Finally living in the limelight

According to the Tribune it’s finally alright to come out and admit you’re a Rush fan. Thanks for the heads-up.

AM rules!

The two top radio stations in Chicago? Still WBBM 780 and WGN 720.

When I mention WGN to people from outside Chicago and I say it’s a “talk radio” station, it conjures images in their heads of what passes for talk radio nowadays, which is lots of blowhards getting their soapbox on and playing to some core political base.

But it’s not that, it’s actual conversation. The hosts talk to the other members of their team and they actually talk to the Chicago area residents that call in. No one is demeaned. Everyone’s contribution is valid and it’s fun and engaging radio.

Dept. of No Shit, Sherlock

From Brandweeks’ daily email comes this teaser of a story titled “Media Blamed for Bad Economy“:

Consumers feel advertising encouraged people to buy things they couldn’t really afford

Ummmm….yeah. That’s what advertising does. It creates the impression that if you only buy this brand of floor cleaner, this brand of microwavable pizza pockets, this brand of lawn care product you will have the beautiful house/grateful kids/fulfilled spouse/immaculate yard/perfect family experience/whatever else you might be longing for that you aspire to attain. Most of those things, though, are wholly unnecessary and just create gaping holes in your checking account, as well as more stuff in a landfill and more toxins in the ground and water.

The media isn’t to blame for the bad economy. A culture that rewards the accumulation of stuff is.

Movie Review:…Around

Sometimes we don’t wind up in the places we thought we would. And sometimes we wind up fitting in to places that we never saw ourselves.

Those two ideas permeate …Around , a movie by writer and director David Spaltro. The film tells the story of a young man who, upon turning 18, moves out of his childhood New Jersey home, away from the mother who has never supported him and into New York City, where he starts attending film school. Done in by his own laziness, though, he finds himself unable to continue receiving the financial aid that has allowed him to keep a roof over his head as well as continue his classes. So he winds up on the streets, living in train stations and on street corners as he keeps going to class.

The story takes the main character on a variety of ups and downs, from finally getting a job to self-destructing under the weight of loaded glances from friends of a girl he’s attracted to but who doesn’t know he is – or later was – homeless. Your individual tolerance for such self-destructive behavior might vary, but that’s not the fault of Rob Evans, who plays Doyle. His laconic, but largely affected, world-weariness never comes off as stale or lazy. He completely sells each line of the film, grounding his character’s story in reality even as he once finds his foot is the only thing he can ever hit every time he aims for it.

The other actors in the film do great with their roles as well. Some of the characters fall mostly into stereotypes (the rebellious sister, the bitchy best-friend, the preternaturally wise black man) but the script gives the actors real stuff to work with and so they never wind up coming off as one-note as these sorts of archtypes sometimes do.

…Around probably won’t be playing at a theater near you but it will probably be showing up online for your viewing pleasure. When it does I’ll be sure to point to where you can watch it as I think it’s definitely worth checking out, largely because of Evans’ performance as the story’s central figure but also because of the solid writing by Spaltro, who gives his characters a more or less believable journey to embark on.

“Dollhouse, dollhouse, freaking dollhouse…”

I’m worried that “Dollhouse” is getting canceled based on various reports of episodes that will/won’t air or will/won’t get included on the coming DVD set. Maureen Ryan has a good batch of links that clarify the matter somewhat, though the fact is that Fox has yet to say what the show’s future is exactly so at the moment it’s still anyone’s guess.

Movie Marketing Madness: Observe and Report

Download as PDF: MMM_249_Observe_and_Report

Blah blah blah blah blah Volcano/Dante’s Peak blah blah blah blah blah Blah blah blah blah blah Deep Impact/Armageddon blah blah blah blah blah Blah blah blah blah blah crowded marketplace blah blah blah blah blah Blah blah blah blah blah.

OK, yeah. Paul Blart: Mall Cop opened just a couple months ago and now another movie about a mall security guard is hitting theaters. So there’s a risk, albeit slight, that audiences will have filled their craving for food court action sequences, but I think that’s largely been over-stated. In previous cases of one-two punches like this there’s no guarantee that the second movie to market is going to suffer. A movie’s success is still dependent on the same factors as always: Star power, good marketing and the general societal picture the movie is being released within.

All of which leads us to the release of Observer and Report. Starring Seth Rogen, Observe and Report casts him in the role of the head of security at a shopping mall, someone with an outsized personal vision of just how important his job is. Instead of seeing himself as simply maintaining order for shoppers he pictures his role as part of the thin blue line protecting decent society. One day a flasher goes on a wang-proclaiming rampage through his mall, including traumatizing the department store clerk he pines for. And so he embarks on a quest to find the miscreant, blatantly abusing his limited powers in the process.

The Posters

By way of teasing the movie, the first posters put Rogen in all his misplaced seriousness front and center. Designed like flyers that would be mounted to warn people to keep their eyes open, this series of four posters all had different poses but all just showed Rogen’s face against a yellow background. They’re kind of fun and certainly made it clear we’re dealing with a character suffering from major delusions of grandeur, but their spartan design might keep them from being truly memorable or really popping amidst sees of more dynamic images.

The final theatrical poster also featured the same worn flyer conceit but brought the camera out a bit, showing us not only all of Rogen but also pairing him with co-star Michael Pena, the two of them standing back to back against that same yellow background. Points for consistency but it still, I think, errs too far on the side of presenting the film as dry comedy. It should absolutely make that case – that it’s not a prat-fall filled movie but instead something that will make you equally as uncomfortable as make you laugh – but I think it goes just a touch too far in that direction.

The Trailers

Seeking to make an impact right off the bat – and present a strong differentiation between this film and its thematic predecessor – the first trailer released was a red-band version that appeared on the film’s official website.

This red-band trailer opens with the flasher on his exposition spree, culminating in him doing even more than just that in front of Anna Farris’ Brandy, the clerk Rogen’s character is in love with. We then dive into the movie’s story, that of Rogen’s security guard feeling this is the opportunity he has been searching for to not only prove himself as a man but in doing so prove himself to Brandy. Unfortunately he’s not that bright and much of the comedy is obviously going to be derived from the heavy-handed way he treats any violators in his mall and especially anyone he (wrongly) suspects of being the perpetrator. This version is filled with coarse language and even a little sex.

The all-ages version of the trailer is, except for a brief montage of footage toward the end, almost exactly the same only without the offending bits that were in the earlier restricted one. It hits most of the same notes and still comes off as being more than a little violent, something I’m surprised was allowed in this general audience version. It’s one thing when “violence” means “big robots fighting each other in L.A.” and another when it means “someone pretending to aim a shot gun at another person who’s just on the other side of a desk.” That’s actually quite a big line. I get that it might be an accurate representation of the film but it’s still, at least to me, an odd point to include in this trailer.

Online

Perhaps seeking to position itself as more interesting and original than Paul Blart, the movie’s official website actually opens with a screen full of positive quotes about it from a handful of critics, including many online writers. All of them describe the movie as unconventional in some way, with words like “unconventional” and “subversive” as well as “funny as hell” being thrown out there. I don’t think I’ve seen a mainstream movie’s site put this sort of emphasis on critic feedback before (critics play a bigger role in the marketing of independent films) so this is very interesting.

After digesting those you can Enter the Site. The main focus there is on the restricted content, which you have to enter your age and other information to access. That actually takes you to a full alternative – and very R-rated – site with it’s own content.

First and foremost is that red-band trailer which appears on the front page and which is also included, along with a Featurette and a handful of clips, under “Video.”

“Downloads” has a few Wallpapers and a Screensaver you can grab for your own usage. “Observe This” lets you hear various audio clips from the film.

“Pound-A-Perv” is a whack-a-mole type game that lets you hit the anonymous pervert with a flashlight as he pops up. Finally, “Ronnie vs. the Police” is probably another game but I can’t tell because it’s still labeled as “coming soon.”

Back to the general-access part of the site, “About the Film” contains a Synopsis, Cast and Crew bios and Notes, which chronicles the production of the movie and more.

“Video” isn’t exactly it’s own section but just brings up a lightbox video player with the all-ages trailer. “Photos” displays not only about 25 stills from the film but also a couple of the posters, which aren’t always included on sites. I wish the stills were downloadable, but that’s a constant frustration and not unique to this site. “Downloads” has some Wallpapers, a Screensaver and a handful of Icons, all of which nicely carry over the same look and feel of the one-sheets, which is very cool.

There are also sections for “Promotions” which is where you’ll find links to contests and sweepstakes run by other sites and the movie’s “Soundtrack.”

The site also has along the bottom a row of icons and buttons that let you share it on Facebook, StumbleUpon, Delicious and more social networking or social news sites. You can also become a fan of the site on Facebook at its fan page profile there and even leave a comment on the site by logging in with Facebook Connect. That’s pretty cool functionality that I’ll probably comment on separately.

Advertising and Cross-Promotion

There don’t seem to be a ton of promotional partners outside the contests and such that are listed on the official site but the film has been supported by a decent advertising campaign, with online ads and TV spots appearing around and about. The TV spots definitely speak to the film’s slightly darker tone but also contain a bit of broad comedy as it seeks to find a middle ground in how it appeals to the mass audience.

Media and Publicity

The biggest publicity boosts for Observe and Report came first when it was announced it would debut at the SXSW festival in March, just a few weeks before its opening in theaters. After it did so there was an immediate wave of reviews, mostly positive and mostly noting it struck a definitely darker and more cynical tone than the other mall cop movie even flirted with. Some reviews, perhaps going a tad too deeply into the realm of hyperbole, even compared the main character with Travis Bickle , Robert DeNiro’s character in Taxi Driver. Whether that perception is accurate or not is still up for debate, but that sort of association certainly couldn’t hurt the movie’s credibility among a select portion of the audience that might be attracted to something a tad more cynical and downbeat.

The cast has also been making the media rounds, with Rogen playing up the film’s non-mainstream appeal in interviews and hitting Saturday Night Live the week before the film’s opening.

Overall

You all know I’m a big fan of consistency in movie marketing campaigns and this one certainly has that going for it. If you look at the movie’s website you’ll see the same key art that was used for the posters carried over there, creating a unified experience for the audience. Even in the publicity and press for the film, all the cast and crew hit the same four or five notes in terms of messaging, meaning readers weren’t given all sort of scattershot viewpoints as to the film’s perceived appeal.

It’s good stuff, but the major obstacle is still convincing the audience that it’s worth their time. I’m very much in favor, personally, of offbeat comedies but right now I’m probably in the minority. I don’t think the stumbling block is going to be that it’s the second mall security guard movie to market. Instead I think that it’s presenting itself as a movie that might have more squirms than laughs – despite the emphasis on Farris’ ditzy drunk act – and I’m not sure that’s going to appeal to a large swath of the audience right now. Still, it gets points for going in that direction assuming it’s an accurate representation of the film. I don’t have a problem with the campaign – it’s good – but just think it might be hitting the audience wrong, something that can’t really be helped.

Deflating the “must respond to everything” myth in social media

Before getting into the meat of this post I want to say “Hi!” to everyone reading, especially to those who greeted the announcement of my joining Voce nation with many rounds of congratulations and well-wishes, whether it was here, on my personal blog or on Twitter.

In my short time at Voce so far, I’ve been doing a lot of listening. Part of that has been internally, learning the ins and outs of the agency and figuring out what everyone here does and how I’m going to be working with them. This part has been pretty easy, as I’ve been greeted with enthusiasm and encouragement. There’s such a great team here and everyone I’ve met has gone out of their way to make me feel welcome and help me get up to speed on everything, from client projects to internal processes.

The other major chunk of listening I’ve been doing has been on behalf of clients. I don’t need to expound on why it’s important to have ears open in the social media world so, uncharacteristically, I won’t anyway. But I’ve been running searches, plowing through RSS feeds and making sure that if a conversation is important, it’s flagged.

Here’s what might fly in the face of some people’s thinking though: I’ve discovered over time (not just here but cumulatively as a result of my previous experiences as well) that not everything needs a response by the brand manager.

I know it’s fashionable to think that any time someone talks about a brand online there needs to be responded to or acknowledged by a representative of the brand, but I don’t think that’s actually the case. There are some cases where such a response is not only unnecessary because there’s nothing within the post that warrants a discussion, but can actually wind up being an intrusion. Imagine if you’re talking about a movie with your spouse over dinner and every time you mentioned the name of the film a publicist popped their head in and said “I heard you say something…can I be of assistance?” Yeah, that’s what I thought.

Now there are certainly times where it’s absolutely appropriate and necessary that brand managers join the conversation. Customer service issues, mis-representation of facts or other issues along those lines need to be addressed. You won’t get any argument from me about that. But there are other times where people are just having a talk between themselves and their readers and it’s enough to be aware of what’s being said without any action being taken.

Happy ending

Moet’s first Scarlett Johannsen-starring ad certainly has some visual cues that will make it appealing to the men in the audience. [via adfreak]

Movie Marketing Madness: Gigantic

Download PDF: MMM_248_Gigantic

“Quirk” is an over-used word in the world of independent film. I’m guilty of applying it a bit more liberally than I really should in trying describe movies that are off-beat and feature some characters that have some un-traditional aspects to their personality.

Usually such movies have highly-stylized marketing campaigns, the better to make an impression on an audience that is inundated by mainstream campaigns meant to appeal to the broadest group of people.

Such is the case with Gigantic. The movie is about a young man (played by Paul Dano) who works as a high-end bed salesman who’s trying to adopt a baby from China. One day a blustery businessman (played by John Goodman) comes in to buy a bed for his daughter (played by Zooey Deschanel), who follows him later in the day. The movie then follows how Dano’s character becomes involved in this family and, more specifically, with Deschanel’s character.

The Posters

The movie’s one poster strikes kind of a 70′s vibe, largely as a result of the typeface that’s used for the actor’s names and the sort of rounded edge that is applied to the visual elements.

The primary picture has Dano and Deschanel standing in a stark-white living room area, with Deschanel wearing just about only a kimono and some high heels, instantly putting this on the list of top 10 movie posters ever. At the bottom Goodman is seen lying on a floor with a couple pillows under him. Between those two elements is a baby.

So all together, the individual parts of the poster combine to present a movie that is more than a little outside the mainstream. It’s obviously a personality-driven flick with some interesting – and probably funny – characters in it. It’s not going to appeal at all to the people shuttling down the theater hallway on their way to Crank 2 but for those looking for independent-minded movies this will probably strike a chord.

The Trailers

The one trailer opens with Goodman coming in to buy the bed and progresses from there to show the various intertwining relationships that make up the movie and drive its plot. The trailer makes it clear the movie is filled with word-play and neurotic behavior by some emotionally-stunted people and comes off as really funny and clever. It’s presented in what appears to be more-or-less linear order so it makes a solid case for the movie among fans of this sort of flick.

Online

The movie’s official website opens with a version of the poster art. When you enter the site the trailer plays and then you get to dive into the site’s main content areas.

“The Story” contains a one-paragraph synopsis of the film’s plot and does its best to explain in the space available the relationships it shows off. That’s followed by “Press & Photos” where you can download some high-res stills from the film as well as the poster, press notes and PDF versions of various online articles about the film and its various press events.

“Cast & Crew” is just a listing of the film’s players and behind-the-scenes filmmakers. There’s no information about them or filmographies, just a listing of who they are and who they play in the movie. “Now Playing” has information on the limited screenings of the film and links to where you can find it if you’re in those areas.

If you need to get in touch with the marketing and publicity folks working on the movie you’ll find their contact information on the “Contact Us” page. “Partners” has some of the promotional partners for the flick as well as links to the Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and YouTube pages for either the film in particular or First Independent Pictures in general.

Finally, there’s a WordPress-hosted blog for the movie that chronicles the film’s production, has some stills and clips and more news about the movie.

Advertising and Cross-Promotions

I haven’t seen much, if any, advertising for Gigantic but there are a handful of promotional partners listed on the site, including VenusZine, which is running a chance to win free passes to the see the flick in one of four cities. Hornitos Tequila and NylonGuys.com are also running promotions for the movie.

Media and Publicity

The movie’s gotten a handful of press mentions, mostly in the form of interviews with the cast of the film and mostly in press outlets that are off the beaten path.

Overall

It’s a good, light campaign that hits all the major highpoints of the movie in a way that, as I stated before, is sure to appeal to the non-mainstream crowd. The poster, the trailer and everything else put together make a solid campaign that should sell the movie pretty well to an audience that likes a little bit of substance in their movie-going experience. All the components have a ton of personality and character that makes it enormously interesting.

Movie Review

(NOTE: I love when I’m able to review a movie at the same time that I review its marketing campaign. This time it was made possible by a publicity agent who was willing to send me a screener DVD.)

I watched Gigantic after taking a look at its marketing campaign, so my immediate question that had to be answered was: Did the campaign accurately portray and sell the finished film?

The answer is yes, absolutely.

The movie is funny and offbeat without ever descending into parody or a portrayal of quirk for the sake of quirk. Instead, while all the characters act in what would be considered odd ways they never go over the edge into being just ridiculous. More to the point, they all stay true to their motivations and remain grounded in the reality of this film’s universe, which is even more important and the lynchpin of such directors as Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach.

Dano and Deschanel have obvious chemistry and – and this is essential to the movie’s success or could have been a cause of its failure – are able to deliver the highly stylized dialogue in a way that’s natural and believable. That’s a testament to their skills as actors as well as to the accuracy of the casting.

The campaign lays out the movie’s story pretty well so I won’t rehash it again. But let me say there’s a twist that comes in the movie’s last 10 minutes or so that makes you rethink some of the basic assumptions about the characters. It’s an interesting twist but is the one thing about the movie that doesn’t work for me and actually takes away from everything that’s preceded it. I dig, in general, things like that which shake up your beliefs but this movie didn’t need it.

Aside from that, though, Gigantic is a very good flick that, if you’re in one of the areas where it’s screening, is well worth going and checking out.

Movie Journal: Gigantic

I watched Gigantic after taking a look at its marketing campaign, so my immediate question that had to be answered was: Did the campaign accurately portray and sell the finished film?

The answer is yes, absolutely.

The movie is funny and offbeat without ever descending into parody or a portrayal of quirk for the sake of quirk. Instead, while all the characters act in what would be considered odd ways they never go over the edge into being just ridiculous. More to the point, they all stay true to their motivations and remain grounded in the reality of this film’s universe, which is even more important and the lynchpin of such directors as Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach.

Dano and Deschanel have obvious chemistry and – and this is essential to the movie’s success or could have been a cause of its failure – are able to deliver the highly stylized dialogue in a way that’s natural and believable. That’s a testament to their skills as actors as well as to the accuracy of the casting.

The campaign lays out the movie’s story pretty well so I won’t rehash it again. But let me say there’s a twist that comes in the movie’s last 10 minutes or so that makes you rethink some of the basic assumptions about the characters. It’s an interesting twist but is the one thing about the movie that doesn’t work for me and actually takes away from everything that’s preceded it. I dig, in general, things like that which shake up your beliefs but this movie didn’t need it.

Aside from that, though, Gigantic is a very good flick that, if you’re in one of the areas where it’s screening, is well worth going and checking out.