Movies and Marketing: Shootout by Guber...
May 26, 2007 Saturday
There is an arts books that says an artists time should be split 50-50 between creating and marketing. In this, a personal missions statement would read "I make and market movies." Marketing does not mean you have to start distribution. All the distribution and outlets won't sell your work. It just makes it available for sale. Marketing will help out.
The rest of this post is from the Peter Bart and Guber's book "Shoot out." It's easy to think everything would be better with a big studio behind you. Perhaps. You'd be guaranteed a salary. But not success.
“Given the high stakes, the selling of pop culture has clearly become something more complex, expensive… Awareness is enhanced through tried-and-true formula of reach and repetition. A major softdrink bran d like Pepsi must be ubiquitous both in terms of brand and availability.
Movie marketers face a more complex universe, however. They have doezens of new products to introduce each year- 480 features films in 2000. The overall “brand,” per se, whether it’s a Warners or Paramount or MGM, no longer represents added value. No one goes to see a film because 20th century fox released it- even the company name is an anachronism. Further, the simple hammering home of a title or logo does not in and of itself motivate anyone to buy a ticket. Rather… the film must…be injected into the public’s consciousness. The dream merchant must find a way of making that dream contagious. And he must mobilize every weapon under his command to do so. This entails press interviews, paid print and electronic ads, music videos, Internet sites, trailers in theaters and billboards on the streets. Wherever the potential filmgoer turns, he must somehow encounter some allusion to the movie. P. 215
The marketing function has evolved to a point where it’s become central to the production process rather than tangential to it. Marketing criteria determine what pictures are made and what TV shows get on air.
Ironically, the first marketing battle to break out usually involves the most obvious and basic element- the title…. Failure to come up with a decent copy line is often symptomatic of a deeper problem- that the movie, whatever its attributes, simply resists a “sell.” … Audience response may be enthusiastic, but getting them into the theaters is another matter…. Even if the audience loved the film, there was difficulty explaining its narrative to someone else. It just didn’t reduce to a simple line, which limited viral marketing. Even sex doesn’t translated into automatic box office for movies. Films with a high sexual content have failed more often than not (eyes wide shut.) … the adage that sex sells, if handled shrewdly and discreetly.
(end. I donated it to the bookstore I bought it from…)
There is an arts books that says an artists time should be split 50-50 between creating and marketing. In this, a personal missions statement would read "I make and market movies." Marketing does not mean you have to start distribution. All the distribution and outlets won't sell your work. It just makes it available for sale. Marketing will help out.
The rest of this post is from the Peter Bart and Guber's book "Shoot out." It's easy to think everything would be better with a big studio behind you. Perhaps. You'd be guaranteed a salary. But not success.
“Given the high stakes, the selling of pop culture has clearly become something more complex, expensive… Awareness is enhanced through tried-and-true formula of reach and repetition. A major softdrink bran d like Pepsi must be ubiquitous both in terms of brand and availability.
Movie marketers face a more complex universe, however. They have doezens of new products to introduce each year- 480 features films in 2000. The overall “brand,” per se, whether it’s a Warners or Paramount or MGM, no longer represents added value. No one goes to see a film because 20th century fox released it- even the company name is an anachronism. Further, the simple hammering home of a title or logo does not in and of itself motivate anyone to buy a ticket. Rather… the film must…be injected into the public’s consciousness. The dream merchant must find a way of making that dream contagious. And he must mobilize every weapon under his command to do so. This entails press interviews, paid print and electronic ads, music videos, Internet sites, trailers in theaters and billboards on the streets. Wherever the potential filmgoer turns, he must somehow encounter some allusion to the movie. P. 215
The marketing function has evolved to a point where it’s become central to the production process rather than tangential to it. Marketing criteria determine what pictures are made and what TV shows get on air.
Ironically, the first marketing battle to break out usually involves the most obvious and basic element- the title…. Failure to come up with a decent copy line is often symptomatic of a deeper problem- that the movie, whatever its attributes, simply resists a “sell.” … Audience response may be enthusiastic, but getting them into the theaters is another matter…. Even if the audience loved the film, there was difficulty explaining its narrative to someone else. It just didn’t reduce to a simple line, which limited viral marketing. Even sex doesn’t translated into automatic box office for movies. Films with a high sexual content have failed more often than not (eyes wide shut.) … the adage that sex sells, if handled shrewdly and discreetly.
(end. I donated it to the bookstore I bought it from…)
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