Beware the power of the marketers, says Donald Clarke
Almost everybody believes they are immune to the Machiavellian influence of marketing people. Oh sure, the grunting lower orders will, from time to time, refrain from throwing dung at one another to chase after a man in a sandwich- board. But no amount of three- sheet posters or Burger King giveaways will sway the sort of solid individual who reads Screenwriter. Good for us.
Still, there is no question but that the financial performance of a mainstream movie is greatly affected by the quality (and, as we shall see, tone) of its marketing campaign. Consider two contrasting recent releases in the US: perky teen comedy Bandslam and superb allegorical science-fiction flick District 9.
The first film stars Vanessa Hudgens, alumna of the hugely successful High School Musical franchise, as one member of a feisty teenage rock band. The second is a modestly budgeted, South African independent feature that treats alien migration as a metaphor for apartheid.
If approached in, say, early spring, any sane industry analyst would predict great riches for Bandslam and modest takings for District 9. In fact, the reverse was the case. Despite receiving surprisingly good notices – far better than the High School Musical flicks garnered – Bandslam flopped at the US box office. Meanwhile, District 9 topped the charts with a rousing $37 million (€26 million) on its opening weekend.
Leaving the quality of the films aside for a moment (after all, what does that matter in a world where Transformers 2 can make $400 million?), we come to some unavoidable conclusions about the two marketing campaigns.
Utilising some canny viral internet messages and taking advantage of a witty poster campaign, the folks behind District 9 created the illusion of excited gossip before such gossip actually got going. Meanwhile, ignoring the agreeably earthy nature of their product, the Bandslam people just sold it as if it were High School Musical 4.
“Instead of selling it quirky and cool (à la Juno), they sold it on the Disney Channel’s Vanessa Hudgens,” a source on the Bandslam production ranted. “There have been literally dozens and dozens of calls today and e-mails from heads of marketing at different studios saying this may be singly the worst job they’ve ever seen on a movie.”
So, can a marketing campaign alone generate a major hit? Well, as the Bandslam story was squirreling its way on to blogs, the good folk at 20th Century Fox were marshalling their forces for the greatest ever assault on the collective psyche of the film-going public. Last Friday was Avatar Day. A few hours after the first proper trailer for James Cameron’s belated follow-up to Titanic emerged, selected members of the press and public were shown some 16 minutes of the 3D sci-fi epic. Yet the bleeding thing isn’t out for another four months.
Will the onslaught eventually drive punters crazy? Might the fact that a principal character appears to be an escapee from the Smurfs harm the picture’s prospects? Who cares? None of this concerns those of us impervious to the marketing shamans’ dark arts.
dclarke@irishtimes.com
