The Lengthy Process of Hyping a Movie

Drake’s third peculiarity of Hollywood states that film revenues are streamed across a long span of time.  In essence, movie marketing is essential in the continued strive for public consumption.  To begin, marketing is paramount in attracting the public to see the movie in theaters.  Drake explains that opening weekend is now huge, accounting for nearly 50% of the movies revenue during its time in theaters.  Furthermore, a successful opening weekend likely ensures a lengthier stay in theaters, which in turn continues to help ticket revenue.  That being said, the movie must have thoughtful and well-planned marketing, advertising, and publicity to generate a “buzz” for the film.  Whether this is through hyping a particular star like Brad Pitt, another film in a series such as Toy Story, or promoting an acclaimed director, there is an obvious necessity to generate a public excitement toward the release of the film.

The importance of movie marketing doesn’t end after opening weekend.  After the first four days, almost every movie changes their marketing strategy to reflect either the success of the film or critic’s reviews.  I can’t think of seeing a movie that didn’t have a commercial stating it was, “now the number one comedy in America”! Or “Roger Ebert calls this movie a timeless classic”.  No matter the case, each film attempts to continue to get the public in the theater through this second-round advertising.

Still, advertising and publicity attempts do not end when the plug is pulled on movie screenings.  After this stay in theaters, the publicity and marketing team must discover the best way to develop excitement for the DVD release, or movie’s soundtrack.  DVD revenue accounts for a bulk of the success of the film, and successful marketing is likely to lead to a more successful revenue stream.

Quite clearly, choosing the correct marketing strategy is very important to establishing a successful film.  Using a solid strategy such as publicizing the known stars of the film help to minimize the risk associated with a film’s production.  In this regard, the die-hard followers of this actor or actress will be likely to attend the theater, no matter what genre of film it may be.  However, there are certainly some risks that still hold true.  For example, the 2005 average cost of marketing was nearly 36 million.  It is important to be able to manage this money in an intelligent way.  If you market the movie in a way that generates little buzz, you will have wasted that money without generating success at the box office.  Furthermore, there is also the prospect of under-marketing.  Some films hit theaters with relatively few ads, and few interviews with popular TV shows or magazines.  That can be equally as troubling, as the public may be less inclined to see a movie they have heard almost nothing about.

Therefore, it is truly a balancing act.  The publicity and marketing team must analyze the framing of the film and determine the best way to market the picture to the public.

I thought this link was perfect, as Will Ferrell recently went on Conan to announce Anchorman 2.  Fit perfectly with trying to already generate a "buzz" for the film.

Anchorman 2

1.) As a publicist, have there been any stations or people in particular that you or the production crew has steered clear of?  Was there ever a time when the publicity department knew to stay away from a particularly hazardous interview or one that could generate negative buzz?

2.)  How much say does the talent actually have in the publicity department?  Specifically, do the stars of the film get to decide whom they want to be interviewed by, or how much they want to publicize the movie through TV shows, magazines or newspapers?

3.)That being said, is there one particular medium that you prefer to channel your publicity through?  Do you think magazines, per say, are better publicity than TV or is it all relative?

A Film Can Never be Fully Consumed

The Hollywood film industry is often seen as being an extremely risky business.  This is partially because the market for Hollywood films operates under what economists refer to as, “asymmetric information”.  What this means is that the film industry runs on incomplete information between producers and consumers which in turn leads to problems in predicting the success or failure of a film.  This often leads to a film being either a hit or a total disaster. 

Marketing and advertising are crucial to the success of a film.  Over the past two decades there has been a substantial increase in the amount of money spent of marketing and the creation of a film release schedule in order to reduce being forced out by other films or products. 

In the reading Distribution and Marketing in Contemporary Hollywood, Philip Drake presented five peculiarities of Hollywood films as cultural goods.  The point that I find to be the most fascinating is that the consumption of a film does not exhaust it.  A film can be watched a million times over by millions and millions of people and the film will never ‘deplete’ itself preventing other viewers from watching the film.  I believe this peculiarity causes the most stress on film makers.  A majority of our cultural products have the potential of eventually being used up, therefore preventing other people from using the product.  For example, toothpaste.  A person goes to the store buys a tube of toothpaste and within a month or so the toothpaste is all gone and the person needs to go out to the store and buy another tube. 

A lot of products we have in our society can be used up and prevent other people from using them, however, this is not the case for films.  Because of this, Hollywood has to pour billions of dollars into the marketing and advertising of its films.  Without the use of marketing and advertising, urging people to be at the cinema on opening day, a majority of people would not see the need to go see the films because the film will always exist and the person can just see it some other time.  Hollywood needs to spend a lot of money in order to create hype around the movie to get people excited.  It’s a very tough job to create hype, but one way or another Hollywood manages to do it.  According to The New York Times, last weekend, “The Hunger Games” raked in $155 million in North America and according to The Movie Banter, only spent $40 million on marketing.  That’s pretty good if you ask me!

Questions for Kacey Hagler

1) Many of the Fox Searchlight films you have worked on started out as independent films, as far as I know, and most of them became huge successes! What kind of publicity went into making them so successful?

2) When you work on publicity for films, such as The Help, do you focus on targeting a specific audience?  And if so, how do you select the audience you want to target?

3) Is doing publicity for a movie that is a sequel (Cars 2) a lot harder than publicity for an original movie?

Super Market Sweep: Product Placements & Mobile Devices Influence on the Point of Purchase

The Point of Purchase, or P-O-P, is the instance a consumer arrives at the shelves to select a product of want or need. This moment is very important to brands as it can either solidify or persuade consumers away from competitors. Most research focuses on the affect advertising has on the P-O-P. Also, traditional P-O-P is often times affected by the product shelf placement due to brand-market negotiations. But, at what point does traditional product placement on the shelf and branding influence on consumers’ P-O-P psychology? Also, how has and will the mobile device culture change the consumer's experience at the P-O-P? 

These questions are what I intend to research for my final project. I believe the psychological implications of the traditional P-O-P are in transition due to the new purchasing and interactive capabilities of mobile devices. I want to pull on best practices of the new mobile campaigns performed from major brands such as Procter & Gamble in order to see how this is affecting and changing the P-O-P experience. I intend to look at how QR-Codes are being integrated into these digital campaigns as well as into the traditional marketing aspects (branding, OOH, & print advertising). Moreover, I hope to research how mobile app designers are utilizing GPS as a means of delivering discounts, advertisements, etc. to consumer the moment they walk through the market door. My intent is to discover the psychological and ethical implications of these new P-O-P mechanisms and how advertisers are finding synergy between the traditional and innovative.

For my final research project, I want to see how P-O-P is negotiated in the business, digital and the psychological spaces. The mobile culture has had an incredible leap due to the smart phone creation and it is time for more research to be done in this area. Also, the intersection of the digital and physical space in the context of mobile culture could not be better observed than at the P-0-P.

Using Marketing to offset level ticket prices

When it comes to pricing goods outside of the cinema industry, price discriminating is a huge factor in determining the cost to consumers. If you are selling a superior product or luxury item, you can increase the price because people will be will to pay more for the quality. If you are selling a cheaply made good, you have to change less because it not worth the money to consumers. When it comes to the movie industry all ticket prices are equal. Whether a films budget was over 200 million dollars with an Oscar winning scrip and big name actors or a simply shot on a camcorder and edited using an ipad, the cost at the box office is the same.

The article uses Spider-Man as an example often as a big blockbuster with a massive marketing budget. This film had high price actors, digitally laborious special effects, and needed filming permits in NYC which are not inexpensive. These are high sunk costs. Thus to turn a profit it was necessary to have a large marketing budget to ensure the films success (i.e. you need to spend money to make money). By launching a wide scale marketing approach that encompassed TV, print media, food industries, press appearances, ect. Producers were able to get the word out about the film. The article points out that a strong showing at the box office makes up only 15% of the films total revenue, that 15% sets the tone for the ancillary profits. Spider-Man dominated at the box office and thus kids wanted the DVD’s and merchandise that came with it. Also, due to it’s success sequels were put into production, which are producers safest bets for profits. After reading this article it is clear why some super heroes get sequels and it is because they are simply more marketable.

On the flip side a movie like My Big Fat Greek Wedding the chances of a net loss were slim. They had little to no marketing budget to speak of. Their distribution costs were low because it slowly spread across the country. Advertisement for the film was through word of mouth. Since the film was mostly unknown at the start, moviegoers may have been apprehensive about spending the nine dollars for a ticket; but if their friend recommends the movie that is better advertisement that any TV spot. A consumer is much more likely to trust their friend opinion than a flashy trailer. My Big Fat Greek Wedding is the largest grossing independent film of all time. To conclude, a movie does not need a ton of marketing to be successful, but if a significant investment has been made towards a film a marketing plan is necessary to protect those investments.

Ticket Prices: the equalizers of film

The price of tickets for all films is exactly the same. This is one of the things that is unusual about Hollywood films. No matter the amount of production, or marketing money put in, the price is still the same at theaters. If ticket prices were more on a scale for what films cost to make (i.e. more expensive films = more expensive tickets and vice versa) or perhaps on how much the exhibitor paid to obtain the films, popular movies would completely change. For example, if this were the case lesser known films would be more popular since they would be cheaper to see. While films that generally cost more would probably try to cut down their budgets in order to compete with lesser films. In a system where ticket prices are exactly the same price, there is a level playing field. The only decision is which films people want to see and that is created by accessibility and marketing. A film gets seen that is actually showing in theaters, that is the first step: access to a film. The second is more complicated. Because it is a level playing field, and movie making is an expensive risk, films are advertised and marketed as much as possible. There are trailers, web advertisements, billboards, interviews, posters, merchandise and more. All of these things create a buzz that must not only get people to make the choice to go see a particular film in theaters but also create revenue after the film is done. The more a marketing team is able to spread the word in as many different facets of the media as possible, the better the film will do, and therefore make it more likely to be seen in theaters. So with ticket prices being the same for all films, it just comes down to which has the buzz and is marketed better.

A good example of this process was with Disney/Pixar's Cars 2. This is a sequel, thereby creating a franchise out of the Cars series, which also makes it a more likely choice for audiences to see. Before Cars 2 came out, Toys R Us, Walmart, and the Disney Stores all had toys, clothing, and other merchandise with the film. This created a buzz for the film as audiences saw returning characters and new characters. With Disney's global mobility, the film was also able to be heavily marketed outside the United States as well. All of these marketing techniques created a success story for Cars 2 when it finally came out in theaters.