325 annual live events, on the internet, and in our two magazines, "Smackdown" and "Raw", as well as in our many home video and DVD offerings in order to expose our movies to the huge global WWE audience."
Is that the confident, bellicose swagger of a a pro wrestler or a Hollywood exec? We'll see if Hollywood tag-teams 'em or not. They're paying close attention though, since they've been milking the wrestling audience goldmine for years - just check out the WWE site to see the 'Friday Night Lights' ads plastered everywhere to get a taste.
Posted on Tuesday November 30, 2004 Filed under Movie Marketing
According to Mediapost, CNN and Miramax have teamed up for a "multi-platform promotional initiative" for 'The Aviator,' due in theaters December 17. According to the article:
The on-air spots promoting the movie literally take flight on the CNN networks and encourage viewers to log on to CNN.com to learn how to win a trip to experience the glamour of "Old Hollywood" embodied throughout the film.
In addition, branded movie promotional banners will run on CNN.com, directing users to "The Aviator" promotional mini-site, at which they can enter the consumer sweepstakes, watch the movie trailer, and obtain information about the film.
Additionally, a "Making of" featurette will be screening on the CNN Airport Network.
Disney's 'The Incredibles' Uses Extensive Mobile Device Marketing
Posted on Tuesday November 30, 2004 Filed under Movie Marketing
In addition to saturating the planet's TV screens, magazines, newspapers and fast food outlets, it looks like Disney and Pixar are hitting mobile devices hard as well. According to the latest issue of Forbes, mobile device marketing has become integral to the studio's marketing took kit:
Pick up your phone or log onto Disney Mobile, the company's cell-centric Web site, and you can download two dozen Incredibles wallpaper graphics, two new video games and three dozen custom-made ring tones--including one of villain Syndrome growling, "What, you expected a cute little ring?"
However, Disney isn't just interested in marketing movies to kids via cellphones -- they're looking to get into the cellphone game themselves a la Virgin Mobile:
Disney is so enthusiastic about the mobile market that it is getting ready to launch its own cell phone company. For more than a year, company execs have been discussing becoming a "mobile virtual network operator," or MVNO, a model under which a company skips the expensive process of building a national phone network, instead signing on with an existing provider and rebranding its service. A Disney mobile network would allow the company to sell cheap phones, branded with its characters, and provide them with a dedicated, direct marketing channel to kids.
Meanwhile, for all of you movie marketers with a shoestring budget looking to get in on the mobile game, you might want to try the SMS messaging route with a company like Textgram or Phonecaster.
Have a programmer on staff? Maybe you can get them interested in developing some simple content, wallpapers or ringtones using Mobile BASIC, a simple development environment.
'Shaun of the Dead' Marketing Exploits Celebrity Endorsements
Posted on Sunday October 10, 2004 Filed under Movie Marketing
If you've got a genre film to market and find that the only pullquotes you have are obscure at best, you might want to try the approach that Shaun of the Dead recently used -- celebrity testimonials. According to the San Francisco Chronicle:
The hype for "Shaun" deviated from typical preview hoopla: Instead of featuring raves by critics from obscure publications, Rogue Pictures decided to quote heavyweight filmmaker Peter Jackson ("The Lord of the Rings"), who described "Shaun" as "the most entertaining film I've seen all year." Trailers and print ads also feature hosannas from current or past horror film makers Guillermo del Toro ("Hellboy"), Sam Raimi ("Spider-Man," "The Evil Dead") and Robert Rodriguez ("From Dusk Till Dawn").
I remember seeing this technique used on an Indie film from the Tribeca Film Festival a couple of years ago called 'Nine Good teeth,' a documentary about a feisty 100-year old woman. Danny DeVito happened to be in the audience, and the astute producers were able to procure a quote:
"I loved this movie. The thing that disturbs me is that I'm half Nana's age and I've only got four good teeth."--Danny DeVito
An endorsement like that can legitimize an unknown film or help build credibility for genre enthusiasts. Just make sure that you get permission in writing from the person you're quoting.
New Book "Open Wide" Examines the finer points of Hollywood Tentpole Marketing
Posted on Monday October 4, 2004 Filed under Movie Marketing
We don't do regular book reviews or reccomendations here at the Movie Marketing Blog, but the well written and relevant "Open Wide" definitely warrants it.
Written by Dade Hays and Jonathan Bing of Variety, the book painstakingly details the marketing of three "tentpole" titles from last summer: Legally Blonde 2, Terminator 3 and Sinbad. The book's timeliness makes it a must read as the tactics described are all still fresh and relevant to today's marketing environment. And despite the book's focus on Hollywood, indie marketers could learn a thing or two about the overall film marketing process -- especially the chapters covering test screenings, press development and cutting trailers.
For the uninitiated, this book will serve as an excellent primer to the world of big-dollar movie marketing, and the easy-flowing style transcends the "case study" approach of similar books.
Posted on Monday October 4, 2004 Filed under Movie Marketing
Here's a few interesting movie marketing tidbits this Monday morning:
Apparently, the big marketing push for the Kerry biopic Going Upriver by moveon.org failed -- the film only pulled in $303K despite a massive email campaign. [link]
Box Office Prophets has an excellent assessment of the weekend box office numbers.
USA Today has a surprisingly detailed article on the promotional efforts behind the latest Disney/Pixar CGI film The Incredibles. [link]
Lions Gate's thriller Final Cut is slated to be the first major digital release for AMC's new Digital Theatre Distribution System, which bypasses physical prints in favor of digitally beamed versions of the films. [link]
Universal's Marketing Department Gets Schooled the G.E. Way
Posted on Monday September 27, 2004 Filed under Movie Marketing
So we haven't heard much in the media about how the recent Universal acquisition has affected the way they market movies, but this recent article gives some compelling insight on their synergistic exploits:
Universal executives now regularly travel to NBC Universal's offices in New York for quarterly budget reviews and strategic planning sessions, topics that were discussed previously but never with such intensity and frequency. Movie marketing executives are teamed with their counterparts at the NBC television network to find new ways to promote the movies. (The studio had never been aligned with a network.) And Hollywood agents and producers said they were being told by production executives that they must hold the line on costs.
Universal has stumbled so far this year. Can "scientific management" work in the context of movie marketing? The Hollywood story teems with past attempts of mega-corporations at "taming the beast," but history seems to show that the studios operate best as autonomous units. Six Sigma: A Hollywood Studio Learns the G.E. Way | theledger.com
Brand Republic is reporting that Morgan Spurlock will take the lead of an integrated guerrilla marketing effort to coincide with the film's U.K. launch:
Distributor Tartan Films has developed a marketing strategy to target both a mass-market audience and obesity campaigners.
A nationwide consumer push will include guerrilla activity at shopping malls and an outdoor and radio campaign. TV commercials are also being considered.
The film is being co-promoted with the British Heart Foundation, the British Medical Association and Sustain, which lobbies for better food and farming.
The Department of Health has also been asked to put together a panel of experts to talk about the issues raised. This will be filmed and screened in cinemas showing advance previews of the film.
20th Century Fox using 21st Century Sandwich Boards
Posted on Wednesday August 11, 2004 Filed under Movie Marketing
Looks like Fox has been using human billboards wearing T-shirts with embedded LCD screens to promote new releases. This bizarre invention comes from Adam Hollander of Brand Marketers in San Francisco, CA, and from what I've been reading around the net, the premise is this: a "mobile marketer" simply walks up to people in high traffic areas with the shirt showing a special shortened cut of a film's trailer. My guess is that the individual has also memorized some talking points regarding the film and has some sort of flyer to give out as well.
The washington Times reports:
Movie studio 20th Century Fox saw the potential of the shirts and put them to use to promote "I, Robot," starring Will Smith. Last month the T-shirts were worn in 40 to 50 locations in 10 cities, including the District. "Because it's something innovative and different, people want to check it out," said Jeffrey Godsick, executive vice president of marketing for 20th Century Fox. "It really drew people in." The studio is considering using the shirts for future promotions, including for "Taxi." The movie, starring Queen Latifah and Jimmy Fallon, opens in the fall.
The India Times is reporting that the shirts cost roughly $550 apiece. I don't know if this is the manufacturing or retail cost though.
Wellspring Steers Their Own Kind of "Hummer" onto Hollywood Boulevard
Posted on Thursday August 5, 2004 Filed under Movie Marketing
A controversial billboard depicting a key sex scene in 'The Brown Bunny' has been generating quite a bite of publicity for the film's upcoming theatrical release. However, Wellspring, the film's distributor, has a long way to go before it digs Vincent Gallo's film out from under the massive mountain of bad publicity that it garnered last year. Dubbed the "worst Film at Cannes" by many prominent critics, the film sparked a venomous back-and-forth argument between Gallo and critic Roger Ebert.
The billboard has accomplished two critical things:
First, it has generated a massive amount of print publicity (articles in the New York Times, L.A. Times, and countless others) that is easily worth more than the $50,000 cost of the billboard.
Second, the attention has been shifted away from the nearly insurmountable wall of critical disdain towards the most talked about element in the film - the sex scene involving Gallo and Chloe Sevigny. One trick pony or not, that is the one big marketing hook that will get even the most jaded hipster's butt into the theater.
And as far as the risk of a public backlash is concerned, the billboard's not in Kentucky or Ohio -- it's in L.A., the home turf of the porno industry. And while I think Wellspring's notion that the ad's "no worse than a Calvin Klein ad" pretty ridiculous, we all know that an "incensed public" will only create a self-perpetuation of interest.
My biggest concern -- Wellspring has a "classy" brand image, and however you want to spin it, this campaign is the antithesis of classy. What would Sony Pictures Classics or New Yorker Films do?
Declining Novel Readership and its Effect on Movie Marketing
Posted on Wednesday August 4, 2004 Filed under Movie Marketing
The Hollywood Reporter has an excellent, must-read article about the effect of declining readership among adults, and the effects on movie marketers has different implications than you might think. For example, the real boon from securing a book's rights isn't the large reader base:
Actually, people who read novels may be the wrong audience to bring into theaters opening weekend. Having read the book, they know the story that's supposed to be on the screen and that probably isn't going to be there. People who have read the book are likely to leave a movie theater and tell others that the film wasn't as good as the book or, worse yet, that so many of the good things in the book never made it into the movie. There are reasons for this, of course, that reflect the differences between writing novels and making films.
The article goes on to discuss some of the marketing benefits of securing literary properties, including the benefit of a coherent thematic "spine", and the substantial publicity "hooks" that will help differentiate the film in an otherwise crowded marketplace:
Having a best-selling novel as the basis for a movie provides a publicity hook for the initial media coverage of the project. It gives a project a legitimacy that an original doesn't usually have, unless it happens to be the product of a high profile screenwriter and an A List director. Just the fact that a novel is being turned into a movie sets in motion a chain of media coverage that invariably centers on how the book will have to be changed to become a movie, how its author feels about Hollywood making those changes, who will or won't or should or shouldn't be cast in the film and how the author really feels down deep inside about those particular actors. Novelists whose affection for Hollywood diminishes once the check cashing ritual is over, can and often do take full advantage of the media's interest in pursuing such stories.
So does this new climate make much difference for movie marketers? On the studio side, the penchant for following risk-averse, homogenized properties will most likely continue, while many smaller producers will continue to pick up books that they like. Would you ever expect to see a David Foster Wallace film from Sony? Not Likely, but someone at Plum Pictures has plans to make one. At their investment level, they don't need the marketing clout of a name familiar to the general public, but rather, one that resonates with an audience whose sensibilities match those of the producers'. This is where the notion of business and art clash; as opposed to constructing a film out of a marketing hook, these indie producers create films that they would like to see, and leave it to others to figure out how to market it. It's a gamble that, for all practical purposes, rarely pays off, but when it does, we get films like 'The Godfather.'
For a movie marketer, the real challenge is not getting a neatly packaged product easy for consumption. Instead, they crave to work on marketing plans that leave no blog unturned, no niche publication unconsiderered and no potential butt-in-the-seat forgotten. And in an era of massive audience dissonance, these are the marketers that will be successful.
Today's Must Read: Ten Movie Marketing Lessons from the Release of 'Fahrenheit 9/11'
Posted on Wednesday June 30, 2004 Filed under Movie Marketing
I'm assuming that most of you movie marketers out there already read Variety and The Hollywood Reporter. But in case you missed it somehow, here's a great article discussing the film's marketing strategy. Don't have time to read it? Here's the recipe I found in an old craft services cookbook of mine:
Marketing a la Michael Moore (Serves half of a polarized electorate)
Preheat oven to 451 degrees.
Ingredients:
1 heaping dose of controversy
1 1/2 villains (colorful preferred)
1/2 cup of audience naivety
2 independent-minded distributors
1 chunk of easily manipulated media
In a separate bowl, mix controversy with a whole villain. Take the chunk of media and break it into smaller pieces (you probably won't be able to separate it into less than six conglomerates) and lay the chunks on a baking sheet. Handily saturate the media with your mixture, manipulating the concoction for at least 2 months. Fold in the 1/2 villain slowly (if you're using the Eisner variety, it could sour the whole batch.) Finally, grease the mixture with the audience naivety and top with the distributors.
Bake for 15 days -- don't let your eye off of the calendar as timing is everything here.
Upon removing from oven, garnish with a healthy dose of GOP anger. For best results, present a thick sample slice to an international film festival, preferably Cannes.
Serving suggestion: Due to the overwhelming response your dish may get from guests, we recommend pairing it with lighter fare (see page 48 for our 'White Chicks' recipe.)
'Notebook' ups the "sneak-peek" ante with a Week of Teasers
Posted on Wednesday June 16, 2004 Filed under Movie Marketing
New Line has tweaked the emerging "extended teaser" advertising technique and will air sneak peeks of their upcoming film 'Notebook' all week. Up until now, most teasers have aired only once during primetime alongside shows with broad appeal (like "The Apprentice"). New Line will deviate from this tactic by showing the clips during daytime on The Learning Channel. My guess - TLC's viewer demographics probably fit closer with the anticipated demos for the film, providing a better ROI and reducing marketing expenses.
The marketing buzz surrounding 'Fahrenheit 911' is already blazing hot, and recent revelations of Republican shenanigans stand to take it up a few degrees. A boycott website called "Stop Michael Moore," ostensibly ran by a citizen's group called "Move America Forward," is in actuality controlled by the GOP-friendly PR firm Russo Marsh & Rogers. Atrios, a political blog, pointed out this fact after they looked up the registrant of the domain name, which turned out to be RM&R. The firm was the publicity arm of the successful effort to recall California Governor Gray Davis last year, and they work almost exclusively with the Republican party.
The boycott website lists contact information for the theaters that currently have the film booked. Here's an excerpt for you:
This movie is nothing more than a political campaign advertisement against the war on terrorism, our troops and President Bush. So why on earth are ANY movie theaters showing this film? "Fahrenheit 9/11" should be shown as a recruiting video for Al-Qaeda, not in our movie theaters. Please join us in telling the movie theater companies below your opinion as it relates to their attempt to profit from the showing of "Fahrenheit 9/11."
This last line was somewhat cryptic, especially considering it's placement right above the theater contact information:
We would like to thank those individuals at Lions Gate Entertainment and IFC Films who support our efforts.
Did somebody at Lion's Gate or IFC drop the exhibitor list in Russo Marsh & Rogers' Laps?
It's a brave new film marketing world, and if you rock the boat, political parties and corporations will fire back with millions of dollars in ad spending to discredit your work and film. but how will these anti-Moore efforts pan out? Their tactics will only build awareness for the film, which will in turn increase demand for tickets. In fact, IFC/Lion's Gate had to set up an online group ticket sales site early in order to meet the intense demand. Exhibitors are seeing dollar signs, and nothing short of death threats and mob violence will get them to change their booking now.
Looks like spidey is going to add a bright blue vest to his costume in the coming weeks when he begins his stint at the local Wal-Mart. He won't actually be there in person, but he will be available as a backdrop in the portrait studio.
It would be much cooler if you could get a picture with the ol' web-slinger in the flesh, but costumes at hundred of locations is beyond even the hefty marketing budget of this flick.
From the bases at Yankee stadium to the wallet-sized photo in Uncle Frank's wallet, Spiderman is quickly gaining the power of omnipresence. Next episode: "Spidey versus the oversaturation monster!"
Paramount Sexes Up Condoleeza and Hillary in new "Stepford Wives" Spot
Posted on Wednesday June 9, 2004 Filed under Movie Marketing
Okay -- we all know that to get attention for your movie these days, simply throwing a few trailers on primetime TV isn't going to cut it -- that is, unless you show some cleavage. Or better yet, celebrity cleavage. And that's just what Paramount has done with their new 'Stepford Wives' spot featuring Condoleeza Rice and Hillary Clinton. According to KMBC of Kansas City:
...the spot, which is running on Channel 9, includes an image of Rice made to look nude from the waist up, and a picture of Clinton that morphs into what looks like a cookie-baking Stepford wife. The pictures move across the screen very quickly, but they caught the eye of a local woman, who recorded the spot to make sure of what she was seeing.
Now I know that 'The Stepford Wives' isn't getting very good word of mouth right now, but was it really worth it to take on Condoleeza and Hillary? Those guys and gals at paramount have some cajones...
Here's a link to that news broadcast if you want to see the naughty parts of the trailer.
With all of the press attention fake movie websites are getting these days, I thought it would be interesting to build a timeline of all of those that I could find. This timeline includes both "hoax" style sites (sites mimicking the look and feel of a real company/institution) and fake fan sites.
1998 -- The Blair Witch Project. The one that started the sub-genre and ignited the interest in internet marketing for films. Released by Artisan Entertainment, the film went on to gross $140,539,099 domestically.
January 2000 -- Finemann Films -- A fake film company website appeared in tandem with a major national print buy promoting the 30th anniversary of the company. The site was actually a promotional vehicle for the Jerry Stiller film 'The Independent.' Released by Arrow Films, the film grossed $238,000 domestically.
March 2000 -- Firstpiece.com -- A fan site rumored to be fake. Creation was concurrent with the publicity ramp-up of 'American Pie.' The film was released by Universal Pictures, and went on to gross $101,800,900 domestically.
June 2000 -- Watch Us Dorm -- A fake "webcam voyeur site" used to promote an indie horror film. The film never secured theatrical distribution.
April 2001 -- Bangalore World University -- One of many fake sites that sprang up to build buzz and backstory for the film 'A.I. - Artificial Intelligence.' Released by Warner Brothers, the film grossed $78,616,689 domestically.
May 2001 -- "National Blonde Day" -- A fake association site used to promote the film 'Legally Blonde.' It was updated last year to promote the sequel as well. Released by MGM, the film went on to gross $96,520,674 domestically.
October 2003 -- Lacuna, Inc. -- A fake medical facility that purports to erase unpleasant memories. Created to promote the film 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.' Released by Focus Features, the film has grossed $33,560,352 domestically so far.
January 2004 -- Kingdom Hospital of Maine -- A fake hospital website to promote the TV miniseries "Kingdom Hospital." -- The ABC show has recently fared poorly in the ratings, and will be cancelled after the remaining four episodes air this July.
February 2004 -- The Godsend Institute -- another fake medical facility, this time purporting to be able to "clone lost loved ones." Used to promote the film 'Godsend.' Released by Lions Gate Films, the movie has grossed $14,262,583 domestically so far.
February 2004 -- Katz, Cohen & Phelps -- a fake law firm site used to promote the film 'Laws of Attraction.' Released by New Line, the film has grossed $17,755,992 to date.
April 2004 -- I Robot Now, Inc. -- a fake technology company purporting to sell robots. Created to promote the upcoming release of 'I, Robot.' The film will be released by 20th Century Fox, and will be in theaters July 16th, 2004.
May 2004 -- "Eric Bruderman Webpage." Purports to be a "secret" site where war footage is leaked. Probably created to promote the release of the film 'September Tapes,' which is scheduled for release by First Look Pictures this fall.
Some of these may take a while to load since I pulled the links from archive.org.
This list is by no means complete -- especially in the timeframe between late 2001 - late 2002. if you have a site you know of or have a link to, let me know so I can add it...
Hollywood's efforts to recreate the viral marketing success of "The Blair Witch Project" have been lackluster at best. So it doesn't surprise me that an indie film company may have beat them to the punch. First Look Media, the company behind "The Prophecy" and "Waking Ned Devine," may have a word-of-mouth and internet-driven hit with their upcoming film "September Tapes."
The film, apparently a blend of fact and fiction, chronicles the efforts and subsequent capture of a documentary director in Afghanistan. Fake or not, their recent viral email campaign released a clip that looks more real than network news footage. Think "Blair Witch meets Saving Private Ryan."
First Look has combined this footage with a cryptic, shadowy website (obviously done for peanuts) that really lends to the intrigue. It seems like a viral email regarding the site and a "leaked" film clip is spreading like wildfire, too. Even with a bit of research, I still can't figure out what's real, what's fake and if the director was ever actually kidnapped while filming in Afghanistan. First Look ain't making it any easier, either. According to this article, First Look's keeping mum about the whole campaign. Here's their "official line" regarding the film:
"September Tapes" provides a rare and controversial look behind the scenes of war-torn Afghanistan, where documentary filmmaker Don Larson traveled to the troubled country six months after 9/11 and followed a bounty hunter on the trail of Osama bin Laden. Much of the films footage was held by the U.S. Department of Defense after Larson went missing in Afghanistan. It is the first non-Afghani film shot in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban, and it is also the first feature shot in an active war zone."
If the rest of the film looks as good as the trailer, we might have a sleeper hit on our hands in August.
Once a film marketing strategy is drafted and approved, thousands of man-hours are spent developing posters, trailers and other collateral work. An interesting article appeared in today's Long Beach Press-Telegram covering these unsung movie marketing heroes and the work they do -- companies like Aspect Ratio, Poster Child, Gas Station Zebra, Trailer Park, Midnight Oil and the Ant Farm.
For capsule summaries of some of these companies, here's a good overview from the Hollywood Reporter.
One interesting tidbit from the article:
Nielsen MonitorPlus reports that advertising spending by the studios and major independents hit nearly $3.3 billion last year, an increase of $200 million from 2002. And with increases in advertising rates and the demands of standing out in a media-saturated universe, all signs point to it continuing to rise.
looks like really good news for our unsung heroes...
Having personally broken free from the 18-24 demographic some years ago, I was happy to read in yesterday's LA Times that Hollywood is focusing on making and marketing films geared towards adults. But will it work?
I admit -- this year I'm eager to see what's coming down the pike, although I have a sinking suspicion that it's more about erstwhile memories of past summers and the chilly blast of 100,000 btus. But will adults outside the "film freak set" actually get around to catching more than one or two summer films? According to a recent MPAA survey, Hollywood might just be on to something:
According to the Motion Picture Assn. of America, the number of moviegoers ages 50 to 59 rose 20% between July 2002 and last July, making them the fastest-growing segment in the market. Even among "frequent moviegoers," who head for theaters at least once a month, the over-40s are nearly one-third of the pie (compared with 42% for the 12-to-24 bracket.)
Today's opening of the R-rated 'Troy' will be the first test. I'm feeling good with an estimate in the $63-$65 million range. Check out the Weekend Warrior's predictions if you get a chance -- he's the "Jimmy the Greek" of box office prophecies in my opinion.
I'll have some early numbers for you here on both Saturday and Sunday morning.
Once the kiss of death for box office success, the MPAA "R" rating is no longer a liability (unless you're Disney, of course.) Recent releases such as 'Matrix: Reloaded' and 'Passion of the Christ' show that there's big money to be made with mature-themed films.
However, with the lines of demarcation between "adult" and "youth" films becoming more clearly defined, theatrical film marketers face the same challenge that the TV business deals with -- the loss of the broad-based audience.
One emerging solution might be the "R-card" -- a parental approval system that enables older teens to see R-rated films. A relatively new phenomenon, the R-card was first introduced by the GKC theater chain in the Midwest over the past several months. Basically, a parent signs a waiver that enables their child to receive a photo ID that allows access to R-rated films without accompaniment.
The trick with this method would be to make getting one of the cards "cool." If awareness can be built up, most teens would jump at the chance at a new status symbol. Maybe the MPAA should partner with Tremor and Regal in developing some kind of program.
Novelty promotions are continuing unabated. It looks like Columbia Pictures will conduct heavy branding and event marketing in major league ballparks to promote the June 30th release of 'Spiderman II.' While there's a long history of sponsorship between the business world and sports, this is the most extensive cross-marketing campaign undertaken by MLB in a while, and the first in promoting a film. According to ESPN:
As part of a marketing alliance between Major League Baseball Properties, Columbia Pictures and Marvel Studios, webbed logos of the upcoming film "Spider-Man 2" will appear on bases and on-deck circles in 15 stadiums of teams playing host to inter-league games June 11-13.
With MLB struggling to gain younger fans, the move isn't surprising. However, with baseball fans, the notion of the "sanctity of tradition" could provoke a backlash (It surprised me that the "Passion of the Christ" NASCAR sponsorship blew over). Many fans might be thinking along these lines:
Some will say this reinforces the convergence of sports and entertainment, while others will suggest the only thing converging is bad taste," said David Carter, principal of The Sports Business Group, a sports marketing firm.
The "extended preview" bandwagon continues to fill up. ABC will air a ten minute sneak preview of 'Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban,' the latest installment in the series.
The extended clip will follow the broadcast debut of 'Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone' scheduled to air on ABC May 9th.
The segment will be a prelude to an HBO "behind the scenes" special to air in late May. The film is scheduled for release on June 4th.
According to TVweek.com, the video-on-demand battle for mind share has heated up. Their recent article analyzing the competition arising from satellite's DVR push gives some interesting insights into recent VOD strategy changes. A quick summary:
Universal Television is considering reducing the VOD release window to day-and-date parity on select titles, with the remaining windows being reduced from 45 to 30 days or less.
TV Guide Channel is creating special 2 minute promos to boost VOD buy rates. Preliminary testing shows a 39% increase in buys.
Mag Rack utilizes local, affinity marketing events to draw niche viewers like the recent event promoting 'School of Rock.'
So far I'm most impressed with the day-and-date parity approach from Universal. How long before we see overlapping theatrical/VOD releases? The recent success of a concurrent theatrical/DVD release of 'Lost in Translation' shows that it may be viable.
Online voting is now available for the 33rd annual Key Art Awards. According to their site, the Key Art Awards are:
...the only international competition honoring the professionals who create movie advertising, including theatrical trailers, posters, TV commercials, Internet ads and more. It's the work of these individuals that often determines a film's box office success and chances for Oscar consideration. The Key Art Awards ceremony has become a cornerstone event in the movie marketing community, annually attracting a "who's who"of motion picture executives and creative professionals from every corner of the industry.
The term "key art" is industry jargon for the main pieces of collateral supporting a movie's release -- posters, stills, etc.
I've heard of the awards before, but I never knew about the online voting. This looks like the second year that they're doing it.
Here's a summary of who I voted for:
Best Poster, Comedy: 'Lost in Translation'
Best Poster, Drama: 'American Splendor'
Best Poster, Action/Adventure: 'Pirates of the Caribbean'
Best Trailer, Comedy: 'Lost in Translation'
Best Trailer, Drama: 'Mystic River'
Best Trailer, Action/Adventure: 'Kill Bill Volume I'
I thought the 'Lost in Translation' campaign was brilliant, but perhaps it just struck a chord with my demo...
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.
According to recent reports on 
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Lionsgate and Warcon Records teaming up next month to put on a ‘Saw III’-themed live music show in support of the upcoming feature film and soundtrack.
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The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) announced the launch of a new online consumer panel called “My Movie Muse” today. According to their release, the site will allow interested, qualified consumers to register so that they can participate in online surveys on issues affecting the organization’s member companies, including topics such as theater attendance, home video rental, advertisements, and piracy. The site plans on commissioning quarterly generalized surveys, and will also conduct “one-off” surveys that relate to specific demographic groups as the need arises.
According to a 
'Karla', the controversial film about the infamous Canadian killers Karla Homolka and Paul Bernardo, is finally coming to Canadian screens on January 20th. However, according to the Ottawa Sun News, Montreal-based Christal Films will adjust the marketing, promotion and playdates due to the sensitive nature of the film's subject matter.
Lions Gate's $14.1 million loss for the Second Quarter of 2005 is mostly attributed to a $26 million dollar loss from marketing the late summer releases 'Lord of War' and 'The Devil's Rejects,' 
General Mills will be giving away coupons for free Movielink downloads as cereal box promotions, according to the 
If you've got a genre film to market and find that the only pullquotes you have are obscure at best, you might want to try the approach that 
Here's a few interesting movie marketing tidbits this Monday morning:
A controversial billboard depicting a key sex scene in 'The Brown Bunny' has been generating quite a bite of publicity for the film's upcoming theatrical release. However, Wellspring, the film's distributor, has a long way to go before it digs Vincent Gallo's film out from under the massive mountain of bad publicity that it garnered last year. Dubbed the "worst Film at Cannes" by many prominent critics, the film sparked a venomous back-and-forth argument between Gallo and critic Roger Ebert. 
Online voting is now available for the 33rd annual Key Art Awards. According to their site, the Key Art Awards are:
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