• An overview
• Production of assets
• The increased lifespan of a film

Advertising in a traditional sense, based upon the old ‘persuasion’ model of marketing, is becoming increasingly irrelevant. Where once brands dictatorially imposed their wares upon us, force-feeding the consumer with product information, striving to achieve an emotional response and thus encouraging a purchase, we are now witnessing the tried-and-tested formula being turned on its head. Online refutes this one-way method of communication, enabling its audiences to interact – to learn, feel, share and purchase on their own terms, in their own time.

No sector has been unaffected by this seismic shift, but it is the high interest categories, such as entertainment and particularly with regards to this discussion, film marketing, that now have the scope to rethink their traditional communications models.

Within the last two or three years the internet’s flexibility, accountability and growing influence in the lives of consumers have seen it become a major consideration in any film’s communication plan. Its impact has seen movie marketing departments reassess their traditional contact strategies and embrace online’s power to present and disseminate information and exclusive content connected to a film.

The window between releases across different territories has been dramatically reduced. ‘Day-and- date’ release of pictures is also increasing in popularity, whereby the theatrical release date is the same worldwide. This helps to make a worldwide event of the release, but it is also testament to the fact that the internet has created a sense of global community. People can now find out information about your film regardless of where they are in the world. A buzz that a film might be generating in one territory, is now no longer restricted just to that territory. It can be picked up and built upon regardless of national barriers. ‘Day-and-date’ release structures are also occurring with regards to the home entertainment market. The window separating the DVD release of a film and its subsequent premiere on the video-on-demand (VOD) channels of satellite, cable, or even broadband television is being reduced in the UK. In April 2008 Warner Bros rejected the traditional 90-day gap to allow the VOD rental of The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford just one day after the DVD release.

There has been a fundamental shift in the communications timeline. Film marketers are no longer relying solely on the traditional four-week trailer/press/outdoor campaign window to build their film’s brand and generate strong opening weekend box office figures. The process has evolved and can now start long before the film is released and continues through to DVD release and satellite broadcast, which is elongating the shelf-life of movie marketing campaigns. At the very least agencies are rolling out trailers with campaign art three to four months ahead of the film hitting the screens.

The old way of finding out about a film was through a trailer at the cinema or the listings in the local paper. Now you can get people involved with your film at a much earlier date – for example, with the
Pirates of the Caribbean advertising campaign on MSN UK, the creative allowed people to get into the spirit of the pirates and fighting on the high seas before the film came out. “With online you can go out and aggressively seek your audience more than ever before,” agrees Louise Kean, head of agency at post-production house LipSync Creative.

Under the umbrella term ‘internet marketing’ a plethora of exciting channels are now at your disposal offering greater consumer interest and involvement with the concept of a film, creating that much sought after initial engagement; “Online enables you to explore the world of a film,” says Jonathan Green of creative agency Franki&Jonny. “The advantage the film marketer has over someone marketing a detergent, for example, is that films offer massive creative potential. If you can tap into that, you can create something that effectively engages your audience.”

An overview

At the most basic level and using the internet purely as a broadcast channel, the trailer is still a hugely effective device for the promotion of films. Easy to implement and manage from a marketing perspective, movie goers now actively seek out trailers online as opposed to having the promotional footage presented to them ahead of a theatrical release or in a TV advert break. In some instances consumers actually subscribe to trailer sites such as http://www.apple.com/ trailers/ or to individual film studio’s websites, such as Paramount.. They have also become a common feature within expandable display executions on entertainment portals and news publishers’ websites, as well as the more niche ‘longtail’ sites the internet boasts.

Film promotional websites surrounding the release of a film have been used successfully for a number of years and their URLs have become common place at the foot of the traditional 6-sheet poster. As a way of introducing and extending a film’s brand, a website that offers exclusive content, competitions and information is an effective tool. They are also becoming more and more sophisticated with Paramount’s ‘Kong is King’ promotional site for King Kong representing a strong benchmark. This site presented daily video blogs 12 months before the film even hit the screens.

Studio partnerships with portals such as Warner Home Video and Microsoft Advertising’s collaboration on the promotion of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix continue to be mutually beneficial arrangements. Microsoft delivered an in-built audience to Warner Home Video and in return the studio made available exclusive content and ‘a once in a lifetime’ opportunity for one lucky Harry Potter fan to appear in the next movie.

Arguably the key aim for any entertainment marketer is to generate word of mouth and peerto- peer recommendations and this is one area where the internet is proving itself unrivalled as a medium to promote films. You now have the ability to target influential audiences and opinion makers online and encourage them to help create a buzz around your film.

The Independent film market

At the roundtable discussion Arvind David of Slingshot Studios mentioned that in the face of more and more films getting released, independent films are finding it harder to compete. In a market where the Box Office is everything, if an independent film manages to achieve a cinematic release, it has to perform in the opening weekend or the chances are it will simply get pulled. There is, however, a growing feeling that of all the media, online when used properly can offer smaller independent films - without the big name director - an opportunity to find an audience.

One of the major barriers to an independent film creating buzz behind its release is that unlike a studio release that has a structured marketing plan in place across territories that enables it to build momentum and create a consistent campaign, the promotion of an independent film is very disparate. It’s quite a staggered process in that first it’s all about building a buzz to get it into the festivals, then it’s about finding a distributor in one country and reigniting that buzz again. The process may then start all over again in a different territory. Although a dirty word for many independent filmmakers, the internet is going some distance to helping films with smaller budgets to think of themselves as a ‘brand’.

Simple technical tricks using the geo-targeting capabilities of the internet are enabling a website for an independent film to use a single URL to present different information - release dates, different languages and so on – to different audiences in different territories. Jonathan Green of creative agency Franki&Jonny who have worked with Slingshot Studios before, believes that the ability to create a single site with a back end that can be customised for different territories could be an effective tool for films with small marketing budgets. “Localisation is something that is being increasingly moved towards with independent films,” he says. “One site can be doing different things depending on where the audience is coming in from.”

Production of assets

In terms of strategy, planning, timing and execution there has been a change in approaches to marketing. Online has changed the dynamic of the supply chain, and we are witnessing a blurring between where the product ends and the marketing begins. As the Cloverfield, Dark Knight and King Kong examples show, the internet proves most effective in the promotion of films when the online strategy is considered at the time of the production of the film. Agencies continue to stress upon their clients the point that the earlier they can get promotional assets, the more intelligent and effective a campaign can be. For the recent Bee Movie, for example, Dreamworks made available a rendered character that could be used in the promotional process as the marketers wished.

The director’s eye is extremely important to create a consistent campaign that accurately represents the film being promoted. “A really good online marketing campaign starts with the film-maker first:” Shephali Patel, of Universal said at the roundtable discussion. “From the day they start shooting the film they start producing content. You’re basically getting the DVD extras before you see the movie.”

Patel also emphasised how powerful the production of related content can be. He outlined how Simon Pegg and the stars of the 2007 film, Hot Fuzz, created hilarious video diaries whilst they were on set. Universal were able to work with them to create behind the scenes snippets of the film, allowing the future audience to feel closer to the film brand.

There can also be more practical reasons for considering your online promotional assets at the time of production. For example for the musical comedy Walk Hard: the Dewey Cox story, Apatow Productions recognised that by default, display executions must have their sound off. So before they ran a clip of one of the film’s comedic songs they filmed John C Reilly’s character as if he was tapping on the user’s screen, mouthing the words, “turn your sound on.”

Likewise Elizabeth Kesses of 20th Century Fox is seeing signs of change; “Sometimes you can get the product early and do really exciting things with it. For example, we’ve got a big James Cameron film – Avatar -coming out next year and we have the time to assess what is going on and think about a longer-term marketing strategy.”

The increased lifespan of a film

Despite the rental market experiencing a decline in recent years following the Blockbuster dominance of five or six years ago, the DVD retail market and then a film’s subsequent appearance on satellite pay-on-demand channels is of growing importance. There have been numerous instances of a film disappointing with its theatrical release, only to experience a new lease of life following its DVD release. In 2007 the value of pre-recorded DVDs (retail and rental) in the UK was thought to be worth an estimated £2,385 million (Mintel pre-recorded film report December 2007).

Previously it was all about the theatrical marketing, but as the quality of domestic TV and audio systems continues to improve, the home entertainment market is an area of increased focus. As such the lifespan of a film is lengthening. A question for marketers is “how do we tap into that established user-base from theatrical? We have an identified audience but how do we move that forward?”

The internet and social networking sites in particular are being used to generate interest and excitement in films prior to release. From 2005 onwards Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment has accounted for the largest level of spend on DVD promotion (Mintel prerecorded film report December 2007). Elizabeth Kesses from 20th Century Fox was present at the roundtable discussion and outlined the innovative ways in which her company is taking advantage of this increase in investment. “For us we have one planner across theatrical and home entertainment - they provide the glue across the divisions… We are doing a lot of work with Amazon and they can do a lot of work for us on pre-targeting. Talking to a planning agency is a good way to start.”

Although a practice not yet used by the majority of studios, employing a consistent team across all aspects of a film’s lifespan is making sense to more and more clients. Achieving this “glue across divisions” enables marketers to build on the achievements and more importantly, the consumer contacts that were secured during the theatrical promotional work.

Gavin Reeder, head of digital strategy at BLM Quantum, works with Pathé and believes that continuity is of great importance, as frequently the DVD release campaign often acts as a reminder of the film. “It makes sense to use the same planning team across theatrical,” he said. “All the hard work is done on the theatrical release, you are rewarded with the DVD release, which is largely quite heavily direct response based.”

This is an issue of growing concern for film marketers and one that is being debated across the industry. There are obvious restrictions with such a set-up, not least with regards to budget. There’s an argument to say that the DVD release presents a different proposition to the theatrical release and that from a PR perspective to have a creative distinction is an intelligent move.

Microsoft Advertising who are involved with and have facilitated a number of different partnerships with movie companies, such as Warner Home Video’s Harry Potter and 20th Century Fox’s Alien vs Predator – Requiem, recognise the importance of such collaborations. At the roundtable discussion Mary Hunwick from Microsoft Advertising said that perhaps a way forward would be for a studio to look at the forthcoming slate for the year ahead at a studio and develop a strategic partnership with a media owner who can offer an audience through both media and promotion for a film. At the same time she advocated considering each film as a brand from theatrical to DVD, and developing a strategic partnership with a media owner who can leverage an audience and consistent message throughout the lifecycle of the film.

The biggest online splashes to date

Historically there have been several high profile instances of the internet having a major impact on the performance of a film at the box office or even the content of the film itself. In 1999 the team behind the Blair Witch Project successfully used the internet to extend the film’s mythology. The heads of a million movie fans were scratched in curiosity over the ‘is-it-real?-Is-it-a-movie?’ creativity of the Blair Witch campaign.

In an early instance of the power of the blog, Harry Knowles of aintitcoolnews had major studios running scared with his growing influence upon a film’s box office performance. Such was the power his blog wielded in Hollywood in 1999 he made number 95 in the Forbes’ list of the 100 most influential celebrities.

We’ve seen in recent years film marketers use the internet to create a terrific amount of hype around their releases. Some have translated that buzz to box office success, Cloverfield for example, others have faired less well. The 2006 film Snakes on a Plane could not make a phenomenal amount of fan interest and involvement in the film count where it mattered.

With its ability to present exclusive content, trailers, promotions and create a buzz around upcoming movies the internet has truly marked itself out as an essential channel for film marketers.


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