August 27, 2006
word of mouth is not created, word of mouth is co-created.
Dave Mackenzie, the director of Hallam Foe, just sent me the following e-mail. I replied below. I dont pretend to have all the answers, but what I do know is what has worked for me. You decide:
Dear Hugh,
Judging by the comments we have already seen, it seems to me that the challenge of marketing a film is a completely different kettle of fish to marketing the things you have done so successfully with a high quality specialist microbrand like English Cut, or an expanding mid-market drink producer like Stormhoek.
Not being an expert in the field of marketing, it seems to me that the principle definition of a film is that it is a one-off mass market entertainment product. Every new film enters what must be among the most mammoth marketing snakepits in existence. You have a product with a very short life span and you have to throw whatever you can into marketing it. Most successful films have marketing budgets way in excess of their production budgets. Basically every form of marketing that can be used has been used for films to try to give them their one-off shot at glory in a brutally competitive market.
Incidentally I am sure it is no coincidence that the films that dominate the marketplace and make the most money try to break out of this one-off definition by a) running into several sequels, prequels etc. to expand the brand, b) having multiple merchandising spinoffs which expand the brand further, and c) having an easily digestible high concept star heavy marketing brand in the first place. Of course most of these ‘blockbuster’ films, particularly the sequels, are not always as tasty, nourishing and satisfying as their marketing departments might have us believe — but by the time we notice we have already bought the ticket.
So can the blogosphere really help us take on the big boys at their own game — without their massive budgets?
And how can we compete when we have a film that has avoided an obvious high concept (like films about their title, for example, Snakes on a Plane or My Big Fat Greek Wedding) in favour of a richer tapestry?
I get your ‘Markets as conversations’ ideas, and I feel that Hallam Foe probably deserves conversations more than statements, but how can a conversation ever get heard above the screaming clamour in the hugely overcrowded film marketplace?
Apart from SOAP, the kind of films that are doing well on the internet buzz machine tend to be no budget flicks by driven amateurs like the exciting Four Eyed Monsters team (although their documented experiences are so acutely observed and funny that I can’t help thinking they are satire in the vein of The Office!). I mean no disrespect to amateurism because it is truly the future of creative film-making (in the way it has been in music for years), but (perhaps unfortunately) our beautiful 35mm scope picture with its great story, wonderful performances and amazing soundtrack could never be perceived as amateur.
So, we don’t have big budget hi-con studio material and we don’t have hip lo-fi hi-con from the myspace crowd, we have a rather special classy little teen movie that can’t be easily classified. So what do we have to offer in terms of marketing that is going to get us our must-see tag?
For a start we have the traditional route which relies on advance press from the cast, good reviews and good word of mouth (quite likely judging by responses to the film so far) as well as a poster and advertising campaign. And we have a nice little blog that will continue to grow as we build up to finish and release the film. And maybe Jamie’s amazing performance will win some awards — and the others too. But all this is very normal, just like every other low/mid budget film. What can we do to take it that bit further — preferably without misrepresenting the film?
I know in you Hugh I am in the hands of a great experimenter who will try his hardest to find a way, but Hallam Foe is much less easy to package than great suits, fresh wine and flying snakes.
I look forward to going on the adventure with you.
David Mackenzie
Dear David,
I hear you on the suits. They’re a very niche market, and they command a very high price. Success for them requires a customer base of hundreds, not millions.
Wine, however, is different. The average bottle of wine sells for less than the price of a movie ticket, and there are hundreds and thousands of vineyards out there, all fighting like cats in a sack for space on the supermarket shelf.
It seems to me wine has the same problem as a film release: How do you get yourself to rise above the clutter?
The answer to this, of course, is “conversation”. Word Of Mouth. Lots of people telling their friends about their movie. Lots of people recommending it. What we call in the marketing trade, a “virus”.
Now there is an idea that if you start a virus in the blogosphere, eventually it’ll spread out into the mainstream, and your product will have a hit on it hands. Maybe, but I’m not convinced this happens very often.
Stormhoek is a small hit in the blogosphere, but this doesn’t really affect sales. What affects sales is the random guy walking down the random aisle in the random supermarket, and seeing a random bottle of Stormhoek, and randomly deciding to buy it.
For us at Stormhoek, the blogosphere is useful as an idea incubator. Why? Because if you say something interesting, people talk about it. If you say something dull, people ignore it. And we take what we learn from interacting with other bloggers, and apply it to the more mundane world of supermarket aisles and wine importers. The new label designs initiative came directly out of this.
The blogosphere doesn’t get us sales, but it makes us much smarter salesmen.
So where the blogosphere could be useful to Hallam Foe is, to help you better understand which parts of your story are inherently viral, and which are not. Allowing you have what I call a “Smarter Conversation”. And align your marketing accordingly.
What I wish to use the blogosphere for, is to understand two basic questions:
1. Who is talking about the movie.
2. What are they saying about the movie.
And I want to know the answer to this question before the film is in general release.
As any Cluetrain maven will tell you, when it comes to Word Of Mouth, you don;t control the conversation. The only way you can have any control of the conversation is if you improve the conversation.
i.e. Control the conversation by improving the conversation.
i.e. Find ways to make it easier for people to talk about your movie.
Movies are loved they articulate feelings that the audience has, but cannot express themselves. As marketers, we have a duty to help them [actively] do this in terms of their conversations with [relating to] other people, not just in terms of them sitting [passively] in a movie theatre.
I believe that interacting with the blogosphere will help us come up with the answers were looking for. This to me is far more important and interesting than using to blogosphere for the rather shallow act of “creating buzz”.
Next Steps:
1. Start getting bloggers to see the movie, on a limited scale, via private screenings.
2. Listen and learn from what they’re saying.
3. Offer feedback. Be transparent about what you’re seeing.
4. See which parts of the conversation are going “viral”. Positive? Negative? Align your marketing accordingly, by making the “Porous Membrane” even more porous.
5. Start getting bloggers to see the movie on a slightly larger scale. Launch a massive “Free Movie Tickets” campaign via the blog advertising networks– Weblogs Inc, Federated, Gawker, Blogads etc.
6.Repeat process.
Remember, Word Of Mouth is not created, Word of Mouth is co-created. People will only spread your virus if there’s something in it for them. They have to be complicit in your success.
Which means, of course, you have to be complicit in their success as well.
Rock on,
Hugh
Good stuff. Even if I side with David’s opinion that wine marketing and film marketing are not the same because the film release really is a one-shot deal both in terms of the customers and the exhibitors, it emphtaically doesn’t mean you cannot utilise the sort of methods you’re outlining here. It just means that you can’t afford many mistakes because you don’t get a second chance.
Thus, I’m a little wary about point 4 — because you will be aligning your marketing with a self-selecting crowd and have to be sure that you’re not going down a blind alley (which i think is what happened with SOAP). I think you have to be very careful how far you’re swayed by a group of people who may turn out not to be movie-goers.
This is dead on.
“It just means that you can’t afford many mistakes because you don’t get a second chance.”
Yeah, John, the basic movie business model is determined by a single roll of the dice.
However, I believe with an intellectually honest somewhat co-created marketing campaign, the odds can be reduced significantly.
But the dice roll still remains.
Addendum: This isn’t just about marketing to potential movie-goers of course. If the conversation is a big one, it will be a factor that can be leveraged with exhibitors and distributors so that Hallam Foe gets a wider release and larger traditional marketing support than would ohterwise have been the case.
Are personal DVD screeners possible? I believe they code them in such a way that if they end up on a torrent site, they can identify who ripped it, etc.
The solid success of books with a viral impact – The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time comes to mind, is that the shelf-life for the book is much longer.
If there is no way for bloggers to view the film before release, like critics, will the momentum happen fast enough? Without a pre-screening, the blogosphere’s wisdom will probably be too late.
You will learn what worked in terms of marketing, but this knowledge will have to wait for the DVD release.
I will say this much, I’m excited to see this film, and hoping it will at least make it to Ann Arbor, Michigan. I’d drive two hours to see it.
Election campaigns are similar to a film launch. Everything comes down to a very short time frame. A typical campaign leads up to a big push to “get out the vote.”
While it shouldn’t be what you lead with, it’s important to emphasize the urgency of seeing the film early and getting the word out early, since they can’t count on the film being around for 3 – 4 weeks in their local theatre. You’re not trying to manipulate them to push up your numbers. You’re reminding them of the reality of modern film distribution.
“the principle definition of a film is that it is a one-off mass market entertainment product.”
And THAT is why we have so many utterly forgettable crap movies. It’s about the stories. Tell us a good story, or a clever story or a funny or tragic story and we’ll be there. Yes, we will bring the monies.
I think David would know of this approach. But my take on his question would be ‘how does this idea work for films’. The difference being that films currently are brief, fleeting items. A one week release and you are out of there. There is zero long tail for a theatre release.
So that means you need a DVD release. Current marketing strategy is ALREADY what you allude to. But you use your entire theatre release to build word of mouth for the DVD sales. Its one big advert. A lot of films lose money in the cinema — but that’s okay.
I say that you are right though Hugh. Your way is better for making better films. But this will only work if we dump the current crazy system of distribution. And why not? I’m still pressing on with my film Circumference which will be given away free and paid for by adverts. Its this sort of new thinking that is exciting and will hopefully rekindle bloggers interest in films.
We’re seeing a huge revolution in the creative “media” space. Prime time TV in the US this July pulled is lowest audience in recorded history. The trend line is continuing down. Video sharing sites are pulling large sustained audiences (YouTube serving up to 100 million clips a day). Some user created content is getting tens of millions of viewers. The younger demographics, particularly the 16 – 24 year group, are abandoning traditional channels (newspapers, radio, cinemas, tv) and consuming their media via the net and mobiles. The record and film distribution industries are under greater pressure than anytime in there history. The economics of spending $100M to market a movie is an increasing marginal gambit.
Is it possible to create and distribute content without traditional channels? Does this changing landscape mean content will be judged .… and successful … based on quality rather than marketing budget?
What about linking some decent length trailers out into the blogisphere to start the conversation? (e.g. videoegg). Could it be important to leverage this trend fully with Hallam Foe and put it in its entirety on a download service like GUBA for $9.99 under a creative commons licence? If I liked the trailers, I’d join the conversation and I’d buy the movie.
For the first time in our history I think this is possible … to reach a mass audience at low-cost. The key determinant for success going forward will be quality. The cream will rise. Seems to me the conversation has started. How about some more to talk about?
PS: and enjoy a much longer tail
As someone else involved in this whole ‘film blogging’ business I think David has raised some interesting concerns. The one things I’ve found is that the “film people” I’m working with want *immediate* results, and that more than likely won’t happen…
The aim should not *just* be to get people talking about it, but to get the *right* people talking about it. Getting British bloggers talking about ‘Hallam Foe’ will be good for its Technorati and Google rankings, but it won’t necessarily “spread the word” to the people you want to reach. Hugh has got huge numbers of readers, many of whom have their own successful blogs… but are their readers *your audience*?
Let’s be honest, whatever you do marketing-wise, whether it’s online or off, the aim is to get as much ‘real world press’ as possible. The “film uses bloggers to spread the word” meme is not going to get you column inches… ‘Snakes on a Plane’ ruined that for everyone. There are, however, other things you could do online that I think would get the word out:
David Q suggests putting trailers out and getting people to talk about them. There’s very few trailers that I feel the need to talk about online (or off)… Why not, instead, get people to *cut* your trailer? Have a competition. Use the winner’s trailer and put the top 10/15/20 on the DVD extras. Empire Magazine would write about that…
Hugh suggests having bloggers’ screenings which will certainly help with the Google/Technorati stuff, but again won’t get real world press interest… How about invite ‘vloggers’ along with the bloggers and have a post-screening junket where they can interview you and some cast members to post up online… The one who gets the most ‘click-throughs’ to GetYourPeople gets to follow you around when you’re doing your “proper” press and produce daily vlogs. Get Sky Movies involved…
Not only would they help spread the word, but they would appeal to people who want ‘a break’ in the entertainment business… They are things that benefit both sides…
“What affects sales is the random guy walking down the random aisle in the random supermarket, and seeing a random bottle of Stormhoek, and randomly deciding to buy it.”
Profound…
David write: “I get your ‘Markets as conversations’ ideas, and I feel that Hallam Foe probably deserves conversations more than statements, but how can a conversation ever get heard above the screaming clamour in the hugely overcrowded film marketplace?”
Hugh writes: “As any Cluetrain maven will tell you, when it comes to Word Of Mouth, you don;t control the conversation. The only way you can have any control of the conversation is if you improve the conversation. i.e. Control the conversation by improving the conversation. i.e. Find ways to make it easier for people to talk about your movie.”
I find all this talk about conversations and “listening to the customers” all a little funny at this point. No one is going to have any real conversations about your movie until they’ve seen the movie. Don’t work on “finding ways to make it easier for people to TALK about your movie,” but find ways to make it easier for people to SEE your movie, which is how they can finally talk about your movie.
I’m not a marketing guy, but I don’t understand all this hype about starting a conversation. Conversation about what? Teen movies that you haven’t seen that might be cool, but who really knows? It all sounds like you’re trying the same old thing that the big guys are trying. Show some select people your movie, and hope they can create enough hype (through trust their audience has in their opinions) and get others to watch, but that sounds very much like, “4. If your biz plan depends on you suddenly being “discovered” by some big shot, your plan will probably fail.”
How about this. I want the movie online. I’ll pay $5 to watch it, and if I like it, I’ll either email a link to friends and/or bloggers. Why do we continually have to get the same old format? I saw a very well produced (although free) movie online about some professional stare down competition, and I loved the format and the movie was well worth seeing (more so because of the format). What you’ve been talking about doesn’t feel like, to me, you’re really getting creative with all of this. You’re just yelling from within the crowd. What about “11. Don’t try to stand out from the crowd; avoid crowds altogether.” Or how about, “20. The choice of media is irrelevant.”
A lot of great opinions! But I really can’t agree with movie making business is all about one shot deal.
It’s a lot like the wine business. Put an insanely great wine out there. Do everything you can to get people to pick it up. If your done your job of creating an wow wine and a wow story to go with the wine they’ll probably like it. Then the next time they decide to pick up some wine, they remember that wow feeling and buy another bottle. Over time you develop an relationship with your costumer.
Movie making business is exactly like that. It’s not just about getting a lot of people to see this one movie or be dead. It’s about building relationship with viewers over time. And like I said one of the best ways to do that is to:
1. Create a movie worth watching and talking about.
2. Create it in such a way so the making of it itself is worth talking about.
3. Get it out there.
4. Prove your worth a damn.
5. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
And number 5 is why hiring Hugh is one hell out of smart move.
André Hedetoft
Movie-god
Buy a t-shirt so that I’ll get to make my next movie over at http://www.andrehedetoft.com
Heh. A simple plan, Andre. Harder to actually execute.
Also Hugh, the blogosphere is now a great on-ramp to ‘traditional’ media.