The Internet Takes Control of Movie Marketing
Filed under: New Line, Fandom, Tech Stuff
A while back I wrote a little post about a movie that I would never see, and plenty of folks lined up to tell me that it was impossible to make a decision about a movie through word of mouth or what I had read on the Internet. Of course, I disagreed, because frankly how else can I make a decision about where to spend my hard earned time and money? But if I had to blame anyone for keeping me away from the movie theater that day, I'm going to have to blame the Internet. Yup, it was thanks to those sneak peeks and early screenings described in detail online that helped me make my decision before those battling robots ever took the stage. People are talking about movies more now than ever before thanks to social networking tools like Twitter and Facebook, and a new study from New Line's Web guru Gordon Paddison has proven that when it comes to movie marketing, all the action really is on the web.What the report seems to be saying is that you need to know your audience if you want to sell your movie. Now, there are some daunting statistics that prove the power of the Internet when it comes to going to the movies, and if you aren't buying the effect the net can have on a film's success, keep in mind that 94% of all moviegoers are online, and 73% of moviegoers surveyed have profiles on a social networking site -- and if people are talking, you want to make sure it's positive because as the old commercial goes, they tell two friends, and they tell two friends, and before you know it, you have a flop on your hands.
After the jump: so what does this all mean for movie marketers?
Most moviegoers (at least in certain age groups) are much more interested in what their online pals have to say about a film than those stuffy old critics ... and, as we know, sometimes word of mouth is the most powerful marketing tool a film can have.
So as to be expected, what this really means is that studios are going to have to start targeting their marketing dollars like never before -- because if you're looking to sell your latest teen flick, you better be online making Facebook pages and tweeting in-character because teens between the ages of 13-17 are big fans of the 'group think'. But it still comes down to knowing your audience, and if you're selling a film like Fame, then sure, the online world is going to be your friend. But, if you're going to market to the 50 and up crowd for a film like It's Complicated, you probably won't be setting up a MySpace profile any time soon.
So now we've heard from the egg-heads, but what about you? How much do you rely on what you read online (whether its via friends on twitter or another social networking site, or even at fantabulous sites like Cinematical) to influence where you spend your box-office dollars? Sound off in the comments...
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
10-01-2009 @ 9:13PM
Ellen Kimball said...
Hi Jessica,
Wonderful article! I've been reviewing movies since 1971 on television, radio, and now on the Internet, so I'm coming at this from a completely different angle.
In my opinion, newspaper reviewers are going the way of the buggy whip, the bustle, and whalebone corsets. While I still enjoy savoring some of the local reviewers still in print, I can sense there is a big struggle between them and their employers. Their work is not valued as much and it has to be very hard for them. (I'm 70 years old and retired, so everything I do now is for free.)
Several of the movie reviewers here in Portland -- whose writings I enjoyed -- are now out of work or, if they're lucky, getting paid occasionally for Internet reviews. A handful remain on staff but it does begin to look as if local newspaper reviewing may be headed for the archive heap.
I used to participate in the movie Usenet groups in the 1990s. I posted some reviews there, but the tangle of opinions was just too wearing and I gave that up. Today, I find myself reading reviews on the Internet Movie Database (where I occasionally contribute) and Rotten Tomatoes.com. Since I'm not seeing as many new movies as I used to, one of the things my husband and I enjoy is ordering from Netflix and seeing many of the movies we missed over the decades we were raising children.
Twitter reviews are fun, but my selection of what to see is usually based on aggregate numbers supplied by websites, as well as other information sent to me by the movie publicists.
People who think that the Internet is not impacting the movie business have their heads in the sand. Movie studios and publicists will have to contend with this more and more as we completely restructure the way we think of entertainment in this new century.
Ellen Kimball
Portland, OR
Volunteer film/entertainment reviewer at www.kgw.com
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10-15-2009 @ 11:08AM
Rupert said...
Yeah - I pretty much never see a movie unless it's been recommended - usually on Twitter. I'm a 35 year old videoblogger and short filmmaker in London, I love the movies and I should really go out to the cinema more - but with babysitting for my two kids to organise, my wife's work schedule to work around, etc, it's a bit of a hassle. In other words, I have to be quite motivated to get everything in place to go to the movies, and I want to know that what I'm going to see will be worth it.
There are still a lot of things that I won't see even though they're recommended to me - so it's not a guarantee that I'll go and see something if people are raving about it on Twitter. But if someone I trust has said something's rubbish, there's no way I'm going to waste my time with it, no matter how big the marketing campaign and hype.
Word of mouth is the future, for sure.
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10-15-2009 @ 11:08AM
Rupert said...
Also, the sandwich ad that shows up when I tried to comment (can't remember for what brand, I was so annoyed) wouldn't close in Safari in Mac when I clicked the X. Had to close the window and come back to your post via the link I'd seen on another site. I figure most people wouldn't bother.
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