MARKETING IN HOLLYWOOD IS MISSING IN ACTION

This blog is a direct response to the April 4 Hollywood Reporter article by Peter Bart. It is titled, “In Hollywood, the Glass is Gaffe Full." In it, Peter characterizes the senior executives in the film industry as being locked in a general fear of failure. From my perspective, Peter’s article is pretty much correct in as far as it goes. I will take it a bit further. To read Peter’s article go to:

http://www.variety.com/article/vr1118034799.com 

My experience in the world of film marketing is limited but I can promise that successfully marketing a film is no different than marketing cat litter, cooking sauce or any other product or service. The film market is a service industry that grew up with a lot of bad habits, and remains committed to hanging on to most of them.

From a pure marketing point of view, I see two ways to improve the process. It is a common practice to place responsibility for the Key Art (print materials) and the Trailers (video materials) in the hands of two separate groups. Instead it needs to be integrated and driven by one cohesive Selling Proposition. Having said that, I am sure that every marketing executive in the film industry is sure his marketing is fully integrated…it is not.

Back in the early days of film marketing, the One Sheet and other printed materials were considered critical because they would get reproduced in various sizes and posted all over town. At that time the trailer was more of a production function and the goal was simply to develop one that stimulated interest. The effect of this history is that there are creative groups around Hollywood who produce one or the other but rarely both. This separation internally and externally guarantees an incohesive environment. Marketing 101 says, develop a Selling Proposition that resonates to your target audience and ensure that message is present in all advertising and promotion materials.

Today film marketing is very different in that the printed materials are far less effective and the trailer is now absolutely critical. With a boost from the Internet, I can review trailers on my iPhone in seconds. What we have then, are senior executives instructing junior managers to hire the best outside creatives to develop POWERFUL trailers. It’s easy to develop a POWERFUL trailer. Have you noticed they are all melodramatic hype from start to finish these days? The idea of creating and communicating a Unique Selling Proposition targeted to the correct audience is non-existent.

Here then is the problem. Now, more than ever before, the film industry is subjected to heavy word-of-mouth promotion. That would be a dream come true in the categories I market in, but it’s a marketing tool that needs to be handled with skill.

The marketing goal for the film industry should be to identify all of the target users appropriate for the film and create a Unique Selling Proposition that they find compelling. Secondarily, and of almost equal importance is, never drive an inappropriate target consumer into the theater. Those people are not your friend, they are your enemy and you don’t want them viewing your film.

The operating state of all humans is, “What’s wrong here?" If they don’t love the film, they will be even more enthusiastic about spreading the bad word than if they liked it. It would take a very sophisticated piece of research to identify how many people you lose when you drive one person inappropriately to a film. If film executives had that statistic, they might stop developing POWERFUL trailers and experience a great deal more success.

So, Mr. Peter Bart. To my mind, the senior executives in the film industry have good reason to be afraid. The likelihood is that as our electronic information driven society continues to advance, it will likely get worse.

Cheers, 

Keith Chambers

Keynote Marketing Speaker
Creative Marketing Consultant
(310) 473-0010
www.chambersgroup.com

follow my blog by clicking one of the links below

visit my site, www.pullbizbook.com

FREE, A Celebrity Endorsement

I have been working for several weeks on the repositioning of Ricky Farmer’s business, Precious Memories, Private Pet Cremations. He is the winner of the America’s Marketing Makeover contest on the Big Biz Show. I am the giver of the now somewhat well known makeover. You can follow it on the CBS Radio network as well as syndicated TV stations across America.

  

The reason I selected this business is simply because I thought it is unusual and sensitive enough to create viewer interest. I was right. I’m told ratings are up.

One positioning element I introduced to Ricky’s selling proposition is the endorsement. I did so with good reason. It’s based on an insight we discovered a little over a year ago. One of the exercises we do when working on creating new selling propositions is to take the strongest of each communication element and force consumers to choose between them based on how important each is to them. You may want to check this out with your sales message because chances are you are not taking advantage. If your competition is doing so, you are likely suffering. The good news is that the reverse is also true.

While doing the exercise, we typically include brand names, sub-brand names, generic descriptors, benefits, attribute drivers, key graphics, endorsements and so on. What we discovered is that consistently among the strongest elements are the benefit and the endorsement. This is contrary to the popular belief. If you were able to poll 100 brand, marketers most would say the brand name, sub-brand name or a key attributes are the most important. My experience is that I have not seen that in well over fifty projects where we have conducted the exercise.

My initial thought was to ask Ricky to solicit testimonials from ten of his clients. He did so and they were great. After thinning them out we selected three that we have included in his selling proposition. During the process, I remember thinking several times that it would be great if Ricky had worked with a celebrity who would write a testimonial but never perused it given his business resides in Cleveland, Georgia. Cleveland is approximately seventy miles outside of Atlanta. Here comes the breakthrough.

On another project, one of my sons was working with a famous quote from Buddha. He was considering using it as an inspirational element. It suddenly occurred to me, that if properly used, a famous quote might be a great way to convey a meaningful and relevant thought by a famous source. A quick call to our attorneys and we realized that all those well-known quotes are considered “public domain”. Moving forward, we found these three that seemed appropriate for the business of “Private Pet Cremations.” Which one would you use?

1) The value of a society is based upon its kindness to animals. -Albert Schweitzer

2) The greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated. –Gandhi

3) The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man. –Charles Darwin

I thought number three was far and away the best but we chose number one. Number three was eliminated because the majority of our team were concerned that Darwin would be viewed negatively in that part of the world. Chalk it up to a fear of religious intolerance. I guess it is possible but I loved what he said. I guess what is most important here is that the cover of Ricky’s brochure will contain the Schweitzer quote so he has what can be considered a celebrity third party endorsement and it will cost him nothing.

Now, go Google “famous quotes your category” and see if you can put a celebrity to work for you. Good luck!

Cheers, 

Keith Chambers

Keynote Marketing Speaker
Creative Marketing Consultant
(310) 473-0010
www.chambersgroup.com

follow my blog by clicking one of the links below

visit my site, www.pullbizbook.com