marketing Tagged Articles at Cinematical

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?

So, who out there is already sick of hearing about Twitter? I know there are a few people in my life that can't help but roll their eyes when they even hear the word, but I'll totally admit it to being full fledged addict. The number of smart-phone users and people on social networks like Twitter are reaching all-time highs, and in a piece for Variety, Susan Lambert looked at some of the ways in which movie studios are looking to cash in. But the bad news is that nobody is quite sure about whether or not this new style of advertising is a success. Now that four out of the six majors already have Twitter accounts, and poster launches and ARG games are popping up daily, it would seem that everyone loves a new toy -- whether it works or not.

If you think back to a year ago, the studios were all about creating viral campaigns (Blame J.J. Abrams if you must) and fans could spend hours pouring over HTML code to find a hidden message that located a secret 'hatch' or a photo of a mutated whale. But the original ARG-style viral campaigns have already faded away, and while there are still a few of them out there, they haven't exactly been a success (case in point: how many of you out there signed up for Emmerich's IHC lottery? That's what I thought). I think the biggest deterrent for fans was that if you wanted to play along, it was going to be an awful lot of work. But with the automation of services like Twitter or a dedicated movie app on your smart-phone, it's a one time deal. If you don't have time to take down Skynet by engaging in a complicated treasure hunt, why not just sign up as part of the Human Resistance and John Connor will do the work for you?

After the jump find out if Twitter is really that different from any other advertising medium...

While viral marketing is still in its infant stages, studios are becoming more and more clever when it comes time to promote their films. Next year at this time, I'll probably be writing a post about how boring and uninspiring viral marketing has become, but I'll hold out hope that things will slowly get better -- and more entertaining -- instead of cliche and bland. The latest film to add their name to the viral scene is The Seeker; previously known as The Dark is Rising. Now, it's The Seeker: The Dark is Rising. Based on the book written by Susan Cooper, The Seeker is one of those fantasy flicks geared toward children, and it follows a young boy named Will Stanton who learns he's the last of a group of warriors (better than learning your the last in a long line of janitors). What does it mean to be the last of a group of warriors? Well, it means you're expected to fight the good fight -- in this case, it's battling the forces of the Dark. In order to achieve his goals, Will must travel back and forth through time, collecting clues, until eventually (as is normally the case), he's positioned for a final showdown with evil forces. Beats doing your math homework, I guess.

All that being said, Fox/Walden have kicked off the marketing campaign with a pretty cool game. Basically, they're putting you in Will's shoes. Six signs are embedded in all of the media materials for the film -- this includes the trailer, TV spots and even movie posters. Once you find all six signs, you can log onto the film's official site and use what you've learned to unlock a whole ton of exclusive content, like behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with the cast. You'll need to enter them in the correct sequence, so pay attention to everything you see. That movie poster isn't just a poster -- it's a clue. As is the trailer, and that TV commercial. If you want my advice, begin your journey over at the official website. I love games like this, and since it will be raining here for the next 24 hours, I'll most likely be killing time over there for awhile. The Seeker: The Dark is Rising hits theaters on October 5, 2007 -- which means you have just under two months to unlock all the clues. Good luck, and let us know what you find.

At what point do you stop taking a movie blog seriously? Can you ever take a movie blog seriously? And, most importantly, what is a movie blog? I like to think an opinion-based website that allows readers to comment is probably the best definition of a blog. Thus, Cinematical is a blog, JoBlo is a blog, AICN is a blog, and so on. But at what point does the "movie blog" become the "marketing blog" -- a site somewhat controlled by the studios; one that has no problem pimping out certain projects if it means they'll be on the "extra special" list when it comes time for interviews, scoops, etc. That's what The Guardian thinks happened to AICN (or Ain't It Cool News) right around the time AICN chief Harry Knowles began receiving private advanced screening invites and phone calls from folks like Sylvester Stallone and Bruce Willis. The site for fanboys, written by fanboys, had become (in The Guardian's words) "smug and pedestrian." Essentially, they jumped the shark.

Still, though, folks run to AICN for the latest "test screening" review, major inside scoop and/or ridiculous foul-mouthed banter between the site's authors and their brain-damaged commenters. All that's really changed, in my mind, is that the site is now being used by Hollywood as a go-between -- they don't know how to communicate with today's youth, and so they'll use this site (and its young-at-heart writers) to translate for us. But it's not like this doesn't happen at other spots around the net. Folks call us out all the time for being a part of a major corporation (which, in all honesty, we are), but that does not (and will not) stop us from telling you what we really think. Just the other day, a fellow online writer was telling me how a studio publicist took a bunch of other online writers out to dinner. I wouldn't be surprised if they walked away with a few hats and t-shirts as well. It's kind of like a parent trying to buy their kid's love (with a bunch of flashy items, like an iPhone or what have you).

And if that's what "jumping the shark" is, then AICN is definitely not the only website guilty of it. In the end, though, it's a catch-22. As with most things in life, if you don't scratch their back, they won't scratch yours. And everyone, including The Guardian, is guilty of taking one for the team if it means your readers would really like a particular piece of content ... like an interview with Stallone, or a gallery of Harry Potter photos.

It's certainly not much, but what appears to be the first teaser poster for next summer's The Incredible Hulk has popped up over at the Licensing Show in New York City, among an assortment of promotional material for films like Where the Wild Things Are, The Golden Compass, Beowulf, The Dark Knight, Speed Racer, Kung Fu Panda and Iron Man. That's it to the right of your screen (courtesy of Wizard); as you can see Hulk looks pretty much as he should from behind, all jacked up and what not. What's interesting about the poster (and I don't know if this was done solely because of the location of said Licensing Show), but it appears Hulk is standing in the shadows on a New York City street. Does this mean most of the film will be set there? Should we now start looking forward to Hulk hurling a taxi cab at someone? Granted, those two street signs could be anywhere, but NYC immediately popped into my mind when I saw it. You be the judge.

Also of interest (to me, at least) is the first image from Spike Jonze's Where The Wild Things Are, adapted from a book that I read about a trillion times as a kid. Jonze and Co. are taking their time with this one; originally, I thought it was supposed to hit theaters this fall, but apparently I was wrong -- the release date on IMDb shows October 3, 2008. Those interested can also check out two posters for Iron Man, as well as more shots of the Mach 5 from Speed Racer and the Batpod from The Dark Knight. Wizard has a full gallery of images up now, so head on over there to check it all out. And, as the poster declares, The Incredible Hulk will crush theaters on June 13, 2008.

Hollywood's happy relationship with video sharing mega-site YouTube is apparently over, according to a recent Variety article. In the past, studios and networks were happy to use the vast audience YouTube commands to promote their big projects and give their smaller ones a chance at finding an audience. Both YouTube and Hollywood enjoyed this mutually beneficial relationship and both seemed to get something out of it -- Hollywood got free promotion for its product and YouTube's user base increased tremendously.

But like any relationship, this one was not without its share of issues -- especially when copyrighted content started to appear more and more on the site. This soon created a big problem for the studios. "The marketing guys love YouTube and the legal guys hate it," said Ian Schafer, CEO of online advertising company Deep Focus in the article. "Every media company has a party line, but internally it gets crossed more often than not." Still, even with these problems, the studios and YouTube managed to continue their relationship -- at least for awhile.

But now, just about a year later, things have changed in a big way. YouTube has been the recipient of various legal actions compelling it to remove content from the site and threatened with even more legal action. What are the reasons for the change? Well, according to the article, there are two major ones. One is that the site has more visitors than anything the studios have on the web. In fact, only Fox's MySpace site has more traffic. The other reason is one that should come as no surprise to anyone: money. When YouTube sold to Google last fall for a cool $1.7 billion, executives at the major studios had to take more notice.

Now, before you start thinking this is a gossip post let me just set the record straight and say you won't see anything involving actresses, pop stars, or heiresses in here. These are the biggest film critic whores of 2006 as compiled by Erik Childress at eFilmCritic.com. Those who will lend a blurb to anything and everything under the sun. It's a pretty comprehensive list, covering everyone from Harry Knowles to Joel Siegel (who gets honored with his own special award), and assembles a massive amount of blurbage in one spot for your enjoyment.

The list is pretty snarky, serving up stuff like "The sad thing about Harry Knowles' little fanboy jizzpool is that there are probably a couple legitimate writers in there," but he's right on the money. He skewers the winner, nice guy Pete Hammond (out of 83 reviews he wrote, 66 were positive and 17 were negative -- I smell fresh ink on some studio checks!) and doesn't cut any amount of slack for anybody. Check out his series of articles about the whores of film criticland and see if you agree with him or not. At least Cinematical isn't on his list yet ... but give us time.

With so many movies crowding the box office these days, distributors have to try to produce marketing for their films that will cut through the cacophony of TV, radio, iPods and ringing cell phones. It can be hard to produce a poster that is eye-catching enough to make you stop and give it a second look. What's the last poster that really caught your eye? The blog Sam's Myth has a nice collection up of his favorite five posters from the past year. While we don't agree with all of his choices (Nacho Libre, really?) -- for the most part they're nice picks from the absurd amount that were seen plastered around a town near you.

Check out the poster for Dave Chappelle's Block Party, which proves that a movie doesn't have to be great to have a fantastic poster. This is basically a concert film, but the poster really pops and has a 60s/70s feeling to it. Plus, a film like Hard Candy, which was barely a blip on the radar, has what is probably the most visually arresting poster from the entire year. I'm a huge fan of retro art and magic, so naturally I rushed out to see both films that were set in the world of turn-of-the-century magic. I thought The Illusionist was extremely engaging, but The Prestige fell a bit flat for me. The same is true for their posters, as well. In fact, The Illusionist is probably my favorite poster from this year, besides the Superman Returns poster that pays homage to the amazing artwork of Alex Ross.

However, this year has also produced some posters that weren't worth the adhesive they were hung with. What's with The Good German directly ripping off Casablanca? That's a classic movie poster that shouldn't be imitated, and there's a fine line between homage and copying.

Look for my inner Grinch to come out as I post the Worst Movie Posters of 2006 just before Christmas. Bah, humbug!

Mooove over James Bond, yet another legendary heartthrob is looking to take over the country ... and he's bringing a cow along with him. Last month we told you how David Lynch was planning to distribute Inland Empire himself, after he went and purchased the rights from the film's producer, StudioCanal. Now, it looks like we're finally getting some details and it appears they involve Lynch going on a 10-city tour in January. Joining Lynch on tour will be pianist Marek Zebrowski (who will play what's described as "Polish night music" from the film) and his good friend Mr. Cow -- ya know, the one that was standing next to him last week when he plopped himself down on Hollywood Boulevard with a sign promoting Laura Dern's performance in the pic.

The bizarre marketing technique was so effective (check out some video from the event) that he's now bringing it to a host of other cities which, I assume, will include New York. Just picturing Lynch in the middle of Times Square alongside a pianist and a cow is already conjuring up hilarious images inside my head. As far as the actual film goes, Inland Empire will debut next month in Los Angeles, Pasadena, New York and Boston (sorry Jette, but Austin was not on the list ... yet). However, for those who do not get a chance to see it, Lynch signed a deal with Rhino Entertainment to release the DVD this summer with a bunch of bonus footage. I don't know about you, but I'd much rather have a commentary track so I can finally understand what the hell was going on in that flick (feel free to check out my best attempt at a review of Inland Empire back when it screened at NYFF). No word yet on which cities will be involved in the promotion, but we'll definitely let you know as soon as more info is available.

Oh, and if Laura Dern actually gets a nomination out of all this, then Lynch is officially a genius.

UPDATE: Inland Empire will open in New York City at the IFC Center on December 6 and run for two weeks only, ending December 19.

Walden Media is an incredibly busy (do a search for "Walden" here and you'll see what I mean), generally successful producer of films aimed at the youth market -- everything they make is rated either G or PG, and most of their films make money. Now that their first-look deal with Disney has expired, Walden has been working with a variety of studios on the distribution and marketing of their films, though the company's Disney connection is still strong, as evidence by the fact that Disney will handle the upcoming Narnia films. Apart from those films and Charlotte's Web (set up with Paramount), however, everything from Walden will now be distributed by Fox, thanks to a new agreement between the studios.

Though no one new will be hired, a joint company in charge of marketing will be developed; all production matters remains under Walden control, and distribution stays at Fox. Among the films affected by this deal are the wonderfully-named Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium (Say that out loud and tell me your day didn't get a little bit better.), The Dark Is Rising and City of Ember from Monster House director Gil Kenan.