Horse, then cart. Not the other way around
Hey I think it’s great that so many big-time media and CPG brand execs want to form a new consortium (Broadcasting & Cable, 9/10/09) to work out ways to measure cross-media audiences, I do.
But shouldn’t we figure out a solid, consistent and verifiable way to count the audience in one place – say, the internet – before we try to measure how people are bouncing around between it, TV, mobile devices and more? Let’s figure that out first then we can add all those together.
Getting some of that online money
A panel of media industry bigwigs – ranging from the heads of Disney, MySpace and Hulu to “FREE” author Chris Anderson – discuss how to continue making more money from online video and music. And News Corp. is making more comments about charging for programming on Hulu, the latest bad idea in a series of bad ideas from that particular company.
Meanwhile Google is throwing out the idea of being a micro-payment transaction provider for newspapers, expanding its Google Checkout to enable papers to set a price and charge for content.
Movie Marketing Madness: Whiteout
The rash of comic book adaptations in the last decade has been focused mainly on, to quote Chasing Amy, the “big pecs, big guns, big tits” part of the comics industry. Occasionally something like Ghost World will sneak through but if you told the average member of the audience that movie was based on a graphic novel they might look at you funny. There was nothing comic-y about it, at least not in the traditionally understood way. It was simply a story whose creator decided to tell using the medium of comics since it best fit what he was trying to do. There are other examples, but most people here “comic adaptation” and they start thinking about superheroes and spandex.
Opening this week is another movie based on a comics series that a lot of people might not realize is based on a comics series. Whiteout tells the story of U.S. Marshal Carrie Stetko (Kate Beckinsale) who is called to a remote U.S. outpost on Antartica to investigate a murder. When she gets there she discovers a surprisingly complex web of cover-ups and mystery that complicate her investigation, which is additionally hampered by the onset of the Antartic winter, which causes massive snow storms and cold, which add to the danger she’s already facing in trying to track down the killer or killers.
The Posters
The first teaser poster for the movie actually debuted at Comic-Con 2007, when it was expected it would be released in 2008, which is why it sports that year on the one-sheet.
There’s not much to it, mostly just the face of Beckinsale Photoshopped into a parka, an image that recreates the cover to one of the source comic’s covers, something that was obviously meant to get the fanboys in attendance excited and talking about the movie.
After that, sometime in 2008 when it was becoming clear the movie wasn’t coming out that year, a second poster was released that took the perspective of an extreme close-up on Beckinsale’s sunglasses, which reflected a plane coming in for a landing on the snowy landscape. Above and below her face there’s type like what you’d expect on a telegram that hints at the movie’s plot, with “killer,” “reward” and “identity” clearly readable and therefore letting the audience know that there was going to be a murder investigation.
The final theatrical poster continues using the “See your last breath” copy that was begun two years ago on the Comic-Con poster but now more clearly uses Beckinsale’s face, which looks like it’s behind a piece of frost-covered glass or something similarly icey. This kind of looks like the marketers are deciding it’s just too difficult to try and sell it as a murder mystery and so are hoping it’s mistaken for Underworld 4 or something like that. She looks other-wordly and beautiful and they’re hoping people see it based solely on that and not because of what the movie’s actually about, always a recipe for disaster.
The Trailers
The first – and only – official trailer for the movie (there was an unofficial version prior to this) spends its initial minute or so establishing Antarctica as a character itself before getting into the plot. That transition is marked primarily by the appearance of Beckinsale naked in the shower before getting the call that she’s being sent on an investigation. From there on out it’s all characters racing around or being pulled backward while snow blows intensely around them. There’s a bit about the team at the base discovering something unusual but, honestly, it winds up looking more like an X-Files episode than the murder mystery investigation that, as far as I understand, the source comic deals with. It’s an alright trailer but plays as a straight “something spooky” action flick and there’s not much to really make an impression other than the special effects-driven snow.
Online
The movie’s official website opens, as many do, with the key art as the site’s background and the trailer playing.
After you Enter the Site you get to the site’s content, with a snowstorm occasionally blanking out the scene of the base where the movie’s set. If you let the page sit long enough a figure begins walking across the screen, but there’s nothing about that in terms of unlockable bonus content or anything. It’s just a dude walking across the snow.
Diving into the Menu that’s sitting on the right side of the page, first up is the “Synopsis” that lays out the film’s plot pretty well. It also dispenses the notion that’s conveyed in the trailer that there’s something extra-terrestrial about what’s found out in the ice that has everyone in the movie either investigating or covering up.
There are about 18 stills in the “Gallery” that you can check out for yourself. “Videos” should, in all truthfulness, drop the plural since it’s really just one video, the Trailer. There are three Wallpapers, four Buddy Icons and the final theatrical Poster under “Downloads.”
The movie’s Facebook page has much of the same content, the final poster, the trailer and some photos that people can grab.
Advertising and Cross-Promotions
For a movie that got moved around more than once and seems to have a rather oddly timed release date, there was plenty of advertising support for it, especially in the final weeks before that release. I saw a ton of online ad units around the internet and there were at least four TV spots in rotation beginning around the last week of August or so.
I don’t see any promotional partners on the official site or in any of the stories that have been written about the movie.
The studio did try to muster up some buzz and show people portions of the film by releasing seven clips to the internet that came from various parts of the movie.
Media and Publicity
Beckinsale did the talk-show circuit and the movie is certainly not flying under the radar of the entertainment media, but it’s mostly being mentioned (at least right now) in general month/season wrap-ups of upcoming movie and isn’t being given a lot of ink of its own.
Some of what press there was focused not so much on Whiteout – though it was mentioned – as it did reports that Beckinsale was or wasn’t going to return to the Underworld franchise.
Overall
Does anyone else get a sense of whiplash from the sudden left turn this campaign took? The poster portion of the marketing starts things off strong but then there’s just one trailer, a website that is sort of lackluster and not much in the way of press or publicity. There was a bit stronger push to on the advertising front but I’m not sure that it was enough to get any sort of momentum around the movie back up and running. That’s unfortunate and would have probably turned out differently if the original release date had been stuck with and the original buzz built upon. But after so many stops and starts it’s just hard to to get that back.
The RSS Cloud
Following up on my post below about the continued viability of RSS as a distribution platform, there was some big news about how RSS is becoming more real-time that I wrote about on VoceNation.
RSS: Still vibrant and viable in the real-time web
I’m about at the end of my rope when it comes to people declaring RSS as less than living. The standard line of thinking by those making this declaration is that in a real-time web environment RSS is just too slow. Coupled with this is usually a statement about how they now get most of their news from their Twitter friends or other such sources. Some of the loudest voices on this side of the issue are heralding the hiring of former FeedBurner exec Dick Costolo by Twitter to be their COO as further proof that RSS is on the downslide of its effectiveness.
These people don’t know just how important RSS is or what it actually lets people do.
Five or so years ago I did a series of speaking gigs about corporate blogging, RSS and other new media technologies that communicators needed to know about. Remember that in 2003 and 2004 a lot of this stuff was still pretty new. When I got to the bit about RSS I compared it to the subscription cards that you tore out of a magazine and mailed back to start receiving a magazine or newspaper. Except instead of waiting five to six weeks to receive content you got it immediately. Plus, most all RSS readers have some sort of functionality that allows you to save an item for later in some manner. At the time I used Bloglines, which kept things as unread and now I use Google Reader, which lets me “Star” things.
But it’s the simple act of reading content that RSS changed forever and which is the area in which its power still lies. I can’t help but think that those who are embracing news aggregation via status updates are the people who don’t do anything else all day but live in those networks. Those of us with jobs and other responsibilities realize that RSS aggregators do just that while we’re fulfilling client needs and playing with our kids – they’re aggregating. When I have the time and the opportunity to read I fire up Reader and see what I missed. I might check client-sensitive feeds more often to make sure there’s nothing that needs my immediate attention, but the rest of them can sit there and pile up until it’s their turn.
If I’m not checking Twitter every 60 seconds I’m going to miss something. And there’s little to know way for me to save something interesting that I read for later. Even then, though, how many of the interesting items that people are passing along are coming to them via RSS? Someone reads their RSS feeds, sees something cool and links to it on Twitter, where others find it. But RSS is still part of the equation.
Imagine if RSS went away tomorrow, which is something those declaring it to be akin to the Norwegian Blue Parrot seem to think would be just fine. All of a sudden we’re back to the 2002 web, where you have a list of 20 sites or so in your browser’s Bookmarks or Favorites menu that you check every now and again to see what’s new, with each site taking at least five to 10 minutes, meaning it’s an hour or two to get through all 20 sites. That means you’re limiting your reading list to just the 20 most important sites to you, effectively killing blogs, which to a large extent count on RSS distribution to be read since RSS creates a playing field on which their content can compete with that from mainstream media producers.
RSS is a technology that has become essential to the web and to content publishing. Hell, even Twitter lets you subscribe to the RSS feed of a user or a keyword search. It is, quite frankly, the API on which the web has become reliant. I don’t care what blog publishing software you use – Blogger, WordPress, TypePad, Posterous or whatever works for you – I need an RSS feed I can subscribe to and an essential component that comes baked into all these platforms is an RSS feed. You can route it through FeedBurner and that’s very cool but you don’t need to. But it’s there and anyone who’s looking for it will find it.
If your media habits have you scouring Twitter all day for the latest breaking news to write about or a new story idea sparked by someone’s off-hand statement that’s fine. Go for it. But stop declaring RSS to be irrelevant since doing so just shows how you have no idea just how radically it transformed the online space or the power that remains – even after so many years of mainstream adoption – untapped in the technology.
Movie Marketing Madness: Extract
The workplace is a rich mine of comedic material, something that’s been proven out ever since the invention of filmed entertainment. From Laurel and Hardy’s The Piano Movers and Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times to “The Office” (both the British original and the U.S. version), there’s no end of funny situations that can be derived about people suffering through the drudgery of their daily jobs in the pursuit of a paycheck, no matter the soul-crushing cost.
One of the modern classics in this genre is Mike Judge’s 1999 film Office Space. Not only incredibly funny but also a source of hundreds of greatly quotable lines, Office Space was not really a success until after its home video release, where it quickly gained a cult following based on repeated viewings.
After diving into an exploration of just how stupid society is going to wind up being because idiots breed more than smart people (Idoicracy – a funny movie that deserves a more thorough look) Judge is now returning to a place of business, though this time not quite in the same way.
Extract stars Jason Bateman as the owner of a flavor extract company whose life is not all that fulfilling. He wants to sell the company but an on-the-job accident by one of his employees forces him to hold on to it and do what he can with the factory. At home things aren’t that much more fulfilling, with his wife (Kristen Wiig) showing no interest in him and possibly cheating on him. The only thing he has to look forward to is passing the time with the stoned bartender (Ben Affleck) who he can pour out his misery to. But then a new temp (Mila Kunis) starts who gets his heart aflutter but who could be holding an agenda that goes beyond simply filling a role on the factory floor.
The Posters
The first teaser poster really didn’t do all that much other than just tease that there was a new Mike Judge movie coming out soon and that it probably would involve at least one person being hit in the testicles. The former point is emphasized by the “This Labor Day, the creator of Office Space heads back to work” copy at the top, a nice connecting of the dots between that previous movie and this one, leading the audience to make the assumption that it would be hitting similar notes. The latter point is made by the presence of two walnuts on either side of the extract bottle, one of which has a broken shell, and the line “A comedy that hits you where it hurts” at the bottom. Pretty funny, though definitely a play to the lowest audience denominator. In fact when you think about Judge’s lampooning of crotch-based humor with the “Ouch My Balls” sequence in Idiocracy, this poster is actually quite a bit funnier.
With an ensemble cast like this it’s not that surprising there would be an initial round of character-centric teasers, though it is somewhat unusual to find this sort of thing in smaller movies. Affleck, Kunis, Wiig and Bateman all got their own individual one-sheets, each with their face below some copy that gives a quick description of their character to the audience.
There are two posters that came across my radar that seemed to be final theatrical versions and I’m honestly not sure which one is legit. Some sites have both, some have one or the other and some have neither so it’s hard to figure out what’s what.
The one goes for a very visual and literal gag, showing Bateman trapped in a bottle of his own product and looking like he wants to get out, with that bottle being held by Kunis in a very physically disproportional way while J.K. Simmons and Wiig stand behind her. This one features similar color branding with the teasers, but a different copy point within the framing of the poster. It’s probably my favorite of these two options since it’s at least a little bit funny.
The second version drops the color used in all the previous posters in favor of a stark white background. On this one the same shot of Bateman featured on his character poster is used in the bottom half, with the rest of the cast arrayed above the title treatment at the top.
I just don’t feel like this one goes as far as it should in selling the movie. It also loses some points since it drops the color-coated branding the rest of the one-sheets have established, which I think is a mistake. Plus, it introduces two ancillary characters who haven’t been in the trailer and so aren’t going to create any sense of consistency in the audience.
The Trailers
The movie’s trailer, which premiered on Cinematical, opens on the workplace accident that sets off some of the movie’s tension, with lazy workers leading to problems and eventually to one employee getting his walnuts cracked. Then there’s the other tension, that between Bateman and Wiig, with him trying to get home before she puts on her sweatpants and the possibility of…relations…is long past. That then sets up his excitement when Kunis joins the company as a temp and we can see he’s going to be facing some major temptations. At the end there’s a throw-away gag about how Bateman’s character can’t handle smoking pot that does nothing but try to elicit a laugh without selling the movie’s plot at all.
It does a decent job of setting up the characters and some of the plot elements but doesn’t delve into how all those wind up paying off or coming together. The vast majority of them, I’m willing to bet, come from the first half hour of the movie. While I’m not a fan of spoiling the whole movie in a trailer I also worry that by showing this as just a series of one-gag-after-another type of movie the marketers aren’t making a strong enough case for people to see the movie.
A few days before the movie came out there was an internet-only trailer released that took a slightly different tone than the original. It starts off by actually getting into the part of the plot that deals with how Bateman’s character is being sued by the guy who got his balls knocked off, including a scene with KISS’s Gene Simmons and his role as the plaintiff’s sleazy attorney who has a unique way for the lawsuit to end quickly. After that there’s a bit more drug humor and a montage of scenes that show everyone’s always asking how Bateman’s character is doing and asking if they can help, something that he’s clearly getting tired of.
It works probably just as well as the first trailer but for different reasons. I like that they pulled one of the other plot threads into the campaign but it still comes off as probably a bit more slap-sticky than the movie really is overall. Still quite funny, though, and it’s nice to see that the studio isn’t completely abandoning the film.
Online
The movie’s official website opens up, as many do, with the film’s trailer that begins playing once the page loads. Below that there are icons that encourage you to share the page on the social network/bookmarking site of your choice. And a little farther down there are icons for you to connect with Miramax Films on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or Flickr depending on what you’d like to get from your social relationship with the studio.
Once you Enter the Site you see a giant image of Bateman – again the same one that was on his character poster – with a couple options floating around him. Clicking any of those opens a related video clip that’s pulled from the trailer.
To the left there’s the main Menu where you can get the site’s primary content.
“Film” contains a Story synopsis that lays out the movie’s entire storyline – it’s pretty spoiler heavy and gives away all the twisted relationships that go into the comedy – very clearly. Production Notes is a surprisingly frank and honest story about Judge’s problems with studios and focus groups around his first two movies and how he worked under the radar to get Extract made with minimal interference. It’s quite a read. The Filmmakers section gives the information you need on Judge and the rest of the folks behind the camera.
You’ll find information on those in front of the camera under “Cast,” which brings up the same rotating image of characters that populates the upper right hand corner of the site throughout.
There’s just the trailer in the “Video” section. “Gallery” has a pretty wide selection of stills from the film. Finally “Downloads” has the usual selection of items; Icons, Wallpapers, a Screensaver and the Character Posters. The nice touch is that if you want them all you can download the Extract Kit as a Zip file that contains everything.
Advertising and Cross-Promotions
While I don’t think there were any promotional partners on the movie there was a fair amount of advertising done. TV spots were, for the most part, shortened versions of the trailer though there were a couple that featured some new footage. There was also a bit of online advertising done, including video units that utilized Google’s new system of putting video ads alongside search results.
There was, I’d speculate, just enough and in just the right places to make sure that most of the audience that is predisposed to like Judge’s work would know there was a new movie coming out, with most all those spots including a hearkening back to Office Space.
Media and Publicity
Mike Judge also brought the cast and some footage to this year’s Comic-Con, putting the cast on a panel to answer questions about the movie and probably more. While there’s nothing comic or sci-fi ish about the movie it absolutely makes sense since the Comic-Con crowd is just the kind of folks that have been making Office Space and Idiocracy cult hits and so are likely to give this movie a big hug. MTV also announced it would be hosting the footage shown to the audience there online so that everyone could get a taste.
The panel session not only contained those clips (which did indeed wind up on MTV.com) but also, of course, addressed the long-rumored/reported/speculated on “Arrested Development” movie, which is only natural considering Bateman’s presence.
Judge also brought the film to fan-friendly territory Austin for a premiere there.
Independent of those more audience-targeted efforts there was also a general media push that allowed everyone to promote the movie and gave writers to bring up memories of Office Space and “Arrested Development” and other past projects from the cast and crew that are still popular with the public and so make for easy journalistic hooks.
At the last minute two of Judge’s most famous creations – Beavis and Butthead – gave the film a ringing endorsement for a variety of reasons, including the fact that it shows a guy being paid to have sex, something they say is woefully rare in society.
Overall
I like the campaign from a high level but when you start to break it out into its individual components problems begin to emerge. The posters don’t make good on the promise of such a large comedic cast, the trailers don’t really give you an accurate sense of the movie’s story and pacing and the website just seems half-done.
The cast and crew seem to be giving it their all in the publicity for the movie but even then the movie simply isn’t big enough to break through into the mainstream audience’s awareness to any great extent. There isn’t the carpet-bombing advertising that other summer comedies have gotten.
While the campaign does to a large extent play to the lowest common denominator (what do you expect?) it also doesn’t have the reach for the residents of that lowest common denominator to find it. The marketing could have been so much better if 1) There had been more of it and 2) It had been more targeted.
As it stands this will probably be another Mike Judge movie that plays rather well to its core audience but which most people find off-putting because it’s not as broad a comedy as the campaign made it out to be. It will probably die quickly at the box-office and then become a moderate hit on home video, where people will appreciate it and wonder, like his other movies, why it wasn’t more of an initial hit.
PICKING UP THE SPARE
- 9/3/09: There was a “Press” blog on the Extract official website that I completely missed that has all the posters and trailers as well as footage and photos from the movie’s red carpet premiere, mock motivational posts and character descriptions that go above and beyond what’s on the full site. I wish I had known about this well before the movie came out since it would have made my researching easier by a metric ton. There was also a Facebook fan page for the movie that I blew by completely that likewise has clips and photos and information on some of Judge’s promotional appearances and other events.
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