Movie Marketing and PR Spotlight: Extract
Miramax Films’ Extract opens nation wide on Labor weekend. The Los Angeles premiere went on without a hitch, and the movie’s marketing campaign was full-blown even before then.
Its website really left a lot to be desired. Firstly the domain has too many hyphens than any movie fan cares to type. Extract-the-Movie.com. Are you pretty much exhausted by the time you type the second hyphen?
The domain name isn’t the only problem with the website. The site itself looks like Krayola Crayons art project…and uses twice as many colors. One would expect this from a Disney kid’s film, not a movie that purports to be the sequel of Office Space, an adult comedy.
If you’re still in Internet Browsing Antiquity, forget about it! You won’t even be able to peruse the site comfortably (you will be greeted with a nice, “You are using an outdated browser. For a better experience using this site, please upgrade to a modern web browser” message).
You can easily download the latest version of Firefox, however. You’re also given the choice of Safari 4 or Google Chrome, and Internet Explorer 8.
The site ought to be given at least a B+ for its features. You can become acquainted with the characters as well as the actors who play them via a mini biography.
Character posters, wallpapers, are available as downloads, and screensavers for both the PC and Mac are also dowloadable.
Movie Marketing and PR News
Movie Marketing
I bet you’re curious to see how they put together the Terminator: Salvation robot. Come see the T-900 anatomy here.
Web Marketing
Could you be committing some serious social network marketing trangressions in your misuse of Twitter?
Movie Viewing
Get a load of Hollywood before The Code tamed it. For a time.
Movie News
A MLK biopic may be nixed before it starts.
Production has started on All the Best Fun Begins, the latest Bollywood opus.
Photo Credit: One India
Movie Marketing and PR Notebook
Movie Marketing
Imax has declared that it’s not planning on rebranding its screens after getting some serious verbal blastings like this from Aziz Ansari, an actor on the NBC show “Parks and Recreation” after seeing Star Trek:
“These new ‘Imax’ theaters are really just nice digital screens with good sound, but they are not Imax, in that they don’t have the huge 72-foot (22-metre) gigantic screen which people would expect.”
Pixar goes to Cannes.
Movie Merchandising
Speaking of Star Trek, it’s actually inspiring iphone applications.
Riding on the success of the Star Trek movie, the Star Trek: D-A-C on Xbox LIVE Arcade game is being released.
Digital TV
The deadline for the transition to high definition is near, and the FCC wants to make sure that no viewer is left behind. Roger Goldblatt, the Federal Communications Commission outreach adviser told the Washington Post:
“We’re going to schools, we’re going to barbeques, we’re going to picnics. We’re going to where they are to spread the word.”
Video Rental
From launching DVD vending machines in its stores to trimming expenses, Blockbuster Video is doing its utmost to stay afloat, in the face of staunch competition from rivals.
Netflix is improving the way its recommendations system works.
More people would rather insert a DVD in their players than watch a movie online. This should make a lot of people in the DVD movie industry feel better.
Movie Industry
Now that movie industry uberproducer Jerry Bruckheimer has given video games a sprinkle of his holy water, will more video games be turned into movies?
Movie Marketing and PR News: Are Movie Marketers Liars?
Don’t read their lips. Movie marketers are known to tell a fib or two.
Is it time to call an end to the stigma faced by videogames-turned-movies?
Suddenly everything Jesus is new again. How many of these top Jesus films have you seen?
The Wolverine’s game has an M-rating…could this be sales suicide?
Movie Marketing and PR Notebook
In Case You Missed These…
Movie Marketing
Brooks Barnes, the NY Times-resident movie marketing and PR scribe discuses how the movie studios are once again turning their attention to the multiplexes now that DVD sales (thanks in part to internet downloads) have seen an overwhelming 40% decrease. [NYT]
He and his colleague Michael Cieply contend that Hollywood executives who grew up in the movie business are undergoing a metamorphosis; nothing has been the same since internet downloads killed the DVD star, indeed. [NYT]
International
Foreign movies used to bring home the bacon at Japanese movie theatres, but thanks to the marketing and PR pull of Japanese TV stations and the financial stakes that they have in said movies, the Made in Japan movie is getting its groove back. Or rather just the ones that are financed by Big Japaneses TV; not the indies, for sure. [THR]
Advertising
Hosts of ad agencies remain hopeful about advertising spending, but do they have legimate reasons to? [SA]
ShoWest is honoring director Michael Bay in April for his cutting edge style, not to mention box office success, and movie hyping mojo. [IEB]
Movie Financing
The state of the world economy is now even affecting movie theatre launches. [WL]
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 News and PR Roundup
Marketing and PR people have one less magazine to pitch too. Arena Magazine a 22-year old men’s luxury and style magazine is throwing in the towel. [Sky News]
Are you anticipating a Watchmen II? A sequel isn’t likely. [AP]
Fresh off his Slum Dog Millionaire Oscar tour de force, Danny Boyle just might be the man for the next movie in the 007 franchise. [AP]
Think twice before posting something on a social network, say like Facebook. Indiscreet postings have been known to lead to lead to divorces, murder, and the occasional red slip.
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.
Movie Marketing and PR Watch: Fired Up
Fired Up placed in this weekend’s Box office Top 10, in spite of critical review headlines like “Fired Up! Cheerleading farce falls flat” from the Boston Globe and ‘Fired Up’: Not much to cheer | 1 ½ stars” from the Kansas City Star, and the more pathetic-sounding “‘Fired Up’: Give It an ‘F’” from the Washington Post.
Positioning
The movie, which apparently was inspired by the early 2000s hit Bring it On, depended heavily on its marketers’ ability to reach the teen and college crowd. 
Star Press/Interviews
Screen Gems, like a lot of studios in these recession-plagued times are putting a lot of emphasis on star interviews.
Prior to opening weekend, Eric Christian Olsen, who plays one of the popular jocks in the movie, obligingly gave an interview with the Los Angeles Times which appeared in the publication’s print section.
One of the most largely unleveraged aspects of movie publicity is (more…)
4 Essential Marketing and PR Elements of a Chick Flick
As a connoisseur of the chick flick, having sat down to watch Gone With the Wind at 13 (goodness knows how many times), having relished in insomniac theatre repeats of Clueless on TBS, and having analyzed How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, and more recently not shutting an eye until I had seen 13 Going on 30 when it came on in the wee hours of the morning the other day, I think I can just pin-point the ingredients that make a great chick flick. Let’s see how many of those essential ingredients of the Chick Flick stew have been thrown in the Confessions of a Shopaholic pot:
1. A Cute, Relatable Star. Isla Fisher is certainly recognizable. Fisher has been in everything from surprise hit Wedding Crashers to 2002’s Scooby Doo. But the Oh-Uh factor in that is that both of those movies, the ones with the most visibility on her filmography, were ensemble cast fares.
One of her most recent movies Horton Hears a Who, was an animated Dr. Seuss fare where she provided the voice of Dr. Mary Lou Larue behind the scenes. So, can Isla bring the bacon home sans other big-name co-stars? As the New York Magazine writer Mark Graham sneered,
“…We’re actually kind of interested in seeing if the wildly charismatic Isla Fisher can actually carry a movie on her own.”
Whether she will or won’t is still debatable, but Touchstone Pictures/Disney already has Fisher on the Great PR Way jibber jabbing left and right in women’s magazines and newspapers overseas, and definitely tapping the sensibilities of young women.
Element: Somehow lacking in the pantry
2. Based on a Novel, Preferabbly Chick Lit. In that regards, Confessions of a Shopaholic is a winner. The Sophie Kinsella book on which it is based was a runaway bestseller that has spawned sequels after sequels since its original publication. It’s gone in every format from paperback to gift sets. Books turned into films bring out the film critics in all of us, and there’s nothing that bookworms like to do more than take a flashlight along with said book with to a movie theatre so they can compare book passages with screenplay lines. And then there’s the instant familiarity factor.
Another welcomed factor of this chick flick ingredient, is that at times the author of the book may even be in the promotional mood too, as is apparently the case with Sophie Kinsella who’s doing appearances at a Barnes and Noble prior the movie’s opening. It also helps that Remember Me? her latest novel was published less than 6 months ago, enhancing synergy.
There’s the inevitable book movie-tie in, whose cover— conventional wisdom dictates—should display the movie’s cast. Usually the new cover is nothing more than a still of a memorable scene from the movie or the actual movie poster.
Either way, the re-edition of the book is supposed to bring back memories in the book’s fans (it has indeed been a while) and rile them up to see the movie. On the other hand, for those who haven’t read the book, the reissued edition (Confesions‘ is from Dell and placed on bookshelves in mid-December and with an official January pub date) is supposed to pull them in the theaters and make them fans of the book.
Elmement: superbly present
3. Pajama Party/Female Bonding Potential. Fashion, shopping, finances, men are without a doubt women’s top conversation tickers. If your chick flick can inspire women to come together for some self-analysis then it definitely has this ingredient on lock. Confessions of a Shopaholic has University of Nevada student newspaper The Rebel Yell contemplate on fashion addiction spending.
4. GirlyContest Friendly.
Female moviegoers want the ultimate movie experience. And you gotta give it to them. They must somehow feel as if they’re living what the protagonist of the chick film is experiencing. So, you’ve got a madhat shopper in your movie? Give the audience some shopping ops.
In addition to the shopaholic contest being orchrestrated by some ABC affiliates, behemoth movie chain MuviCo is holding a Dress Up contest for women only at one its Palm Beach, Florida locations. Winners get shopping sprees. Another contest that’s being conducted on behalf of the movie is a Grand Prize Pact contest. Here’s a sample of the bait:
Enter here for your chance to win a fantastic Confessions of a Shopaholic “Passion for Fashion” Prize Pack!
One Grand Prize Winner Will Receive the Following:
*A Brand New Nokia Supernova 7510 T-Mobile phone (Winner will receive a coupon for the Nokia Supernova 7510 phone that can be redeemed online [not in store]). Click the pic to check out this gorgeous phone:
*A Paige Denim $300 Gift Certificate (The Paige Denim gift certificate valued at $300.00 can only be redeemed online [not in-store]).
What crazed fashionita would resist the urge to enter?
Element: Oh, yes!