Marketing a movie: it's a win-win for everyone

Having good marketing skills is the trick to avoiding an unpleasant experience at the movie theater. Then again, you still have to follow through after hyping up the movie. One of the five peculiarities that Drake outlines is that “admission might buy the social experience of cinemagoing rather than to see the particular film." In my opinion, this basically explains that some people go see a movie simply for the purpose of going out and being with people. It’s understandable. I’ve done it before. For example, I dated a girl once that made me go see "Sorority Row" with her. Yikes. That was awful. Just awful. Almost as bad as "Prom Night," which my roommate and his girlfriend were watching on Sunday morning for some reason. Anyway, Drake goes on to explain that cinemagoing can be a risky business for both the consumer and for the film financers. It’s risky for the consumer because they might see a terrible movie at the price of both the film and the social experience. It’s risky for the financer because they can’t change the ticket prices based on how good or bad the movie is.

Movie marketing helps reduce the peculiarity of this experience and the very first thing I thought of when I saw this part of the question is the midterm exam that I wrote for class a couple of weeks ago. I wrote about "Paranormal Activity 3" and in it I talked about how they marketed the film. They hyped the movie up so much through social media sites like Twitter and Facebook that they had people flocking to the theaters. The contest on Twitter was to “Tweet your scream” and the city with the most responses got special access to see the movie first. It was a great idea because it took the film to a national level. In fact, Melbourne, Australia was one of the cities that won. The strategy helped the financers and producers make big bucks because the movie only cost $5 million to make but they netted over $50 million in the first weekend because they did a tremendous job of marketing it. In addition, the film got pretty good reviews. Therefore, it’s a win-win for consumers and financers. Financers make money and consumers see a good movie while enjoying a pleasurable movie-going experience.