Movie Marketing and PR: Movie Premiere Pictures—Star Trek in New Zealand
From left to right, Karl Urban, Zachary Quinto, Chris Pine and John Cho pose for a group photo at the New Zealand premiere of the Star Trek movie.
Photo: Sandra Mu/Getty Images AsiaPac
Former Canadian Actress Protests Film Poster
In the movie marketing and PR story of the day, Ruby Dhalla a one-time Bollywood starlet-turned-politician is trying to block promotional posters of a movie she starred in.
Back in 2003, Dhalla was among the cast of the low budget Hindi movie Kyon Kis Liye (Why? And for Whom?). About a year later, she was elected to the Canadian parliament.
It’s not unusual for obscure actresses to all over sudden get top billing on DVD-reissues and other promotional materials when they suddendly achieve notoriety, but in Dhalla’s case she’s convinced that her new status as a politician is being exploited. She sounded off to the Toronto Sun, saying:
“They are misrepresenting myself.… they put my face on someone else’s body in clothes I never wore.”
Dhalla would have done better not to bring attention to the DVD cover-doctoring. Now a movie being nearly six years after its original release is going to get a heck of word of mouth promotion from all the ensuing media attention. But in an industry such as Bollywood where movie releases get lost in the shuffle, this must surely be welcomed attention for the movie’s backers.
Bollywood’s Ghajini Reaping Savvy Marketing Success
Bollywood film Ghajini is enjoying the fruits of a rather agressive campaign. Madhu Mantena, one of the film’s producers pulled all the stops in the movie’s publicity campaign, even going as far as enlisting the movie’s leading actor famed Bollywood star in peddling a new image to the public.
Matena told Sify.com that their strategy included doing tie-in fitness video, released in the early stages of the movie’s marketing efforts. In Hollywood, this wouldn’t get much bite, but in Bollywood where movie fans live vicariously through stars, even more so than their Tinseltown brethren, it’s a PR triumph concocted in heaven.
Movie Marketing Trends: Trip Contests
Canada-based Mongrel Media, the movie company behind the upcoming Michael McGowan movie starring Joshua Jackson One Week is adopting a similar strategy as the marketers for the Woody Allen Oscar winning movie Vicky Christina Barcelona: they’re sending contestants on a vacation.
Visitors who hop on the movie’s website have a chance to win a two tickets for a trip to the rockies, as well as chance to be one of 10 winners to win customized leather bags from leather goods and active wear company Roots and books and DVDs prize packs.
In orchrestrating the contest, Mongrel is partnering with AirCanada and luxury hotel chain Fairmont.
And they’re not stopping there. Mongrel Media is actually offering free screenings on a first-come-first-served basis to the movie website’s visitors. Movie fans will get a chance to sign themselves and a friend up for the free screening in major Canadian cities like Halifax, Caligary, Ottawa, Vancouver and Edmonton. And they get automatically opted in for other screenings and the company’s movie alerts newsletter.
The Rockies trip contest certainly correlates with the movie’s actual plot which centers on an about-to-be wed twenty-something whose impending marriage propels him to do some soul searching via a border-crossing road trip.
Expect to see more movie contests in this vein as more and more studios join forces with companies in cross-branding efforts such as this one.
Slumdog Millionaire Tries to Overturn PR Obstacles
While Slumdog Millionaire is under the influence of a feel-good publicity frenzy States-wise, it’s been an entirely different story in India, the actual setting of the Bollywood movie.
Slammed as “poverty porn” by some, and a “cinematic terror” by others, Slumdog Millionaire is definitely being avoided by some moviegoers in India, a catastrophic turn of events when one absorbs the fact that India has a population of 1,147,995,904, all potential moviegoers.
Word of mouth in Indian circles about the movie has hit a crescendo with an actual high court hearing taking place Indian courts and brought about by offended Indians complaints over the perceived national insult implied by the movie’s title. Coincidentally the charity in the movie also has a namesake in India, another PR snafu. An all-around PR nightmare, indeed—but one that could have been simply evaded by re-issuing another title for its Indian release. But with virtually every critic predicting that the film will nab the Best Picture Oscar (and goodness knows what other honor), let’s see how long the film is a pariah in its own hometown!