For a new film, "The Constant Gardener," Focus Features is intent on building its audience in a different way: by taking aim at readers of niche Web sites and blogs...
James Schamus, a co-president of the studio, says that such sites draw the sort of people most likely to appreciate the film, a conspiracy thriller based on a John le Carré novel about pharmaceutical companies operating in Africa.
"We looked for the places that sophisticated moviegoers seek out to find things that interest them," Mr. Schamus said. "These are the people who are engaged with the world, who are informed about the big conspiracies going on out there."...
[T]he ads for "The Constant Gardener" seem to seek out people who distrust multinational corporations. The banner contains the taglines "The corruption is contagious" and "The conspiracy is global," and links to the film's Web site, where snippets of dialogue about "payoffs, cover-ups, unmarked graves" can be heard in the trailer.
So the conspiracy movie gets advertised on blogs where they think conspiracy-minded readers congregate. It will be interesting to see, over time, which blogs get the most movie advertising. Are conspiracy theory hothead bloggers going to reap in the cash as Hollywood goes for complicated thrillers? I wonder if there's a type of movie that would do well to advertise here.
Posts
10 comments:
maybe they'll do a Special Edition DVD of "The Verdict." That might be a good BlogAd for you...
Or maybe an Audi TT will be used in a Bond/XXX/General Explosion Festival film...
In this case, they should advertise it on conspiracy minded blogs of the extreme left, thin, anti-American type. I read the book. In a word it sucked.
OTOH, mmm Rafe Fiennes. And the movie is only based on the book. And mmm Rafe Fiennes.
I guess this story about blog advertising, goes hand in glove with the big story last week about how the studios were no longer going to be advertising as much in newspapers. I bet blogs are a whole lot cheaper.
In the book Anatomy of Buzz, these blog leaders would be called Opinion Hubs. These "opinion hubs" filter down the buzz to their readers or people they communicate with.
ie... Ann Althouse's blog is a Opinion Hub :)
Cheers.
(Deleted comment was off topic.)
Thanks, Monty. It seems that advertising on blogs is good whenever you want to go with word of mouth rather than the big opening review-proof blockbuster sort of movie.
This really isn't such a new idea. Remember the Blair Witch Project? Sure, the buzz was fake, but it put bums in the seats.
Ed: From the linked article;
"Ever since the release of "The Blair Witch Project" in 1999, movie studios have strived, and failed, to replicate the groundbreaking Internet campaign that made that film a marketing phenomenon. These new ad campaigns on the Web suggest that studios are becoming more determined to identify and reach niche audiences online."
Talking of movies made from fantastical tales in novels, here's a story I'll bet you dollars-to-donuts they'll make into at least a made-for-TV biopic:
Do you remember your post on the infamous Piano Man, Ann?
In fact, you had two of them, IIRC.
Well, mystery solved -- and not to the delight of many of us, I would wager.
He's not Norwegian, but a German chap, gay, and a would-be suicide who can't play a lick of music, and who decided to play mute one day.
Sad, but yet...intriguing.
I wrote a post called "Piano Man is no Anna Anderson" about it, which perhaps will bring a much needed smile to your lips today...
Cheers,
Victoria
File this under “everything old is new again. See this 4-year-old story about the spiral marketing of Speilberg’s AI.
Here’s a new one they could have mentioned, Blowing Smoke. You can download it or buy the DVD. They’ve also hired one of the funniest people on the internet to run the blog - Jim Treacher.
Excerpt
My good friend, writer & director James Orr (Three Men and a Baby, Father of the Bride, Mr. Destiny), did an amazing job directing my movie despite all the limitations imposed on him, from budget restraints to tight deadlines. So having done all that, getting good people on my side working with me, I didn't want to become a slave to anyone. I didn't want to wait for my movie to travel up the long and tedious chain of command until someone finally made a decision to release it.
Instead, I decided to make movie history, or make the current movie distribution history (who knows?), by releasing Blowing Smoke on this blog.
For the record, this isn’t link-whoring. I have no connection with the movie and the trailer doesn’t much interest me.
This is link-whoring: So Quoted
Post a Comment