Felicia Day passes along the trailer to Joss Whedon’s internet-only comedy Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. It’s kind of the best thing I’ve seen in a long time.
This trailer is anything but horrible
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Daily Archives: June 25, 2008
Picking up the Spare: Incredible Hulk, The Love Guru, Get Smart and WALL-E
David Goetzi at MediaPost reviews the effectiveness of The Incredible Hulk’s takeover of an episode of “American Gladiators.” The promotion included outfitting some of the Gladiators with Hulk Smash Hands, an appearance by former Hulk Lou Ferrigno and an extended trailer at the end of the show, all of which added up to a great, if slightly tongue-in-cheek bit of marketing for the movie.
To promote the movie’s opening in Spain, ol’ greenskin took over the front page of MSN Spain with a full rich-media placement on June 20th only that included scenes from the movie in the background and a full trailer that played on the page.
You can also see at Newsarama an example of the “If you liked the movie, you’ll love the comics” ads Marvel was running for the Hulk character online around the movie’s release.
Make sure to have your pop-up blocker off when you try to play Sitar Star, a riff off the uber-popular Guitar Hero that lets you try to pluck out a tune on a sitar. It’s kind of hard to play, but I’m not sure if that’s just because I’ve never played Guitar Hero and so am not all that familiar with the moves.
Tag Games and Player X are developing a mobile game based on the movie that will challenge people’s ability to pass on bits of enlightenment.
Anne Thompson details how Myers is not the best loved person in Hollywood, something that’s sparked a bit of a PR backlash whenever he has a new movie coming out.
Variety has a good story about the generational awareness gap that exists for the Get Smart franchise and how Warner Bros. tried to bridge that, attempting a campaign – and movie – that would appeal to both longtime fans and younger audiences without the existing knowledge of the old series.
I forgot about this when writing the column, but Warner Bros. is releasing a direct-to-video movie featuring Bruce and Lloyd, the two techies who keep Control in gadgets, called Bruce & Lloyd: Out of Control. Her’s the synopsis: Get extra spy-spoof hilarity when Get Smart’s bungling inventors Bruce and Lloyd stumble into their own comedy adventure in a zany story. The R&D smarties are out of the lab and way out of their comfort zones as the scramble to find a nifty new invention they’ve somehow lost.
Adweek has a feature on the efforts by David Brown Entertainment to come up with something interesting and relevant for Sierra Mist’s cross-promotional spots for Get Smart.
Game maker THQ shipped the video game tie-in to the movie early to maximize its promotional impact on the theatrical release. The game largely recreates many of the key components of the movie and includes a tie-in to videos that have appeared on Disney.com.
A Twitter message from Lish Dorset tipped me off to the fact that Pixar had, in the words of Tom Biro, dropped some madd coin on a ton of gifts you could give on Facebook. The gifts, as you can see, included images from not just WALL-E but all the other Pixar movies as well.
Before the Feature: In-theater ad revenue continues growth
New numbers from the Cinema Advertising Council show in-theater advertising revenue continues to grow rapidly.
The group, which represents 82 percent of the screens in the U.S., reports revenue rose 18.5 percent in 2007 to land just short of $540 million. In 2006 revenues were $455.7 million.
That’s good news for exhibitors, who are seeing concession sales fall off due to more health-conscious audiences. It’s also money that they pocket directly instead of needing to split with the studios like they do box-office prices.
The report shows more advertisers are buying in to cinema ads, growth that’s likely attributable to studies showing audiences are more accepting now of such ads than they were a few years ago and that brand recall is higher than in some other media.
Local ads are growing in number as technology improves both in terms of production but also targeting. National advertisers are also taking advantage of that targeting to more accurately run their campaigns in markets where sales or other promotions are happening.
Also growing are ancillary businesses like off-screen promotions and activities that occur in theater lobbies and elsewhere.
While I know some people continue to rail against pre-show advertising I’ve actually come 180 degrees on the idea. Yes, I still think this bucks the trend of other media offerings that offer content either for free or at reduced prices in exchange for advertising exposure. But when you look at the realities of the exhibition business – especially the fact that studios take such a huge percentage of the box-office take in the first few lucrative weeks – it becomes more understandable that theater chains are looking at advertising as a viable revenue source, one that can’t necessarily bring with it a direct audience advantage.
