Facebook Enters the Movie Business

Universal Pictures has decided to take movie marketing in a new director for its latest horror film "Untraceable." In the movie, a serial killer has a website that cannot be traced by law enforcement officials. On the website, the killer performs violent and graphic murders live, for the entire internet to view.

In an interesting new approach to marketing, Universal Pictures teamed up with Facebook to create a "Kill With Me" page where the number of fans that visit the page determines how much of the graphic footage from the film will be shown.  According to an article posted on UTalkMarketing.com, "[this tactic] was accompanied by a Facebook-only banner campaign, warning visitors not to visit the page in question ." 

"Facebook has since removed the page explaining in a statement to Universal that it contravened their policy not to allow pages that are 'hateful, threatening, or obscene.'” Also, the banners have been altered so that when clicked, they redirect the viewer to a different website with the torture scenes available for viewing."If the site receives over 10,000 visits before ‘Untraceable’s UK release on Friday, February 29 it will be updated to show the entire first 10 minutes of the film."

Movie marketing has changed incredibly over the last few years, aiming to become more tech-savvy and more easily accessible to movie lovers. Sometimes, as is the case with "Untraceable", the studios take the marketing a step too far. Although it was a great marketing idea to create an interactive website that relates directly to the film, many people, including the regulators of Facebook, found it offensive and inappropriate. 

Does the early bird get the Oscar?

Sunday was the biggest night in hollywood. The Oscars are notorious for being extremely long and saving the best award for last, The Best Picture. 

This year, "No Country For Old Men" not only won best picture, but it also won best best director, best screenplay, and best performance by a supporting actor (Javier Bardem). According to Martin Grove's recent article in The Hollywood Reporter, "No Country For Old Men" won Best Picture because of the remarkable marketing campaign that Miramax implemented in order to promote the film. Grove says that the "campaign started way back before the film opened in limited release last Nov. 9. If anything, "No Country's" win should be a signal to Oscar marketers that campaigning early makes all the sense in the world -- as long as you have a picture that delivers the goods the way "No Country" does."

The article also says that delaying the release of an Oscar contender only causes more problems for the movie because it doesn't give the Academy members enough time to view the films before they leave for winter vacations. So even though some studios might not want to release a movie too soon before the Oscars race in order to keep up the suspence, in the long run it actually helps the movie because if the film is Oscar-worthy, then there is no use in keeping it a secret. 

Paris Hilton Talented? Really?

You would be lying to yourself if you said you had never heard of the one and only Miss Paris Hilton. You would not, on the other hand, be remiss if you were unable to say why exactly she is famous. I`m sure if you asked her, or any Paris-wannabe out there, they would say she's a singer, a runway model, a print model, and, most notably of late, an actress. The 'renaissance woman's' newest project is "The Hottie and The Nottie", a romantic comedy about a young man that tries to woo the love of his life, only to find that he begins to fall in love with her ugly, always-at-her-side best friend. If that doesn't just scream out Best Picture, I don't know what does. 

Eonline!.com's Jefferson Reid posted an article that attempts to answer the question "did Paris' high profile doom the film?" The article quotes Christine Lakin, 'the nottie', about the marketing techniques used in order to reach a large market. Lakin says that "with any project you take, you can't think about reviews and you can't think about the way a studio is going to market a film. I have no control over that. At the end of the day, people either love or hate Paris Hilton, and they will either want to go see the movie or they don’t."

Lakin also says that the film was "marketed as a vanity piece that’s not what you think it is, you think it’s going to be one big music video, and it's not at all. The thing that’s hard about it is I think [Paris] actually does a really nice job. She’s much more relaxed and real then you have ever seen her onscreen. It's very endearing. It's kinda how she is in real life behind the scenes."

So did Paris Hilton's love-her-or-hate-her-reputation cause the demise of her own film? It's quite possible. It is always a risk to bank on your star being the major selling point of a film. With actors like Brad Pitt and George Clooney, you can almost guarantee that their faces on the posters will bring in some highly-desired film-goers, but with a no-talent, good-for-nothing socialite like Paris Hilton, it's a real gamble. I guess that's what the studio gets for putting all it's eggs in one basket.

What's Your Vantage Point?

Columbia Pictures has been working long and hard to promote its newest action-thriller blockbuster Vantage Point, in theaters this friday, February 22nd. The Earth Times writes in this article about the movie that Columbia launched a ground-breaking and innovative promotional plan that involved one of TV's biggest shows, 'Lost', and the biggest TV event of the year, The Superbowl. "A multi-platform, groundbreaking challenge, the Can You Solve the Puzzle Sweepstakes kicks off on January 31 during the season premiere of "Lost." Culminating a week of on-air and online promotion on ABC and abc.com, the network will air a sixty-second spot during the highly rated program. Hidden within the spot is a unique numerical clue that will lead web sleuths tohttp://www.whatisyourvantagepoint.com/ to unlock special "Lost" content." Once viewers get to the website, they have the opportunity to view an "online mosaic composed of thousands of images from the film," where the secret to the puzzle is hidden.

"Valerie Van Galder, president of domestic marketing for the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, said, "We are incredibly excited about this multiplatform promotion, a unique marriage between event television and an immersive online environment. Vantage Point is a film about deciphering different points of view to solve a puzzle or uncover the truth, and given this theme, an interactive challenge seemed a natural fit. Whether people are watching the season premiere of 'Lost,' going frame-by-frame on their DVR to check out the Super Bowl spot, or visiting the Vantage Point site, they are interacting with the movie in the way that people consume media today. And while they are at it, they'll have the chance to enter a sweepstakes.'"The sweepstakes allows participants the opportunity to solve the puzzle as well as be entered to win high definition Handycam video cameras or a high definition TiVo box with a one-year subscription. 

By having a multi-platform marketing plan that involves viewers and welcomes them to be a part of the experience greatly increases the reach of the marketing techniques. Just by checking out the website, you get entered into the sweepstakes to win great prizes, which further solidifies the relationship that the viewer builds with the film. Even if the film is a major flop, at least the marketing team will know they did no wrong.

Will Ferrell is a Marketing Pro

Semi-Pro, the latest installment of Will Ferrell comedies that have swept the nation, is doing something that few other films have done before: mixing real-life movie marketing with brand marketing. The film has Ferrell playing Jackie Moon, the owner/coach/player for the fictional 1970s  Flint, Michigan basketball team The Tropics. Marketers of the film have decided to promote the comedy through various commercial spots for brands such as Old Spice and Bud Light, where Ferrell, in his Jackie Moon get-up, endorses the products through the "cliched athlete-in-the-locker-room ad."

Karl Greenberg writes for Media Post Publications that "in one of the ads, in which [Ferrell] is clearly improvising, he talks about how Old Spice means the world to him. 'Not today's world,' he says. 'The world of yesterfar. When Columbus discovered the world was round. When wild berries grew on every street corner. And gentlemen wore monocles. When cavewomen hunted for food.'"

Many might remember that a similar commercial spot was shown during the Superbowl for Bud Light, in which Ferrell improvises his way through a commercial shoot for the product. 

The marketing team that decided to integrate brand marketing with movie marketing paved the way for future comedies. Not only do these spots increase the reach of Semi-Pro's marketing, they also help create added revenue, if not for the film, at least for the star, Ferrell. 

Although this technique might not work for every film (just imagine "No Country For Old Men" using Javier Bardem in Bud Light ads to promote the film), this is the perfect outlet for a light-hearted comedy who's target audience is exactly the same as that of Old Spice or Bud Light.

Wayne and Garth Really Did Know Best

If you were alive in the 90s at all, then you can probably call to mind with some ease phrases such as "excellent!," "party on!," and "schwing!". If you can't, then you unfortunately haven't experienced the comic genius that is Wayne's World: the SNL skit-turned-major movie success of 1992. Besides being an incredibly hilarious film, Wayne's World pioneered a marketing strategy that reached young males that few other films could manage. 

Deborah Broderson wrote in the St. James Encyclopedia of Pop Culture that "the promotional team took the unprecedented step of pouring the majority of their relatively small budget into buying advertising time on the youth-oriented cable music channel, MTV, including sponsorship of an hour-long special on the film, and the bet paid off with huge box-office sales to the targeted youth audience." This strategy helped to target cynical and hard-to-reach teenage boys that were the perfect audience for this film and are notorious for being submissive of advertising geared towards them. 

Daniel Terdiman wrote an article for wired.com about the desirability to puncture the marketing-protective bubble that surrounds what is quickly becoming known as "mooks". "For the film industry, finding new ways to reach young males in particular is crucial. That's because young men under 34 are watching less television than they have in the past, spending more of their free time doing other activities, like playing video games or surfing online. But so far, no one seems to have settled on a plan." 

Sixteen years later and movie execs still haven't figured out how to reach the mooks that they so desperately seek, yet the execs that marketed Wayne's World somehow got it right. By incorporating the cynical views of the target audience into the film, the execs helped to bridge the gap between the film marketing and the mooks. The scene that best depicts this incorporation was when Wayne and Garth are approached by the producer who tells them that they must sell out to corporate sponsors and that they have no choice in the matter. At this point, Wayne and Garth, played by Mike Myers and Dana Carvey, launch into a five minute comical sketch in which they endorse a multitude of products ranging from Pepsi to Doritos to Grey Poupon Mustard. Wayne's World should act as an example to movie execs today that are trying to target the unreachable young male demographic. 

Never underestimate the power of the mook.

Cloverfield: A Monster Marketing Success

January is notorious for being a horrible month for new films. 'Cloverfield', Paramount's Manhattan-based monster flick broke movie records when it made "the biggest January opening of all time, [even though] it's turning out to be more of a marketing win than a runaway crowd pleaser at the box office," according to a recent article from Variety. Although Paramount spent about $25 million dollars to make the entire film, it probably "spent as much marketing the movie as on the production budget...which [Paramount] says will easily be a financial success." Even though 'Cloverfield' opened big, it dropped 68% in the second weekend in theaters, which has been attributed to the lack of plot and the fact that the film was "shot to resemble a homevideo."

Many in Hollywood are praising Paramount for the creative and incredibly effective marketing techniques that definitely led to such a big opening weekend. According to Variety, "they eventized the film...they had a finite audience and they burned through it quickly...word-of-mouth takes care of the rest."

Much of 'Cloverfield's' $64.3 million gross profit comes from the fact that Paramount targeted young men and teenage boys with their marketing techniques and relied on their core audience to promote the film through first-hand reviews. 

Although this is a risky practice, the executives at Paramount were not expecting 'Cloverfield' to do as well as it did and were actually quite surprised at the success of the marketing campaign.

This case is clearly an exception and movie executives are not likely to quickly follow suit by relying on their target audience to do the marketing for them. Execs at Paramount were marketing for a movie that is about a giant monster attacking the city of New York. With a film like that, it doesn't make much sense to waste a ton of dough on marketing.

Sweeney Todd: Definitely a Musical

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Johnny Depp's December blockbuster, was met with great success across the board. Although many viewers were pleasantly surprised at the mix of horror, dark comedy, and musical interludes, others still were very upset and accused a United Kingdom advertising firm of false advertising. According to an article posted on contactmusic.com, angry moviegoers are asking the Advertising Standards Agency to "investigate the misleading advertisements." The frustrated film lovers claim that the U.K. trailer for Sweeney Todd blatantly portrayed it as a horror film and left out any signs that it was a full-fledged musical.

"Richard Brunton, head of online film site Filmstalker, says, 'When the U.K. trailer came out there was nothing in it that pointed it out to be a musical. 'I would say the advertising has been blatantly misleading and I assume that the feeling was that less people would pay to see a musical so it would be better to sell it as a horror movie.'"

It is not a new notion to target a movie towards a certain demographic that would yield higher revenues and this practice has, as such, been criticized through and through by the public. Bottom line: its no secret that Sweeney Todd is a musical and "true" fans should have suspected a musical, even if advertising lead them to believe otherwise.