Movie Marketing Madness: (Untitled)

It goes without saying that the “serious” art world is and always has been one filled with healthy amounts of pretension. People take themselves seriously because they feel that what they’re creating is unique and important and expresses something that is by turns extremely personal and extremely universal to the world.

That serious, serious mindset, then, makes it the perfect target for a bit of satire. And that’s exactly what (Untitled) sets out to do.

The movie follows a young artist played by Adam Goldberg who specializes in sound. His creations are a mish-mash of various sounds, with his latest work ending with him kicking a metal bucket. That brings him to the attention of a comely young gallery owner played by Marley Shelton, who not only wants to help further his career but also has some interest in him romantically. As things go on, the discussion of what art is goes along with the discussion of what it means to be popular.

The Posters

The poster puts the film’s title treatment on the wall in the same manner as one of those cards placed next to a work of art with the name of the piece and the artist’s name on it, a clever concept that probably should have been expanded to the entire one-sheet. As it is that card itself becomes the art that Shelton’s character is looking at and admiring, while Goldberg (because he’s the more recognizable face, even if is is as Eddie from “Friends”) looks at the audience. Toward the bottom the copy “Everyones got an opinion” makes it clear we’re dealing with a discussion of what art “is,” even if that discussion is tongue-in-cheek and satirical.

The Trailers

The movie’s one trailer starts off with it being made clear that we’re in the world of experimental art, art that’s labeled as “important” and “revolutionary” by gasbags who have no idea what they’re talking about but want to sound like they’re on the cutting edge of what’s interesting.

Goldberg plays the central character in the movie and we see that he’s very much the struggling artist, someone who catches the eye of an influential gallery owner, a beautiful young woman (Shelton) who he winds up in bed with, probably something that’s going to provide some of the movie’s story. In between all that we get plenty of shots of artists who dabble in negative space, instillation pieces and other abstract areas like that. It’s pretty funny and certainly shows off the performances of Goldberg and Shelton and is the stronger for that.

Online

The official website for the movie is pretty cool in that frames – literally – the content in the manner of an art gallery. If you mouse around the picture frame that makes up the center of the site the image will move and content areas pop up, but all those sections are also listed below the frame.

“Overview” has a good, well, overview of the movie. It’s not exactly a plot synopsis though there’s a bit of that there. Instead it’s more of a setting of the stage for that story, providing a quick glimpse at some of the main characters and how they’re poised against and alongside each other.

You can find links to a handful of reviews and other write-ups about the movie under “Press” as well as a prompt to follow their updates on Facebook.

“Character Bios” has just that, a history of the characters themselves, though with an acknowledgement of the actors portraying them. The bio for Adrian Jacobs (Adam Goldberg), for instance lists his performance and recording credits to date.

“Videos” has the Trailer as well as three extended clips that show off some scenes from the movie that are pretty funny. There are 10 stills in the “Photo Gallery” that are unique and not just grabbed from the trailer.

Finally you’ll find press contact information and downloadable notes and the poster under “Contact.”

Moving off-domain, the movie’s Facebook page does indeed have links to quite a bit more press coverage of the film. Also there is the trailer, the poster and a still from the movie. The MySpace page just has a photo gallery, synopsis and the trailer.

Advertising and Cross-Promotions

Nothing that I’ve been privy to, not even a smattering of online ads.

Media and Publicity

There’s been a bit of coverage of the movie, but most of the buzz that I was able to find or which found me had to do with the release of the various marketing materials. There were some other items like a screening of footage from the movie at a San Francisco art studio but that was about it.

One story that stuck out was a New York Times piece (10/11/09) that examined how the studio was getting around the pricey advertising in New York and L.A. – the two markets most likely to have an audience interested in the movie’s theme – by reaching out to gallery owners and others who could host events and spread the buzz about it. That’s a great tactic that is emphasized quite a bit in discussions of how to market independent films; reaching

Overall

I really like this campaign for its simplicity and consistency. Everything seems to be hinged on that blank wall that the characters are looking at in the poster as that theme gets repeated throughout the campaign elements, sometimes overtly and sometimes just as a grace note. While it’s not a huge campaign I think it does manage to sell the movie very well, not only to those who live in the world portrayed in the film but also fans of light and funny satire.

Movie Marketing Madness: Where the Wild Things Are

There have been quite a few adaptations of children’s books in the last five or six years. Most of those are movie versions of Dr. Suess books and range wildly in their quality. On the one end you have Cat in the Hat (almost unwatchable) and on the other Horton Hears a Who (quite good and completely appropriate for kids). The one thing they have in common is that, in order to fill the 90 or so minutes of running time that they need to achieve they need to stretch the source material quite a bit since those books tend to max out around 30 pages or so.

Similar expansion from the book has been done to turn Where the Wild Things Are from a book that spanned just a few dozen pages that can be read in less than 15 minutes to a feature film that runs an hour and a half.

The movie appears in theaters now with a significant artistic pedigree that differentiates it significantly from previously released movies based on kid’s books. Instead of featuring a no-name writer and a director-for-hire, WTWTA comes from a screenplay by Dave Eggers (founder of McSweeneys, author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genious) that’s been directed by Spike Jonze (Adaptation, Being John Malkovich).

The involvement of these two makes the movie a different quantity. They’re not typically known for material that’s easily digested by adults, much less the under-10 set. So Warner Bros. has it’s work cut out for it selling a movie that’s based on a story for kids made by hipsters who like to muck about with adult expectations. Let’s take a look.

The Posters

The first couple of teaser posters definitely did a good job of playing up the idea that the movie would remain true to the book but also contain its own vibe. One featured Max, in full outfit and crown, crying out wildly while standing next to one of the beasts as they stand on a leaf-covered forest floor. On this the beast is only mostly seen, with his body in full view but his face still obscured, something that simultaneously manages to continue teasing the look of these creatures while also giving a sense of the scale of those creatures as they related to that little boy whose story we’re following.

The second gives us a fuller, but still incomplete look at the creature. In this one he’s hiding behind a tree, a tree that also sports a number of claw marks, with one off to the side that has a chunk taken out of it, so clearly this is where the creatures come and play. I love the colors on both of these posters and the way the look of the forest and the leaves on the ground compliment those of the beasts. It’s just great and goes a long way to creating a real vibe and color-based personality for the movie.

The theatrical poster that was released after these two moved the setting to the desert location we’ve seen in the trailers and some of the initial stills. We get another shot of Max and Carol, the main creature, and can see just how big the latter is compared to the boy.

After that a series of four character posters were released that gave us full-on close-ups of Carol, Max, Judith and KW. These are all characters we’ve met to some extent in the trailers so it only makes sense they would get a moment of their own in the spotlight.

Another batch of posters was released shortly thereafter that rounded out the cast of characters, including Ira, Douglas, Alexander and The Bull. There was also one that featured Carol but was intended to promote the film’s release to IMAX theaters. It’s not that different from the character-specific one-sheet, just without the name and with “IMAX” at the bottom.

The Trailers

The first trailer starts off with Max already among the wild things and we spend most of the running time on that island, though there are a couple peeks at his real world life, mostly showing him wishing he were somewhere else. There’s little to no dialogue but there is a definite sense of excitement and even danger to the footage, which shows off just how vividly the world of the book has been brought to life, though the actual story of the movie is hinted at only in passing. We’re asked, as an audience, to draw the connection between Max’s longing for a better life and his adventures in the world of the wild things. It’s an easy connection to make, thankfully.

The second is a tad more linear. It starts off showing a wistful Max at home and with his mother, again showing him as a dreamer whose life is quite as exciting as he might like. But then he travels to the land of the wild things and things get more interesting. We’re introduced, by way of Max being introduced, to the characters that live there, but only after Max is pronounced king and we get to see him scream that famous declaration, “Let the wild rumpus start!!” We see some of the fun and adventures Max has along with a couple shots of him on the island that show it’s not exactly all he thought it would be and that he misses his home.

Both spots are really, really good in that they present an emotional, exciting film that has a story that looks very interesting and, most importantly, a vision of a world that’s unlike most anything we might have seen on film before. Interesting one of the most common criticisms of the trailers by people is that while they make good music videos – the music is kind of perfect – they’re not sure an entire movie along these lines can be sustained. I harbor no such doubts since the glimpses of this world are more than enough to make me believe Jonze can pull off a feature film that not only sustains this level of entertainment but actually builds on it.

Online

The official website loads with hash marks being drawn on the screen as the percentage grows, one of the most interesting “loading” graphical representations I’ve seen in a long time. After that’s finished one of the trailers plays and from there you can Enter the Site.

The first section of site content is “About” and there you’ll find a Synopsis that covers not only the film’s story but also lists the talent involved and gives some of the behind-the-scenes folks a spotlight. That spotlight is then extended in the Cast and Filmmakers section, where those who made the film from both ends of the camera are given biographies and brief career overviews.

By my count there are about 35 stills from the movie, including a couple behind-the-scenes shots, in the “Gallery.” Both Trailers, the Featurette I’ll talk more about later and five TV Spots are all hosted in the “Videos” section. “Downloads” has Wallpapers, Buddy Icons, Screensavers and the entire cadre of Posters you can download for your own usage.

“Soundtrack” has samples of the movie’s widely hyped song list from Karen O and the cast as well as links to buy it either on iTunes of Amazon.

Finally there are links to Partners and Promotions, the iPhone app and Tickets and Showtimes.

Also on the web was a blog written by some of those on the movie’s creative team called We Love You So. It’s a fun read, including all sorts of information about the movie and some of the activities, contests and other promotions going on around it. It’s the kind of thing I would want to see keep going after the film is released and into its home video life since I think it adds a lot to the conversation about the movie.

The iPhone app mentioned above brought Carol, the primary beast from the story, to your screen. The app let you interact with Carol in a variety of ways and, as Marshall Kirkpatrick says, seems geared primarily at a younger audience but still appears very cool.

Advertising and Cross-Promotions

In addition to a handful of TV spots that featured similar footage to what was in the trailers, the movie was also advertised while also promoting a societal good. A series of :30 spots was created (AdAge 9/10/09) for a PSA campaign in conjunction with the Childhood Obesity Prevention group that used footage of Max being himself and playing outdoors with the creatures he discovers to encourage kids to get up off the couch and engage in more physical activity.

Be Out There is a campaign created in conjunction with the National Wildlife Federation that encouraged kids to get active and get outdoors. The site for that campaign includes teaching guides, information on sponsored screenings and more material.

Jonze also announced and ran a contest that asked people to photoshop images of the characters from the film into existing photos, with the prize being one that would appeal especially to Jonze following in the skateboarding world: A series of seven custom-designed decks featuring artwork from the movie.

An L.A. boutique participated in the promotions for the movie by helping to create a pop-up shop that recreated some of the sets and locations from the film and used them to display shirts and other items in conjunction with the movie.

NYC & Company also helped out in promoting the movie with a series of themed events under the heading “Wild Things Week.” That involves giving local businesses the opportunity to organize their own ads and events as well as organizing special readings and more at city libraries and more.

Media and Publicity

Aside from the buzz about the release of each little bit of marketing material, some of the early publicity about the movie was about just how much of a problem Warner Bros. was going to have marketing it. The movie began shooting in 2006 and has suffered from more than its share of reports about creative conflict between director Jonze and Warner Bros. over the artistic direction.

At the end of the line, though, Warner Bros. is stuck with a quandary on its hands. The movie, in the hands of Jonze, is probably creative and more than a little disturbing, much like the source book. But that means it’s going to take some care and tending to market accurately, something that is not done particularly well by big studios. And as that AdAge story says, Warner Bros. no longer has the niche expertise it once did before it shut down Warner Independent and other specialty divisions.

Some of that was handled with the release of a featurette-type video that featured Sendak and Jonze, with the author giving his thumbs up and seal of approval to Jonze’s work by saying it’s faithful to the vision he created even while being fully Jonze’s as well. Steven Zeitchik at RiskyBizBlog read this as a defensive move on the part of Warner Bros. but I don’t think it’s that as much as it comes off like a political endorsement video. I see where he’s going with his point, but I think it’s a necessary point that needs to be made and actually is more about influencing the opinions of online influencers than about calming the fears of those with an emotional attachment to the book.

All the ancillary material around the movie also caused rounds of publicity. The news that Dave Eggers was writing his own adaptation of the book/movie and the release of Karen O’s first single from the film’s soundtrack both kicked off lots of commentary about how they fit into the film and the source book and how each was a vision of its creator.

Jonze also got a glowing New York Times Magazine profile. And later the director was honored by MoMA with a respective of his work to date.

Much of the coverage continued to focus on the film’s journey from the page to the screen and cover how Jonze got the movie made in the first place.

Just before release there were a handful of clips from the film released, but I’m going to echo a sentiment expressed by CRM’s Matt Dentler that they should be avoided in order to preserve the movie-going experience.

Overall

If you look at this campaign and are a fan, as I am, of movies that are able to completely sweep you away into not only a unique setting but also a unique emotional experience then you’re going to love this marketing push. There’s a fantastic sense of wonder and playfulness – all wrapped together through the use of consistent color, fonts and other design details – that permeates the campaign that raises the level of each individual component.

Which says something considering those individual components are pretty good in and of themselves. The posters are designed in a way that manages to show a lot but still come off has hiding a lot. The trailers feature some wonderful footage, all set to an exciting and completely appropriate soundtrack.

At times the campaign comes off as a little overly stylistic but, for the adults in the audience who are familiar with the previous work of Jonze and Eggers, that’s to be expected to a great extent. So, armed with that knowledge, that doesn’t get in the way.

With a lot of interest from the press the formal campaign was accompanied by a firm publicity effort that had a lot of coverage being devoted to the movie. Add it all together and you have a really nice marketing effort for a movie that could be a big fall hit.

PICKING UP THE SPARE

• 10/20/09: Patrick Goldstein has a good piece about how Warner Bros. managed to “thread the needle” and create a campaign that sold the movie as something that may be appropriate for (some) kids that are familiar with the book and the hipsters that the director and writer are going to attract. Of course the work done by the Warner Bros. marketing team looks brilliant in hindsight since the movie did well in its opening weekend. If it hadn’t then they’d be seen as dropping the ball by not picking a single audience. And we still have to see what the second weekend’s take is going to be.
• 10/20/09: NPR has a similar story about appealing to the dual audiences.
• 10/20/09: Mashable reviews the movie’s iPhone app and Facebook page, the latter of which I think I missed in my column.
• 10/21/09: AdAge (10/20/09) looks at the campaign and how it, at least for the most part, retained a “handmade” aesthetic, something that helped it build important early buzz and then build on that.
• 12/2/09: Christina Warren writes on Mashable about a study of how ad placement on YouTube translated to more hits to the movie’s official website and an overall boost in online activity – searches and such – for it in the days leading up to release.

Movie Marketing Madness: An Education

Movies about…inappropriate romances aren’t anything new. There’s always tales to be told of men who falls in love with some sort of distant relative against his parent’s wishes or a younger woman who is seduced by an older man and forgoes the life her family had planned for her as a result. The latter form has been a popular way to approach the idea since it allows for all sorts of feminist and post-feminist messages about empowerment to be communicated. (Not that I’m against such things, just that this type of story is a great way for “woman takes control of her life” messaging.)

The latest film in this genre is An Education. It tells the story of a young woman (Carey Mulligan) who’s being prepared by her family for an education (natch) at Oxford in 1961. But being a bored 16 year old girl means she’s dreaming of something more fun for her life. That’s when she meets David (Peter Sarsgaard), a 30 year old man who rescues her from the rain and begins to show her a more flamboyant, glamorous and fun life that she could be having. Her parents and other adults in her life, though, question the choices she makes and worry that she’s throwing her life away in the name of a temporary good time.

The Posters

The one poster for the movie makes a clear statement about the core story. Mulligan and Sarsgaard are lying next to each other but in opposite directions, with only the cheeks of their faces touching as they watch the sky, his jacket spread on the sidewalk underneath them. It’s a tender moment that’s meant to convey that these two really do care for each other and it’s not just a fling romance. The hairstyles and camera that’s off to the side of the couple provide good clues as to the time period it takes place in. Of all the photos that I’ve seen of the two actors together from the movie they picked one, not surprisingly, that has Mulligan looking the most mature and the least like a schoolgirl.

It’s a stylish poster that’s meant to appeal to a high-end crowd, the kind of audience that’s going to be attracted to stories of class struggles and people rebelling against the position in life everyone around them assume they will assume. Which is to say a crowd that’s a bit more discerning in their movie appetites, looking for high production values and solid performances more than intricate story-telling. The poster lays out a simple story – man and young woman in love – and doesn’t invite a lot of speculation as to subplots or anything like that. It is what it is.

The Trailers

The trailer starts out by introducing us to the mundane, predictable life being led by Jenny and what exactly people expect from her as well as how she’s itching to push against those limits. She’s apparently a good student and good daughter and probably on her way to a good, if unexciting life. Then David pulls up in his car and offers her a ride and soon she’s going on dates to supper clubs, talking about shopping in France and other activities that are distracting her from the life she was set for. But all that seems to come with a price as she then has to bear the burden of disappointing those who had such high hopes for her, as well as potentially facing the reality that she’s too young to make such important decisions on her own.

Like the poster, it has it’s target audience very much in mind and is designed to appeal strongly to those folks. It hits the same points as the poster and shows that the movie is largely told through color, with Jenny’s boring home life being drab and gray while her aspirational life with David is filled with bright colors. There’s a nice rhythm to the trailer that makes it easy to watch and very appealing if you’re a fan of these sorts of movies.

Online

The movie’s official website opens with a repurposing of the poster art and some text toward the top touting its two recent festival appearances.

Moving to the content menu at the bottom of the screen, “Synopsis” is up first and gives a pretty good recap and explanation of the movie’s story, introducing the characters and the situation in a way that’s actually helpful and which expands nicely on what we learn in the trailer.

So because that has information on the plot, the “About the Film” section that’s next becomes more about the production. Indeed it contains Author’s Notes, which has just a brief note from the author of the source novel, and Director’s Notes, which is much more robust and contains quotes and comments from both director Lone Scherfig and screenwriter Nick Hornby. The latter goes more into the thinking behind the film and the story they were trying to tell and other topics like that.

There’s a surprisingly large number of photos, many of which are not pulled from the trailer, in the “Gallery.”

The “Cast” and “Filmmakers” sections have more information on the players and creators of the movie.

“Trailer” is just that, while “Music” has the soundtrack listing as well as Director’s Notes and Producer’s Notes on the role the music plays in the movie and how it carries its weight of the story-telling responsibility.

There are brief snippets from write-ups of the movie from a handful of mainstream media outlets in “Reviews.” I know there are other reviews out there from movie blogs – including a number that would carry quite a bit of influence with the movie’s target audience – but the only ones here are from high-profile newspapers and glossy magazines.

“Links” contains links to the IMDB, Wikipedia and other entries to the major names involved in the movie as well as to blogs and other associated sites.

The movie’s Facebook page has a collection of photos, the trailer, photos and updates that contain links to a couple of stories that have been written about the movie and the people in it.

Advertising and Cross-Promotions

Nothing that I’ve seen or otherwise come across.

Media and Publicity

The movie made its debut at this year’s Telluride Film Festival, where post-fest recaps pegged it as one of the event’s strongest debuts and a potential Oscar-worthy film.

There were also a couple of stories like this New York Times Magazine profile of Mulligan that talked with the actors from the movie and raised some awareness for the film.

Overall

It certainly is a high class campaign and will probably resonate with, as I alluded to when discussing part of the website, the kind of audience that reads high-gloss magazines and enjoys the Sunday New York Times even if they don’t live in New York. It’s probably not the kind of movie that’s going to be sought out by fans of Paul Blart: Mall Cop and so the campaign makes little pretense toward trying to appeal to a broad swath of people.

Each component is pretty good in and of itself – a solid trailer, a good poster and a pretty decent website – and more importantly there’s a lot of consistency between all those components, something that goes a long way to making this a decent marketing push. There probably could have been a little more advertising done in a highly-targeted manner but that’s not a make or break point.

PICKING UP THE SPARE

• 10/8/09: Much of the film’s publicity, like this post on The Envelope, has focused on the performance of Carey Mulligan in her role as a British teenager on the verge of first love.

Movie Marketing Madness: Trucker

There’s always inspiration to be found in the story of a single mom. They are, by and large, good people and try their hardest to provide for their kids and all that. But what if a single mom is also a reluctant mom, someone who never really intended to be a mother and has rejected the role only to be thrown unexpectedly in to the job?

That’s the story of Trucker. Michelle Monaghan plays a woman who years ago left the baby she had with the man she was with at the time. But now he’s dying and so places the kid, now about 10 years old, in her care. She’s a truck-driver, though, moving from place to place and enjoying the solitary life and transitory connections she’s built up along the way. So she’s now faced with the prospect of bringing a young kid on the road with her, a process that turns into a learning opportunity for both mother and child.

The Posters

The poster doesn’t do a whole lot other than show off the characters in the movie and hint at some of the relationships that exist between them. At the top we see Monaghan alone driving her truck, showing us what her job and seemingly her attitude is. In the middle we have her positioned kind of awkwardly next to her estranged son and at the bottom there’s a split between her and Fillion, making it clear there’s a connection there that the movie will deal with in some way. There’s also plenty about what film festivals the movie has appeared at, something designed to appeal to the segment of the audience that’s interested in such things.

The Trailers

While a bit choppy at times in terms of the editing, the trailer works pretty well at showing what the movie is about, making it clear that Monaghan’s character is a strong, independent woman who, despite that, is still struggling with who she is. We get a sense of the relationships that make up the movie, especially between her and the son she hasn’t known since birth, and how they all go into making her who she is.

The critic’s quotes about the movie almost universally are focused on Monaghan’s performance as a star-making one and how she reaches some great territory with the character. Since, as we’ll see below, that performance is being buzzed about to some extent that’s not surprising and definitely shows that’s the direction the studio is taking in promoting the movie.

Online

The official website is pretty light, even by generous standards. The poster and trailer are there and some basic information about the movie but that’s basically it. Most of the page’s real estate is given over to the display of festivals and other events where the movie has screened as well as pull quotes from some reviews that resulted from those appearances.

Advertising and Cross-Promotions

Non-existent on both counts.

Media and Publicity

Not much outside of the afore-mentioned reviews. A few months ago there was a bit of buzz around Monaghan’s performance being something that might be Oscar-worthy but that seemed to be short-lived and never really gained much momentum. There was more when it was announced Montery Media had picked up distribution rights but aside from those three categories there wasn’t a whole lot of buzz.

Overall

It’s small, which is somewhat to be expected, but it’s alright. I think it sells the movie pretty well given that the campaign is made up almost solely of the trailer and poster with a little bit of word-of-mouth publicity thrown in. But for a movie that the studio and filmmakers are trying to position as containing an Oscar-worthy performance it’s way too sparse, almost to the point of non-existence.

Movie Marketing Madness: Couple’s Retreat

Getting a big group of people who enjoy each other’s company and always seem to be trying to make the other members of the group laugh is, surprisingly a good way to make a movie. Granted, these aren’t films that are going to win critic’s awards or make any AFI lists any time soon, but they do tend to be enjoyable for the audience. More than that, when it’s the right group of actors it can actually be a good movie, not just one that the audience is asked to check its brain at the door for. Again, maybe not award winning level but, by most measures, “good.”

Such is the secret to the success of the Ocean’s movies from director Steven Soderbergh and a cast that includes George Clooney, Matt Damon, Brad Pit and others. The movies seem to be the result of them wanting to hang out in Las Vegas together for a while and figuring they may as well shoot a movie while they’re there.

Such seems to be the guiding light behind Couple’s Retreat. The movie stars Jason Bateman, Jon Favreau, Vince Vaughn and Faizon Love and is directed by Peter Billingsly. Favreau and Vaughn, of course, are long-time movie pals, Bateman has appeared with Vaughn in a handful of movies, as has Billingsly, who has also acted as a producer on many of Favreau’s directorial efforts.

The movie has the four male leads heading to a tropical retreat with the ladies in their lives for a week of couple’s skill training. Speaking of the ladies, they’re played by Kristen Bell (playing Bateman’s wife), Malin Ackerman (playing Vaughn’s wife), Kali Hawk (playing Love’s much-younger girlfriend) and Kristen Davis (playing Favreau’s wife). So really the movie is about hanging out with your industry pals and getting a bunch of gorgeous women to spend most of the film in bikinis.

The Posters

The first poster released spelled out the movie’s plot and explained its characters pretty well. It shows the main eight cast members standing in their respective pairings knee-deep in the waters of some vacation resort type location, each with a less than thrilled look on their faces. It’s bright and colorful, which tells me it’s trying to present the audience with a bright, funny movie. The cast is arranged in, apparently, order of how well it’s assumed they’ll draw in that audience, with Vaughn and Akerman way out in front and the pairings of Favreau/Davis and Bateman/Bell in the middle ground, with Love/Hawk toward the back. I maybe would have arranged them differently, putting Bateman and Favreau’s couples more toward the front since I think they’re big enough stars in their own rights.

The second poster is all that different from the first, with a few key changes. For one, the Love/Hawk couple is completely eliminated – from the image and the printed cast list – apparently on the assumption that they’re not going to add to the audience’s desire to see the movie as much as bigger pictures of the other three couples. All the others are brought closer to the front and given outfits that are a little more tropical looking. There’s also some image flipping going on, with Bateman and Bell on opposite sides of each other.

The Trailers

The trailer makes a similar arrangement of the cast. It starts off by exploring some of the relationship issues being dealt with – or not – by the couples. Vaughn/Akerman are still attracted to each other but have slowed down physically because of the kids. Favreau/Davis are each cheating on each other but seem blissfully unaware. Love/Hawk are just starting dating despite some disapproval from others. And finally, Bateman/Bell are on the verge of divorce but are inviting all their friends on a tropical retreat to help them give it one last shot.

After that it’s all laughs, with the guys and girls being put in one funny and/or emotionally compromising situation after another. Like the poster, Vaughn is at the forefront, providing most of the one-liners in the spot. Most of the humor, though, is delivered with a straight face and is extremely dry, which means these guys are the perfect cast for that script. Bateman, Favreau and Vaughn all excel in not winking at the audience when they sell a joke and this trailer shows the movie is going to be full of that.

Online

The movie’s official website opens with a recreation, again, of the poster art where everyone is standing around in the water. I was expecting something to be done with the characters but was wrong.

The first section is “Videos” and that’s where you’ll find the Trailer and five TV spots. “Downloads” is next and is where you’ll find a Screensaver, a bunch of Wallpapers and some Buddy Icons for you to grab.

“Bios” gives you a look at the career of each of the major players in front of the camera when you mouse over their picture. Over in the upper right there’s also an All Bios button where you can alternatively access the same write-ups as well as information on director Billingsly and the other folks behind the camera.

We finally get to information about the movie’s story with “Film,” where Story is the only section. There’s just a brief one paragraph synopsis there so it’s not going to tell you a whole lot you can’t already gleam from the trailer.

Finally there’s “Gallery” where you’ll find about 30 images from the movie, including a couple of behind-the-scenes shots.

There was also an iPhone app created that tread familiar ground when it comes to movies about relationships, namely the path of playing the difference between men and women for a laugh. The “Couple’s Translator” allowed you to take a seemingly innocuous phrase that a woman might say and have it translated into Englis, revealing its actual meaning.

The movie’s Facebook page is actually really nicely done and well stocked with information. There are photos, TV spots and other video, links to news coverage and contests and more all there.

Advertising and Cross-Promotions

I’ve noticed quite a few TV spots for the movie, most of which pull footage from the trailer with a little bit of additional stuff thrown in. There’s also been a little bit of online advertising that has been scattered around the web that recreated the poster key art of everyone standing in the ocean in their best island outfits.

Media and Publicity

While most of the initial publicity was simply around the release of various marketing materials, there was some news when Universal and the film’s producer’s wound up winning an appeal (Hollywood Reporter 9/10/09) to the MPAA’s ratings board that reversed an original R rating and got the movie instead a less-restrictive PG-13. Because the story specifies the decision came via the appeals process I have to believe this means it did not mean the movie had to undergo trims or edits but instead the studio and producers were able to secure the reversal based solely on their powers of persuasion.

The cast and crew made the usual round of talk show and other appearances and the guys were subjected to a round of inane questions about romance and relationship, which is about as original as most media outlets tend to get with such mainstream romantic comedies.

Multiple clips were released from the movie, most all of them expanding in some way on scenes that were teased in the trailer.

Universal brought a bunch of movie journalists down to Bora Bora on a mini-vacation that included interviews with the cast and crew and resulted in not only some further news but quite a few pictures from the beautiful location as well.

There was plenty of other press coverage as well, ranging from interviews with Billingsly to stories about what snacks the cast members packed so they wouldn’t have to worry about local food. With such a large and high-profile cast the amount of coverage isn’t that surprising, nor is how flimsy the hooks some of those stories are hung on.

Overall

This is a nice campaign that focuses, for the most part, on selling the audience on the considerable charms of its cast. These are all actors who have pretty good reputations with the movie-going public recently (except for Akerman, still the target among those people who haven’t been able to move past her performance in Watchmen). So it’s right for the marketing to sell the movie as a essentially, a good time with these people who are generally liked.

Still, there seems to be some lightness to the campaign that I wasn’t expecting. While there are five TV spots there’s only one trailer and the website seems kind of skimpy on the content. There’s good stuff there, don’t get me wrong, but for a movie that seems to have the potential to be a late summer/early fall comedy hit there don’t appear to have been many bullets put in the gun. The ones that were loaded hit their mark, at least they appear to be aimed in the right direction.

PICKING UP THE SPARE

• 10/23/09: The junket trip the studio took a number of writers on to Bora Bora wound up being an ethical issue the Thrillist website had to deal with and respond to criticism around.
• 11/15/09: The removal of Faizon Love and Kali Hawk – the only two black members of the primary cast – from the movie’s posters has ignited a bit of a row (Telegraph, 11/15/09) in Great Britain, with charges of racism being met by Universal with an explanation of how only the most regularly recognizable faces were used on the revised one-sheet, with no intention to offend.

Movie Marketing Madness: Peter & Vandy

Movies about love affairs – whether told in a dramatic or comedic way – are, in general, pretty much well trod territory. Writing about how they’re cliches is almost as cliched as the movies often are themselves, in fact, and so I’ll try to avoid getting too deeply into that. Let’s just say that most of the ways you can tell this kind of story have been explored, likely multiple times.

Occasionally something comes along that seeks to take a fresh stab at the genre by mixing things up a bit. Along those lines comes Peter & Vandy. Starring Jason Reitman and Jess Wexler as the titular couple, the movie is being billed as a love story that’s told out of order, a device that presumably is meant to shake up our expectations and provide more stirring contrasts between the happy beginnings and disappointing endings in the relationship.

The Posters

The movie’s one poster has a nice, if awkwardly Photoshopped, photo of the two leads looking past or around each other, which actually (if read generously) does a decent job of showing that the characters are sort of hovering around each other. A smaller shot in the upper left hand corner has them in a more tender moment, while the other two smaller pictures on the design position New York City as the third lead character in the movie.

The title treatment and other text is rendered in a pleasant DIY, indie hipster manner, giving the audience a clear idea of what these characters – and the movie as a whole – are most likely like. It’s overall a pleasant poster, but the look and feel, I think, clearly identifies it as being for an independent-minded movie and so will probably be dismissed by anyone mainstream audience members that come across it.

The Trailers

The trailer does little but cement that “hipper than thou” vibe the poster can only allude to and hit at. We’re introduced to Peter and Vandy at the same moment they’re introduced to each other. We then follow them around their relationship at various moments, just as the film presumably does. There are some scenes of them together looking happy, some of them together but looking miserable and some of them apart and finding ways to deal with that.

The music veers a little too far into the realm of annoying, especially with the addition at a couple points of actual montages of still images. There’s a strong sense that comes through from the footage that Vandy is very much the one who’s dictating the terms of the relationship, with Peter looking more often than not like an emotionally needy puppy dog looking to keep her attention.

There’s also one scene that sticks out like a sore thumb from the rest, the one of Vandy and her (friends? family?) explaining to a young girl why Peter isn’t joining them. It sticks out because it’s such a mainstream type of moment that it pulls us out of the vibe of the trailer, which is focused not on an explanation of the relationship but of the relationship itself. Other than that one moment and some of the music it’s an alright trailer, though one I’m willing to bet was hard to assemble.

Online

The official website for the movie has, as its backdrop, a nice rotating selection of stills from the movie that transition using the same tile effect that’s used in the trailer and, to some extent, the poster. That creates a nice cohesiveness to the campaign right there that I like a lot.

“About the Film” starts off the main content sections with a couple paragraphs about the movie’s story, origins as a play and soundtrack.

“Screenings” has information on its limited roll out to New York, Los Angeles and Irvine, CA. And skipping down a few, “Press Kit” has, naturally, a press kit you can download as a PDF. Finally on this angle is “Contact Info” where you can find email addresses and phone numbers for the people to contact with press or other questions about the movie.

“Media” is where you can view – but not download – the movie’s poster and watch the trailer. The last section left then is “Soundtrack” where you can view the tracklist for the movie’s soundtrack.

There’s also a Facebook page for the movie that contains photos, links to news stories about the movie and videos of the cast at the Sundance Film Festival and elsewhere.

Advertising and Cross-Promotions

Nada. Not surprising, but still nothing.

Media and Publicity

Most of the publicity for the movie was generated by its appearance, as noted before, at the Sundance Film Festival and its eventual pick-up for distribution by Strand Releasing.

Aside from those two points, as well as the release of marketing materials and such over time, there wasn’t really much. Which means this is one of those movies that might be flying under just about everyone’s radar.

Overall

It’s a nice little campaign for a quirky romance that’s getting limited release. That sounds like a lot of qualification of the basic assessment but it’s necessary to put the campaign in that context. It’s not knocking my socks off or anything, but there’s a nice consistency to the branding that I think works in its favor strongly.

There are problems with each component that I can see but I do also think that for the target audience the movie is likely to be trying to reach it does a good job of speaking to them. If you’re a fan of small bands, Thai food menus (that’s very much not me) and other things that are unique to the New York City single/dating life this campaign is going to look like a mirror.

PICKING UP THE SPARE

• 10/8/09: A nice profile piece (Los Angeles Times 10/8/09) of lead actress Jess Wexler and her career to date accompanies the film’s initial limited release.