Sample Book Chapters

Chapter 1 -- Creative Strategy (For Marketing)

Chapter extracts in this section of the website amount to 4,000 words distilled from 110,000 words in the print book.
   Because most movies are based on original concepts, the ad messages need to position each film in its appropriate genre, so aficionados of that genre can easily find the movie. The ad message should also serve up notions about what makes a film special to attempt to broaden audience appeal.
   The most important concept to keep in mind when creating movie ads is that most film releases are analogous to “new product” launches. Certainly, consumers are predisposed to

BELOW: Three is definitely a crowd in the creative for Universal’s “You, Me and Dupree” billboard. The expressive three faces crammed together position the comedy for the youth market.

 
various elements of familiarity in a movie, such as  well-known actors or films based on preexisting properties such as popular novels. Tom Hanks and Harrison Ford are de facto brand names as heroic good guys, and the Harry Potter books have legions of fans. Yet, films with popular stars and films based on popular books bomb all the time.
   The total cost to conceive of and polish creative materials into a finished advertising campaign for a big Hollywood film ranges from $1 million to $3 million, depending on how many outside ad shops are involved. Independents spend drastically less, often using one shop to create both the trailer and television commercial. Independents also may opt for less-expensive shops, not the top Hollywood boutiques hired by the major studios.
   In creating advertising material, the top priorities are cinema trailers, which are also used on the Internet, and television commercials. Hollywood film marketers view them as the most persuasive in convincing moviegoers to buy cinema tickets. They reason that film itself is an audiovisual medium, so the audio and visual qualities of cinema trailers and television commercials best convey flavor and nuances. Also, Web sites post trailers and TV commercials free, providing a huge promotional platform. 
 
   Perhaps the most daunting challenge is selling movies that audiences really don’t want to see. That may seem a contradiction, but is a curious fact of life in Hollywood’s from-the-gut development and filmmaking creative process.
   A case in point is the series of Iraq- and Afghanistan-related war films that flopped in quick succession during late 2007. They were serious and hardly “feel good” films that audiences seek for entertainment. These included Redacted, Rendition, Lions for Lambs, In the Valley of Elah, The Kingdom, Grace
Is Gone, A Mighty Heart, and Taxi to the Dark Side.
   In a year-end box-office report, a USA Today article stated, “Look at the lowest-grossing movies of the year, and they are littered with stories with something political to say.” In the case of Lions for Lambs, the star wattage of Tom Cruise and Robert Redford illuminated a meager $15 million in U.S./Canada box office in what was said to be a $35 million production released by MGM.
   In advertising these films, Hollywood marketing executives decided to hide the hot-button war themes and instead vainly reposition the films as thrillers, engrossing character dramas, or as star vehicles (for Cruise in Lions for Lambs and Tommy Lee Jones in Elah).
 
Text copyright © 2009, Robert Marich. All rights reserved.
Used here with permission from SIU Press.