Movie Marketing: How Marketing Could Make Or Break A Film
Movie marketing is a tricky thing. A movie could be a complete disaster, but if the marketing is done right, the movie will do well. If the movie a delightful, but the marketing is done badly, the movie could bomb and cost the studio a lot of money. I’ve seen it happen a lot over the years. Remember that movie John Carter? That movie cost a LOT of money to produce. I saw the movie since I already read the books and knew from what I saw that it was going to be a fun film to watch, but from a marketing standpoint, and having been a marketing major in college, I knew the movie was going to bomb. Why? No one knew what the hell it was about or who the hell John Carter was.
Confusion
John Carter is one of the central characters in Edgar Rice Burroughs‘ Barsoom stories. It’s about a Confederate soldier that was transported to Mars. Having been accustomed to Earth’s gravity, he found he was stronger and could jump great distances. Sound familiar? Guess where Superman came from? Yeah. This series started so much, and it should’ve been a surefire hit, but the marketing killed it. All the marketing did was literally focus on the name “John Carter.” Most people nowadays have no idea who that is unless it’s explained to them, so having a $200+ million dollar movie based around a guy’s name is a recipe for disaster. Since the marketing of this was so bad, the movie ended up doing poorly and not making its money back despite it being a really good movie.
Showing Too Much
If you read my Batman v Superman review, you’ll know that I hated it. If you read my further thoughts on it, you’ll know I really hated it. Sure, the movie wasn’t good, but I wanted to see it because it was two of the greatest superheroes facing off. But if I didn’t know as much about the characters as I did, I’d be put off because of the marketing. For instance: there was one trailer that basically showed the entire movie in 2 1/2 minutes. It showed the twist, the reveal of Wonder Woman, the hints towards the future movies, and pretty much the entire fight scene between the two if you add in the other footage shown. That is how you hurt a movie with marketing. You can’t give the potential audience too much of the movie before they go in.
Now, example of not giving too much would be Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Inception. Both Christopher Nolan and J.J. Abrams know how to tease the public just enough, but not give away much at all. Let’s take a look at the first teaser of Inception.
Besides knowing that it has something to do with the mind, the viewer has no idea what the movie is about. Maybe something about crimes in the mind? But how? How do they do that? Why are they defying gravity on a hallway?! That’s called clever marketing. It leaves you wanting more.
Now let’s look at the first teaser of Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
All you see is quick glimpses of new characters with no context. Then it ends with the Millennium Falcon being chased and shot at. The epic music begins and your hair stands up all over your body. What is the movie about? NO IDEA. But you want more. That’s why both of these movies completely cleaned up at the box office. Hell, Inception was a completely original movie with a gigantic budget. Giving a big budget for a non-sequel/non-adaptation is a pretty tough thing to pull off, but since Nolan has proved himself, they did it. Same with Abrams. His genius behind rejuvenating franchises led him to give new life to Star Wars. The secret they both had with both was to not give the audience much of anything except to allow fans to speculate online about the plot.
Promoting Too Soon Or Too Late
This really depends on the budget of the film, how it’s originally presented, and if it pays off. Star Wars: The Force Awakens gave audiences the first glimpse a full year before the movie came out with bits and pieces given to them in the middle. Of course they had the marketing tie-ins with all the sodas and potato chips, but those things didn’t really happen until close to the release date. Batman v Superman did this better at the beginning. More than a year before the movie came out, all the Zack Snyder did was show the logo of the Batman emblem covered by the Superman emblem. That made the crown at Comic-Con go insane. The difference here is that J.J. kept the anticipation going by giving the fans tidbits like views of the practical sets and animatronic puppets. They still gave nothing of the plot away, but they gave the fans the sense that he was going back to the old school Star Wars style of using practical effects.
What Snyder did is kept giving away what all of the fans wanted way too early: the Batmobile, Wonder Woman, what Batman would look like in many views, toys, footage, more footage, a bunch of trailers, and so on. By the time movie started, I basically sat there thinking, “Saw that…that…knew that was coming, knew she was like that, oh great, oh there’s Doomsday. Oh, a reversal of the end of the comic. Lame. This sucked.”
Maybe it would’ve been different if I hadn’t known too much and let my brain drink in all that candy drink, but it was too late. I was already prepared for it to be bad because the marketing allowed be to grow accustomed to it.
Even with Cloverfield did I get hyped up over the film being released. All we got was that teaser of a bunch of college kids hearing a monster in an apartment, running onto the street, and then seeing the Statue of Liberty’s head thrown on the street. I wanted to see that movie. I NEEDED to see it. Was it good? Nah. Did the marketing make me want to see it? Hell yeah they did. J.J. Abrams knows how to hype a movie whether it’s good or not.
There is a lot to know about marketing in general, but marketing a movie doesn’t have to be difficult. Don’t spend way too much on marketing when your production budget is already too high. Don’t show the whole movie in the trailers. Don’t give out too much information on the plot. Give out a few bits and pieces here and there. HIRE A GOOD EDITOR FOR TRAILERS. It’s not that hard, movie studios.
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Jeff Sorensen is an author, writer and occasional comedian living in Detroit, Michigan. You can look for more of his work on The Huffington Post,UPROXX,BGR and by just looking up his name.
Contact: jeff@socialunderground.com