From chapter seven of Andrew Pearson’s book Going Mobile: Going Social, available at Amazon.com – •
Kindle:http://www.amazon.com/Going-‐Mobile-‐Social-‐Andrew-‐Pearson-‐ ebook/dp/B00Q49WHD4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1420254894&sr=8-‐ 1&keywords=going+mobile%3A+Going+social
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Createspace: https://tsw.createspace.com/title/4573169
Motion Picture Production and Distribution When it comes to brand marketing, the film industry is in a highly unique position; it is the only industry in which over a hundred million U.S. dollars will be spent on a product that is, literally, a shot (of light) in the dark. The history of film is littered with the expensive carcasses of movies like Waterworld, Pluto Nash, 47 Ronin, The Lone Ranger as well as another one that is, I’m sure, “Coming to a theater near you this summer.” Before Titanic was released Daily Variety and The Hollywood Reporter were filled with stories predicting the failure of the movie at the box office, it also questioned the wisdom of giving carte blanche to a director notorious for financial overruns and the brilliance of spending over $100M on one movie. Of course, the filmmakers and studio execs at Fox and Paramount (especially) got the last laugh, but ferreting out and trumpeting the latest box office disasters has almost become a sport amongst the multitude of film critics who cover Hollywood. So, today, both Hollywood’s major studios as well as the multitude of mini-‐majors exploit social media to generate early buzz for most of their upcoming releases. “Film marketing is no longer about releasing a trailer or a few posters and waiting for the audience reaction on st
opening day. The market survey approach of using focus groups is also passé. After all, social media is the 21 Century’s perfect crowd-‐sourced focus group! It enables real-‐time, two-‐way communication, allowing marketing campaigns to be changed based on trends and feedback” (Enterprise Gamification). “The typical pre-‐release scenario of a medium to big budget mass market film involves launching official Facebook and Twitter accounts and pushing these through traditional media, online competitions and so on” (Enterprise Gamification). No other industry should be embracing AR quite like the motion picture industry. One could say AR is almost in its blood. In celebration of its 100th anniversary, Universal Pictures created a unique range of 15 Blu-‐rays and DVDs with augmented reality sleeves, allowing the magic of iconic movies to come alive in 3D. In the first two weeks on 1
shelves, 100,000 units were sold generating more than 66,000 AR interactions.” Iconic media provider NBCUniversal launched its major Amplified trade campaign by incorporating Aurasma in its US marketing materials. From full page ads in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal to elevator wraps, posters, and table tents in its 30 Rock NYC headquarters, NBC Universal’s Amplified campaign imagery comes alive when 2
viewed through the free Aurasma app. 1 http://www.aurasma.com/partners/#/universal-‐pictures (Retrieved: 17 April 2014) 2 http://www.aurasma.com/partners/#/nbcuniversal (Retrieved: 17 April 2014)
Hollywood studios are using people like Sarai Cruz, a blogger and University of Florida senior, to help market their movies long before the release date (Chaney, 2014). Cruz “is a connoisseur of young adult novels and their movie adaptations. She devoured every photo that leaked online during the production of the Twilight movies, and she was among the hordes at shopping mall hypefests staged prior to the releases of The Hunger Games, The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones, and DivergentIy” (Chaney, 2014). “Most of these young adult (YA) franchise launches came with enormous efforts to rally their YA bases, but Cruz says she has seen nothing like the PR push for The Fault in Our Stars, the adaptation of John Green's best-‐selling YA page-‐turner about two cancer-‐stricken teens in love, starring Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort and opening June 6” (Chaney, 2014). “The all-‐hands-‐on-‐mobile-‐devices operation has involved, among other things: flooding Instagram, Tumblr, and other social media feeds with set photos; galvanizing fans to dictate the schedule for a recent publicity tour; and giving Green free reign to blast out updates and video clips” (Chaney, 2014). "It's never been like this, where the author is tweeting [from the set] and saying, 'I just cried for the fourth time,'" admits Cruz (Chaney, 2014). TFIOS is a very personal book to the millions of people who were swept away by the bittersweet terminal love story, so Fox has chosen to be particularly careful during the marketing of the film (Chaney, 2014). “Making the fans feel involved is the mission of Twentieth Century Fox’s marketing campaign, which has borrowed the elements that are now standard in the promotion of wildly popular YA-‐inspired cinema (embracing the book's fans, providing early sneak peeks, hosting cast Q&As) and taken them to an even more social media-‐obsessed level” (Chaney, 2014). The fans are protective of the film, and by keeping them intimately updated on its progress, “the studio has made them not only feel nurtured and listened to, but also turned them into proselytizers for the major release” (Chaney, 2014). The studio has been very savvy in the way it has used the book’s rabid fanbase as well as in its online marketing efforts, particularly where TFIOS loyalists tend to congregate (Chaney, 2014). For example, “the movie's official website is a Tumblr page filled with images and tribute-‐GIFs created by fans that have quickly spread through the fan community” (Chaney, 2014). A very clever use of UGC to foster engagement. “On Instagram, YouTube, and other platforms, cast members and Green have documented what happened on the set and during the current promotional blitz” (Chaney, 2014). Fox has also recruited what they have dubbed “Fault Fanatics” to become the film’s “brand ambassadors,” who are fans dedicated to spread the gospel about the film across a multitude of social media channels (Chaney, 2014). Fox has skillfully taken these “brand ambassadors” (read: upaid publicists) and co-‐opted their passion for the book and the film in a way that makes the fans feel as though they are invested in the cause (Chaney, 2014). All of these efforts seems to be paying off in the social media world; TFIOS’s trailer recently became the most-‐ liked movie trailer in YouTube history (Chaney, 2014). "When you have an active fan base, they have a huge appetite for content," says Brian Lovell, the CEO of RED Interactive, a Santa Monica, California, digital design and marketing agency that created The Hunger Games Explorer, the social-‐media-‐aggregating, deep-‐dive web experience created with Microsoft (Chaney, 2014). "If you give it to them and you do it in a smart way, you're going to see results," Lovell notes (Chaney, 2014). And then there is the TFIOS secret weapon: John Green (Chaney, 2014). Described as “a digital platform all to himself,” Green enthusiastically serves as the brand ambassador-‐in-‐chief (Chaney, 2014). “Recently included on Time's list of the world's 100 most influential people, Green has 2.34 million Twitter followers and more than 2 million
subscribers to the “vlogbrothers” YouTube series he co-‐hosts with his brother, Hank; to his legion of Nerdfighters—a ‘vlogbrothers’ term that has become synonymous with Green's fandom—he's not just the author of a heartbreaking love story. He's practically a spiritual guru, with a wry, conversational writing style that's perfectly attuned to precocious, Web-‐immersed teens” (Chaney, 2014). Outside of the US, Chennai Express, a recent Bollywood blockbuster used a multi-‐channel social media marketing plan that drew worldwide attention (Gupta, 2014). The objective of the social media strategy was to generate social buzz and foster audience engagement, both nationally and internationally, so that movie-‐goers would be made aware of the film and fill the theaters once it opened, as it should be with every film. “Right from the outset, the Chennai Express digital team, headed by Shailja Gupta, was very clear about using social media as the focus of their marketing strategy. In addition to reaching out to as many people as possible, the objective was to build campaigns that would capture people’s imagination and translate the increased social media traffic into getting more people to come to theaters” (Enterprise Gamification). “The social media strategy for Chennai Express was well planned for the right timing, buzz and effective engagement. The biggest initial challenge was deciding the correct timing for the launch (of various campaigns), selecting the right keywords & hashtags, and choosing the right target audiences & influencers for initial promotions” (Gupta, 2014). “The core social media strategies adopted tied in with the movie’s maxim—‘Don’t underestimate the power of the common man’” (Gupta, 2014). This message tapped into the zeitgeist in India, which recently “witnessed mass outpourings of public sentiment, first in support of Anna Hazare’s anti-‐corruption campaign and then again on the issue of women’s safety” (Enterprise Gamification). The social media marketing started weeks before the actual release date and continued through post-‐release (Gupta, 2014). “Innovative hashtags were pivotal to the Twitter strategy. Upcoming public holidays like Eid, India’s Independence Day, and Raksha Bandhan, movie based buzzwords, including viral content like the Lungi Dance; the success of international releases and box office numbers were all used in creating hashtags” (Gupta, 2014). “Each hashtag was supported separately in trends, on the premise that each had its own milestones and identity, and cumulatively could help the movie campaign to spread” (Gupta, 2014). This resulted in a very successful Twitter strategy as, during the entire campaign, not a day went by when a Chennai Express related hashtag wasn’t at the top of the Indian Twitter trending charts (Gupta, 2014). Even better, it went international, topping Twitter’s world trending topics (Gupta, 2014). Sustaining buzz for both a national and international audience was another related challenge; in social media, a week is a decade and timing is paramount (Gupta, 2014). “If a movie’s buzz peaks too early or too late in its marketing lifecycle, it could ring the death knell for successful box office collections. The team’s ‘Actionable Insights’ were vital in keeping things fresh and adding new paradigms to the social media buzz” (Gupta, 2014). “For example, during the opening weekend, the team quickly realized that people like talking about box office numbers, so the hashtag #CE100crin3Days was designed to celebrate the box office numbers being reported” (Gupta, 2014). The producers also wanted to reach out to the core fan base to give them a sense of ownership for the film, specifically the so-‐called social media “influencers”—the movie critics, trade analysts and social media stars (Gupta, 2014). A cross-‐pollination social media strategy using the strengths of each social network was put into effect (Gupta, 2014). “While Twitter is the engine for viral content, Facebook is the more personal platform, where word of mouth recommendations work better” (Gupta, 2014). “Chennai Express’ campaigns were designed in such a way that users
of one social network were often asked to go to another one for the next stimulus. For example, the YouTube game ‘Rahul meets Meena’ involved innovations around YouTube’s in-‐video links and was showcased on both Facebook and Twitter” (Gupta, 2014). Chennai Express’ mobile strategy encompassed native apps, games and SMSes (Enterprise Gamification). “In a bid to capture the imagination of casual gamers and increase the film’s pre-‐release buzz, ‘Chennai Express: Escape from Rameshwaram’, the movie’s official game, was launched on multiple platforms well before release day” (Enterprise Gamification). The resuls of the social media campaign was unprecedented as the following numbers reveal: 1.
Express related tweets generated over 1 billion cumulative impressions and the total number of tweets across all hashtags stood at over 750 thousand over the 90-‐days campaign period (Gupta, 2014).
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International impressions generated exceeded the Indian impressions. The top countries (in order of total tweets sent) included India, USA, Pakistan, Indonesia, Germany, Malaysia, UK, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Vietnam, Bangladesh and Canada (Gupta, 2014).
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Twitter history was made, Chennai Express was the first film to be listed in the top trends for more than 10 consecutive days with innovative hash tags and multiple campaigns (Gupta, 2014).
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Chennai Express has also become the first Indian film in Twitter history to trend at worldwide no. 1 with two separate hashtags “#ChennaiExpress” and “#ChennaiExpressWeekend” (Gupta, 2014).
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Opening day even eclipsed the Hollywood movies released during the same weekend—Elysium and Planes, produced by Tristar and Disney respectively—by over 500%.
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Every box office record milestone has been broken, including highest opening weekend collections in India, highest opening weekend collections for a Bollywood movie in USA & Canada, fastest Bollywood movie to join the one billion (INR) club and the fastest film franchise to cross the 2 billion (INR) mark, beating all the biggest Bollywood box office hits before it (Gupta, 2014).
Gamificiation was an important part of Chennai Express’ social media marketing plan and it was integrated into other digital tools seamlessly as follows: •
“A twitter app was created where a train needed to reach Rameshwaram. The more the tweets, the faster the train would move to reach the destination for the trailer to be unveiled” (Gupta, 2014).
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“Seven browser based games were created and adapted for use on mobile and social media sites. This seamless cross platform integration helped the audience to engage more” (Gupta, 2014).
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“An Endless Running mobile game where users take control of Rahul or Meena while they run to escape the villians. On the way, they fight goons, run past a variety of obstacles ranging from buses, autos, coconut carts, man-‐holes, etc.” (Gupta, 2014). This app has been so successful that months after the film’s release the producers were still getting paid downloads every day (Enterprise Gamification).
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A Karaoke mobile app was built that allowed users to sing a song from the movie, as well as share the score on Facebook (Gupta, 2014).
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“Interactive Video Innovation app allowed users to choose what Rahul would do next to woo Meena and accordingly change the sequence of events and influence the end of the video” (Gupta, 2014).
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“To bring all the campaigns together the comprehensive website was fully integrated with social media sites and proved invaluable in creating high recall value for Chennai Express” (Gupta, 2014).
The use of in-‐movie branding is not a new phenomenon but Chennai Express took it to a while new level by extending this phenomenon onto social media (Gupta, 2014). “This included both direct partners and, rather surprisingly, even brands with no connection to the movie or the cast. The interesting adaptations and metaphors used by the different brands added to the buzz around the core Chennai Express brand and allowed it to remain relevant for a longer period of time” (Gupta, 2014) than it probably would have been normally. The relevance of social media and digital marketing to Bollywood—and Hollywood, Chollywood (Peruvian film industry), Lolywood (Pakistan’s film industry, named for Lahore), Nollywood (cinema of Nigeria), Sollywood (South African film industry) and any other iteration of “wood” that filmmakers want to use)—has become paramount. “Clearly, conversations are now moving onto social networks. For movies and brands to participate in these conversations, innovations are crucial in the way the connection with the audience is made” (Gupta, 2014). At the same time, the social web is ever evolving—trends take minutes to appear, then can disappear in an instant (Gupta, 2014). “Expert insights, built on analytics and big data, are necessary in planning the many facets of a coordinated social media strategy” (Gupta, 2014). “A strategy’s success on social media—and ultimately its business success—lies in taking advantages of the opportunities that present themselves, being able to predict circumstances and planning for different eventualities” (Gupta, 2014). The Enterprise Gamification reports goes on to conclude that, “Shah Rukh Khan and the success of the Channai Express have proved that social media is the channel of the future and that it presents unique opportunities to marketers and brands, at an unbeatable ROI” (Gupta, 2014). Chennai had 18 direct brand associations in categories ranging from food and beverages, mobile handsets and fast moving consumer goods (Gupta, 2014). “These partners not only benefited from the exposure of in-‐movie endorsements, but also launched social media campaigns with a connection to the movie. The immense popularity of the movie saw each brand campaign receive a good response on social media and helped each of them in furthering their brands” (Gupta, 2014). In a unique case of big brother is watching you while you are trying to watch one of its pirated movies, in 2009 Miramax Films contacted a Twitter follower who was lamenting the fact that she couldn’t download a pirated version of the studio’s film Adventureland on Twitter (Enigmax, 2009). Her Tweet, “Ugh WHY IS ADVENTURELAND NOT ON TORRENTS YET?” contained two keywords that Miramax monitors for—their movie titles and “torrents,” one of the popular streaming services that pirated movies are downloaded from (Enigmax, 2009). Miramax immediately contacted the Twitterer, asking her not to download the pirated film, to which she sarcastically replied, “Okay I wont, JUST FOR YOU” (Enigmax, 2009). To her surprise, Miramax responded back with a free Fandango card for two tickets to see the film (Enigmax, 2009). The Twitterer decided to accept the offer only because, as she irreverently put it, she “couldn’t find a working Adventureland torrent anyway” (Enigmax, 2009). This is a perfect example of how a company can use social media channels to instantly connect with its audience and consumers, and even catch them when they are trying to circumvent the normal distribution processes, but, obviously, it will do little to dent the enormous problem of movie piracy. It does, however, send a thinly veiled warning that these social media channels do not exist in a vacuum and sometimes a user’s actions are being watched
by others. Miramax got a nice dose of publicity out of it and it did show the world that it is keeping its eye on potential piracy issues. Content communities like YouTube are great places for movies to market as well. YouTube is one of the go-‐to sites for movie trailers, but it can be so much more. Documentaries and behind-‐the-‐scenes footage can be uploaded there. It is also a great launching ground for viral content and Carrie, the remake of the hair-‐raising horror movie of the 80s created a brilliant marketing stunt that was true to its namesake (David, 2013). As David (2013) explains in his article The Top 10 Influential Social Media Markeitng Campaigns of 2013, “The marketing and production crew of the movie joined forces in creating a terrifying prank in a coffee shop sure to make patrons run out of the shop and, well, hopefully, into the movie theater! The coffee shop was outfitted with fake walls, moving chairs, moving tables, falling books, a stunt man, and an actress to create a terrifying scene of telekinetic haunting in true Carrie fashion.” Needless to say, the video garnered quite a bit of attention—58,184,700 3
hits and counting as of August 1, 2014. Free promotional mobile apps are becoming an important element of a movie distributor’s marketing efforts for their theatrical films as well. Most apps include official film content, such as video clips, ringtones and photo stills. “Zombieland” was the first film app to use Facebook’s “Connect to Mobile Web” feature, which allowed users to connect to their Facebook pages and instantly distribute news feeds to their friends. The studios are hoping these word-‐of-‐mobile marketing campaigns—as they have become known—can help spread the marketing word cheaply and effectively. By posting QR codes on promotion material like posters or online Websites, theater chains can increase exposure of their movies very inexpensively. These QR codes allow mobile users to take a picture of the barcodes, and then, by using any QR decoding software, they will be given the option of downloading ringtones, wall papers, or they might also be able to receive a listing of the nearby theaters that are showing the movie. One click access to the web can send the user to a website where they can purchase tickets, download music from the soundtrack, or get directions to a theater that is showing the movie. For its thriller Repo Men, Universal Pictures ran a promotional campaign that contained QR Codes to create marketing buzz (Tsirulnik, 1 March 2009). Using Red Laser’s mobile bar code scanner application, digital marketing agency 360i devised a mobile component for the Repo Men marketing campaign that cleverly tied into the film’s storyline (Tsirulnik, 1 March 2009). The film follows the exploits of men who repossess artificial human organs from users who are more than 90-‐days late on their payments for these organs (Tsirulnik, 1 March 2009). The artwork contained images of the organs—or artiforgs as they are known in the film—with a barcode that mobile users can scan into their mobile phones. For example, scanning the heart barcode launches a mobile application containing a side-‐by-‐side comparison of a human heart versus an artificial heart, along with a tongue-‐in-‐cheek section encouraging people to live indulgently as they can always buy a better heart (Tsirulnik, 1 March 2009). With their low-‐budget ghost story Paranormal Activity, Paramount Pictures tapped into social media in a unique and highly cost effective way. Normally a film’s prints and advertising budgets are about half of the production budget and, even after spending these sometimes enormous sums of money, a studio can’t be certain a large audience will
3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlOxlSOr3_M (Retrieved 1 August 2014).
show up for the film. The film industry is the only industry in the world that, literally, spends millions and millions of dollars to create a product that it has no idea if there is really a market for it. With Paranormal Activity, however, Paramount shrewdly built a buzz for the movie by launching a social media campaign that asked people interested in seeing the movie to go to eventful.com and demand that the movie be 4
shown in their local theaters. Paramount promised to release the film nationwide if 1,000,000 people demanded it. Not only did this marketing ploy get people excited about seeing the movie that had been called the next Blair Witch Project, but it also basically guaranteed that an audience would show up to see the movie when it was actually released, so caught up in the marketing hype were they. All in all, the marketing ploy was a clever and unique way to market the movie and it tapped into a new and innovative marketing opportunity that social media offers, just as The Blair Witch Project tapped into the new and innovative marketing opportunities the Internet offered when it became popular. Both films reaped massive box office returns. In the first week of wide release (ending Sunday, October 18, 2009), Paranormal Activity made $20.2 million and was the third most seen film in the U.S., making substantially more than the big studio fright flick The Stepfather, which was showing at four times as many theaters. By late October, Paranormal Activity had become the most profitable movie ever made, thanks in no small part to the role of social media in the marketing process. Paranormal Activity has now spawned multiple sequels and its viral marketing campaign is considered one of the most successful of all time for any industry.
References Chaney, J. (2014, May 15). How 'The Fault in Our Stars' Movie Became a Social-‐Media Supernova. Retrieved from Yahoo.com: https://www.yahoo.com/movies/how-‐the-‐fault-‐in-‐our-‐stars-‐movie-‐became-‐a-‐ 85737561462.html David, E. (2013, December 12). Top 10 Influential Social Media Marketing Campaigns of 2013. Retrieved from adherecreative: http://www.adherecreative.com/blog/bid/152638/Top-‐10-‐Influential-‐Social-‐Media-‐ Marketing-‐Campaigns-‐of-‐2013 Enigmax. (2009, April 13). Torrentfreak.com. Miramax rewards would-‐be bittorrent pirate with free ticket. Retrieved from Enigmax: http://torrentfreak.com/miramax-‐rewards-‐would-‐be-‐bittorrent-‐pirate-‐with-‐free-‐ticket-‐ 090413/ Enterprise Gamification. (n.d.). The Business of Bollywood. Retrieved from enterprise-‐gamification.com: http://www.enterprise-‐ gamification.com/attachments/article/184/Chennai%20Express%20Case%20Study.pdf Tsirulnik, G. (2009f, March 1). Universal Pictures Repo Man movie sells organs via bar code scanning. Retrieved from Mobile Marketer: www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/advertising/5520.html
4 http://mashable.com/2009/10/07/paranormal-‐activity/ (Retrieved: October 14, 2009).