News
New Media Enthralls Marketers, But Audiences Spotty
By Robert Marich
Oct. 5, 2009 – Twitter is “flavor of the month” for movie marketers, supplanting prior occupants of that title: social network Facebook, before that MySpace and before that mobile phone marketing (the latter going way back to 2007).
By all counts, traditional TV advertising – reaching huge audiences – and trailers – impacting heavy movie-goers – are still the mainstays. But more successes are surfacing with new media-centric advertising.
Sony Pictures’ sci-fi District 9 became a surprise hit credited with new media marketing. Now Paramount’s low budget horror Paranormal Activity seems to be catching fire with a likewise new media centric viral campaign.
“It looks like it, given the very-low-budget film–acquired by Viacom (VIA) studio Paramount Pictures as a remake–performed spectacularly well last weekend, selling out midnight-only shows focused on college towns,” notes an All Things Digital article by Kara Swisher. “That middle-of-the-night tactic was made larger this past weekend, creating a ton of online heat, which led to an expanded release planned for this coming weekend at all hours.”
Paranormal Activity is now playing at a miniscule 33 theaters averaging a very good $16,212 per screen, per Boxofficemojo estimates, which is up from 12 locations the week before. The $30 million production of District 9 has grossed a blockbuster $114 million domestically for Sony's TriStar so far.
“District 9, Julie & Julia and The Ugly Truth open strong and maintain momentum by keeping the branded conversation around each film active and updating the films' followers on the microblogging site with exclusive content in the following weeks,” says an Advertising Age article by Andrew Hampp.
Marketing to Moviegoers: Second Edition notes that new media-oriented marketing campaigns, while talked up because they are inexpensive, are less sure-fire in delivering audiences opening weekend than traditional ad spending. New media marketing is usually slow to spread and uncertain to ever reach a wide audience. It’s also difficult control, as Snakes on a Plane demonstrated. That thriller film’s trailer caught fire on the web but interest peaked too early because when the 2006 New Line release finally opened audience interested had waned.
Also, as Marketing to Moviegoers’ extensive research chapter indicates audience segments such as children and older adults are not plugged in to new media, so it’s not an effective way yet to reach them.
For full text, click links below:
adage.com/madisonandvine/article
www.marketingmovies.net/news/peer-buzz-trumps-pro-critics-for-moviegoers/
www.marketingmovies.net/chapters/chapter-3-paid-advertising/