Movie Marketing Madness: The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
If you had just one word to describe the public reputation of director Terry Gilliam what would it be? Here are some options: Troubled; Visionary; Auteur; Delayed.
All of these could be applied to just about any of the films Gilliam has made over the last two decades. How many times have we read variations on the following: “In the pursuit of creating his latest troubled film the visionary director has been delayed yet again as reality bumps up against his auteur sensibilities.” That happens all that time, right?
But part of what we love about Gilliam is that he keeps pushing the envelope and keeps refusing to work within the studio system. He’s ornery and we kind of need him to be the crazy uncle in show business, the one who shows up in a sports car with the girlfriend 20 years younger than him and refuses to even discuss it.
The latest movie to encounter troubles on its way from the director’s head to the movie screen is The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. The movie tells the story of the head of a traveling theater troupe who owes his success to constant gambling with the devil. But now the devil has come to collect his winnings – Parnassus’ teenage daughter. It then falls to Tony, part of the troupe, to save her from the devil’s clutches.
But it wouldn’t be a Gilliam production without problems on the set. This time those troubles came in the form of the death of Heath Ledger. No, The Dark Knight was not his last movie. Ledger was in the middle of shooting Parnassus when he passed away, making this the actor’s actual final appearance. Instead of recasting or using a body double for his incomplete scenes, though a trio of actors – Jude Law, Colin Farrel and Johnny Depp – have stepped in to finish the role in a move that seems both respectful and suitably deranged given the types of stories Gilliam is apt to tell. So let’s look at how it’s being sold.
The Posters
Only one poster seems to have been produced for domestic U.S. audiences, though others were created and geared for international distribution.
The U.S. one-sheet makes it incredibly clear that we were entering into another world with Gilliam and his actors. The main image background is that of a curtain tent, just the kind you’d expect to see as part of a traveling circus or other show like it. Below that curtain is a wonderous landscape with hills in the background. But between those hills is a doorway that breaks the gloom of the cloudy skies and presents a bright and fanciful image with odd looking buildings looming, balloons flying through the sky with a black and white tiled road leading to it.
While the visuals evoke a sense of wonder and fancy the cast is not neglected at all. Ledger and Cole are seen at the top, in front of the curtain, and Plummer and Tom Waits are positioned flanking the doorway. At the very bottom of the poster the entire cast is featured in smaller boxes of their own, including Ledger in the middle and all three other actors who have picked up his role.
It’s a decent poster that certainly makes it clear – even without his name appearing above the title treatment – that it’s from Gilliam since anyone who’s familiar with his work will recognize this as either being from him or certainly inspired by him at the very least. And for that audience, those fans of Gilliam, it immediately transports them to the world he’s created, which is what they’re mostly looking for from the director to begin with.
The Trailers
The trailer was actually the first bit of domestic marketing that was released and it’s pretty cool. It certainly strikes a more epic tone than the trailers for some of Gilliam’s other recent movies.
The spot starts out by introducing Parnassus and just what the stakes are – He very literally made a deal with the devil that gave him eternal life. But in return any child of his becomes the property of the devil upon their 16th birthday, which is now approaching for Parnassus’ only daughter. But then someone appears that could help. We then get a look at the performances of Heath Ledger and the men who stood in for him after his death: Jude Law, Colin Farrel and Johnny Depp.
In addition to that we also get a good look at the film’s visuals, which appear to be outstanding. *This* is what a Gilliam film should look like. There are crazy costumes, outrageous magical landscapes and characters that are drawn so broadly they may as well be actually drawn. The music that plays combined with the quick cutting and fast paced edits make it an experience not unlike a carnival ride, which may be completely accurate for the film itself and certainly do a good job of bringing in the audience.
Online
The movie’s official website puts the trailer in the middle of a reworking of the poster art, with a link to “Download the Press Kit” below as well as an area to find “Showtimes” near you.
There’s also a “Click Here to Find out More” area that’s pretty interesting. First in that section is Support the Site which actually takes you to a blog that’s been updated with media appearances by Gilliam, links to reviews of the movie and more. There are also links here to the movie’s Facebook profile, which is a re-purposing mostly of the same content you’ll find on the blog, a not-very-active Twitter account and a UK sit devoted to Gilliam called “Dreams.” Basically these are the ways you can connect to the movie specifically or to Gilliam and his vision more generally.
After you’ve checked all that out you can Enter the site.
“Cast & Crew” puts the major players on the Imaginarium’s stage and lets you click them to find out more about the actor, which is a good way for a movie like this to present that information.
I’d say there are about 25 stills in the “Gallery,” mostly production photos but with a couple shots of Gilliam behind the scenes thrown in for good measure.
the “Media” section says it has the Trailer (it does) as well as some Scenes and other material but I couldn’t get any of those links to work. If they weren’t there I would hope it would say “coming soon” or something but it doesn’t so I’m hoping that’s just user error on my part.
“Links & Reviews” right now just has links out to the trailer on Apple, cast interviews on various sites and such like that, with no reviews to be found. Many of those are on the above blog but here they’re labeled as still “coming soon.”
Advertising and Cross-Promotions
Not much of the paid variety. I seem to think I’ve seen a handful of online ads for the movie but that’s been scarce and there’s been nothing, to my knowledge, in the way of TV commercials or other such advertising.
Media and Publicity
The film racked up a good amount of frequent flyer miles, making its initial appearance at Cannes and then later screening at the Toronto Film Festival and the Hamptons Film Festival. With a movie like this that kind of schedule is key since it needs not only the people in attendance but those following the updates from the festivals to succeed. Indeed much of the resultant buzz pegged this as a true return to form for Gilliam after a few years of misfires and unsuccessful experiments.
Gilliam also made the trip to Comic-Con – his first such appearance – to get the buzz going for the movie, an appearance that came with a bit of footage designed to show off not only Heath Ledger’s performance but also the general look and feel of the movie. Some of those clips were later released online, but they’re very much snippets that are free of much of the context that would make them clearer to the viewer.
But mostly the media coverage was of the same sort of tone as this New York Times (12/11/09) piece and talked about the tragedy of Ledger’s death coming half way through production and the way this sort of trouble seems to follow Gilliam around from film to film. It’s an unfortunate narrative but one that the filmmaker doesn’t seem to be able to shake, due largely to his insistence in working outside the system, something that gives him more freedom but also opens him up to all sorts of delays because of financing and other problems.
Overall
It’s not a bad campaign. I quite like the trailer and the poster and especially the blog that was part of the official website. And Gilliam and the rest of the crew have done their best to execute a good media push, something that’s going to be important for movies like this which need to reach their core target audience first and everyone else if it has time. It needs to get Gilliam fans out to see it, with the rest of the general public more or less written off, with the assumption that it’s not going to appeal to them in the face of so many other cinematic choices available to them.
But while it does achieve those goals, I think, it’s probably going to fall between the cracks of the general consciousness as it’s drowned out by the massive, massive campaigns for Avatar and Sherlock Holmes. It’s good, though, and I’m glad to see such a cohesive and well-constructed effort for a movie that at one point looked like it was going to languish in obscurity.
Too cool for the room
After watching “Dollhouse” here’s usually the progression of my thoughts:
- That was so cool
- OK, so let’s figure out how these new revelations fit with what we know already
- OK, so let’s figure out how these new revelations fit with what we know is coming via Epitaph One.
- Why isn’t this the most popular show on TV?
- Wow, this show handles interesting moral issues in a really unique way that provides no clear answers and lots of room for people to think about it themselves and come to their own conclusions and is full of characters who consistently defy expectations.
- #5 is probably the answer to #4.
If you took the last six or seven episodes from the first season (plus the best parts of the other episodes) and all but two or three from season two you’d have one of the finest examples of how to tell a story using the medium of television ever. I’m glad it got more of a run than “Firefly” did but will be sorry to see it go. It also kind of stinks that the final few episodes aren’t on until the middle of January.
Movie Marketing Madness: Sherlock Holmes
“Get a new attitude and come back when you’re ready.”
That phrase seems to be a favorite both of parents with children who need an attitude check (especially around this time of the year as stress levels are approaching “Chernobyl”) and movie studio execs who have been thumbing through the list of properties they own and find one that hasn’t been rebooted in the last 90 days. Any characters that might be seen as old fashioned and “classic” are given to a screenwriter or two with orders to go ahead and retain the setting but revamp the attitude, giving them more of a 21st century feel, dialogue and mindset.
Such seems to be the case with Sherlock Holmes. Born in the novels of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the world’s greatest detective was a character who could walk in to a room and immediately take in his surroundings and make deductions about everything – and everyone – in it. A lifelong bachelor, he would then retire to his humble Baker Street flat and practice his violin, preparing for the next adventure with his business partner and roommate Dr. Watson.
Holmes has now been given a facelift and the requisite new attitude in Sherlock Holmes, the new film from Warner Bros. that stars Robert Downey Jr. as the titular hero, Jude Law as his right-hand man Watson and Rachel McAdams as Irene Adler, one of the only female characters to make any notable appearance in the Holmes mythology. Far removed from the classic Basil Rathbone films, this movie portrays the detective as a slovenly playboy who, while retaining some stock Holmes characteristics as being an excellent boxer and a master of deduction, recasts his persona as being more quirky than stoic. Directed by Guy Ritchie, this version of the character is, as I said above, meant to bring the character into the 21st century and make him more of a conflicted hero of the kind we’re meant to relate to in this day and age.
The Posters
The first batch of posters, which began appearing a while ago at the ShoWest trade conference, were designed to introduce us to the characters and give us a sense of the attitude and style the movie would be giving to them. Character-specific one-sheets were created and released for Irene Adler, Lord Blackwood – the film’s primary villain – Watson and Holmes himself, all of which also sported a quick little bit of copy meant to describe that character. So, for example, McAdams’ Adler is given the line “Dangerously Alluring” since she’s supposed to be both more dangerous than she seems and exactly as alluring as she seems. All of these characters are given a foggy, kind of grimy London background, with Big Ben and Parliament (I’ll give you all a moment to go to YouTube and look up the National Lampoon’s European Vacation clip…..alright ready to continue?) barely visible through the fog behind them.
The final theatrical poster brought Holmes and Watson together in the center of the design, with a variety of things behind and around them. Pictures of Adler and Blackwood are on opposite sides of the poster, with other items such as the 221 Baker St. streetlamp, a pistol, a variety of medicine bottles and Watson’s dog arranged around the like they were on bookshelves or something. The color scheme is the same – that sort of iron gray/green – and this time there’s an absolutely awful copy point just above the credit block, “Holmes for the Holidays,” that proves almost all puns are unnecessary puns.
The Trailers
The first trailer, released quite early this year, is, whatever it’s faults might be, a lot of fun. Starting off with ominous voiceover by the film’s villain Lord Blackwood we’re quickly told that this is a game being played between him and Holmes that stretches the boundaries of nature itself. Holmes isn’t seen until well into the spot’s running time and Watson well after that. But we get the general idea that the film is an amusement park ride that’s equal parts Jack Sparrow and Indiana Jones, with lots more action sequences and humor than you’re going to remember if you grew up on the Basil Rathbone flicks being shown Sunday afternoons on “Family Classics.”
The second trailer is 92 percent the same, with the addition of just a few bits of dialogue and footage. But there’s barely enough additional material her to even call it a second trailer. Instead it’s more of a re-edited version of the first spot since the timing is identical on the character reveals, Rachel McAdams still doesn’t get any dialogue and we’re still no closer to anything resembling a clear idea of the plot outside of the initial warning from Blackwood and a brief bit about him rising from the grave. Unfortunately those omissions, which were excusable in the first trailer because it could be written off as teasing the film, become more noticeable when you realize the second one has not filled in any of those gaps.
Online
The official website for the movie opens, as many do, with the theatrical trailer playing, something you can bypass by simply opting to “Enter the Site.”
Expanding the menu at the bottom of the screen shows that “About the Film” is the first content section available. There you’ll find a Synopsis that’s short on plot but heavy on its attempts to convey the fact that the movie is “dynamic” and exciting before going into the credits of the cast and crew. That then leads directly into “Cast” and “Filmmaker” sections that give more information on the actors and creators of the movie. Finally there are some decent Production Notes that you can download as a PDF.
“Video” is the next section and has the Teaser Trailer, the Main (theatrical) Trailer and two TV Spots. By my count there are well over 30 stills – including a nice mix of production photos and behind-the-scenes shots – in the “Photos” section. You can download a handful of Wallpapers, all the Posters, some Icons and a Screensaver in the “Downloads” section.
Under “Soundtrack” you’ll find samples from Hans Zimmer’s score for the movie as well as links to download it from iTunes or buy it from Amazon.
We’ll come back to “Partners” later but that’s the next section listed. “Sweepstakes” just has links to the sites that offered prizes to their readers connected to the movie. The “Twitter” section opens a pop-up window filled with recent tweets regarding the movie.
The “Solve the Mystery at 221B.sh” section is actually tied to a “viral” campaign that kicked off around the time of 2009′s Comic-Con, when people were handed cards by Warner Bros. that, when the numbers on them were put together, formed an IP address that eventually resolved to the actual URL. The game that’s housed there is actually tied to Facebook Connect and requires you to play via Facebook to find a partner and then solve a mystery that leads directly into the opening scene of the film. While I think that such a continuation or expansion of the story is a great idea, I think the fact that it requires a Facebook account and limits game-play to Facebook is an unnecessary hurdle.
Also along interactive lines is “Unlock Your Sherlock,” which takes you to an MSN site where you can try to hone your powers of deduction to solve a couple of simple mysteries just like Holmes would.
The movie’s Facebook page has videos, photos and updates on the movie’s publicity campaign as well as continued prompts to play the online game that’s tied to the social network. But other than the inclusion of more TV spots than the official site it’s as unremarkable as most profiles are.
Advertising and Cross-Promotions
Despite the fact that only two were included on the official site there were six or more TV spots created and put in pretty heavy rotation, especially in the week before the movie opened. That week also happened to be the one *after* Avatar opened and so I would imagine air time was a little easier to come across in the wake of that campaign.
The Warner Bros. marketing department stepped in (Los Angeles Times, 10/31/09) after Microsoft reportedly pulled out of a deal to sponsor a TV special from “Family Guy” creator Seth Mcfarlane that the software company at the last moment deemed inappropriate. But WB was only too happy to take advantage of the opportunity, which would give them access to an audience of young hipsters that would then, hopefully, find the more action-oriented and sarcastic tone of the Holmes revamp appealing
There was an interesting promotional package worked out between Warner Bros. and MTV Networks (Mediaweek, 12/13/09) that had the actors and director basically shooting interviews for each of MTVN’s nine cable channels that framed the movie as being in-line with the brand identity of that channel. So interviews for VH1 focused on the romance in the movie, interviews for Comedy Central focuses on the humor and so on. These “takeovers,” with the interview segments framing entire programs or blocks of programming, were then aired on each channel in the week or so leading up to the film’s release.
For a period picture there were a decent number of promotional partners, which are usually hard to round up for such a film since the opportunities for product placement within the movie are pretty limited.
One such partner is the California Lottery, which is giving away studio tours and the eventual Holmes DVD to players of the Sherlock Holmes VIP Movie Experience.
The VisitBritian campaign has the movie’s key art and trailer on its site as well as a a promotion to take a tour of all the Holmes-related locations around London.
Visa offered users of its Signature card the opportunity to attend an advance screening of the movie, a trip on which they could use all the other advantages the card could bring them by way of amenities and perks.
7-Eleven’s promotion was kind of odd, with something about collecting all four coffee traveler mugs, which then had fingerprints you needed to match to the examples on the chain’s website, which then just encouraged more playing of the 221b.sh game. In stores you could also pick off scratch-off tickets that had clues and gave away other prizes.
Online security firm LifeLock seems to have signed on just because they were looking to draft off the movie’s name recognition and hopefully be subsequently associated with reliability and security.
kgb542542 also inked a cross-promotional deal (MediaPost, 12/16/09) with the studio to promote the movie through a deal that let users send questions to the text answer company that it would then answer as usual. kgb created a TV spot featuring movie footage to promote the partnership and advance tickets will have trivia questions about Holmes that those getting the tickets can send in and receive responses to. There’s also exclusive marketing material being offered to those to send the message “sherlock” to kgb in the lead-up to the movie.
Popular Twitter (and other social network) software TweetDeck got in on the act by creating a custom skin for the film that turned the background of the application into a slate-grey color, changing all your friends’ avatars into black-and-white photos and adds little Victorian-type decorations to the bottom of each column. The themed skin is actually part of the 221b.sh game and the Tweetdeck page about the skin points to that.
Media and Publicity
As you would expect with the film being such a vivid re-imagining of a classic character, much of the publicity focused on just how this film departs (New York Times, 1/21/09) from previous cinematic outings by the character. That story and many others like it also centered around how director Ritchie was bringing his own visual style to this re-imagining and how much of the success would be dependent on Downey’s considerable charm and swagger, with his stock (both within Hollywood and among the audience) higher than ever in the wake of Iron Man.
Unfortunately one of the first events designed to start word of mouth buzz for the movie, an appearance at the ShoWest trade show, didn’t turn out as positively as the studio was probably hoping for. In addition to the debut of the previously mentioned posters the first trailer was also shown there and was greeted with mixed to negative reactions, with some in attendance criticizing the visual style of the footage, some taking issues with accents and some just saying it looked corny. It wasn’t all bad, though, with some saying it looked pretty good, akin to what was done with the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.
Warners got some of that momentum back a few months later by being one of two studios to have Downey – along with others from the movie – appear at Comic-Con in San Diego. There the cast and crew tried to work the uber-geek crowd by positioning their interpretation of Holmes as a precursor to the superheroes of today.
Three months before the first movie was even released came news that the studio was already beginning development on a sequel, such was their faith in the success of this relaunch and their desire to be in a position to move quickly on another installment should this one do well.
In addition to all this the last couple of weeks before release were filled with the usual cast and crew interviews on TV, newspaper stories about how this version of Holmes differed from preceding ones and so on and so forth.
This being the internet and all it shouldn’t be surprising that there are whole communities of people who are fans of the Holmes character and mythology and have come together online to share their interests with each other. One of those sites, The Baker Street Blog, is run by Scott Monty, he of Ford Motors fame. When’s he’s not curating conversations around Fiesta Movements and other such Ford initiatives he’s getting his Sherlock on – and has been since 2005 – talking about this, that and the other thing, with much of his updating lately, of course, being about the developments with the movie.
Overall
While I dig the consistency in branding the campaign shows – the movable type used for the title treatment is repurposed on the website, in the trailers and elsewhere and all the promotional partners did a good job of incorporating the look and feel of the poster art – there are a few areas I feel the effort falls short.
That’s particularly true of the trailers, with the second one being so similar to the first as to be almost indistinguishable. And while I realize the studio is trying to reinvent the character of Holmes for the 21st century, I thought the lack of acknowledgment of its history on the web is almost inexcusable. The producers and everyone else involved in the movie had no problem staying on message in their media interviews about how their vision of Holmes is, in their opinion, more true to the original character than previous films have been so it shouldn’t have been that hard to create a section of content to that effect on the site – something that gives a bit of background and introduces the reader to the whole history of Sherlock and his world.
But all in all this campaign does deliver where it needs to, which is in making Sherlock Holmes appear to be relevant to today’s audience by recasting him as a scoundrel more than a stuffy private investigator. The trailer(s) convey that attitude nicely as do the posters and various supporting materials. Many of the promotional partners feel wedged in (7-Eleven? Really?) but a movie with this many expectations all but demands some level of tie-in support.
Movie Marketing Madness: Avatar
How do you follow up Titanic?
That’s the question that’s been on everyone’s mind for the last 12 years or so, ever since director James Cameron released what would go on to become the highest-grossing film of all time and a star-making vehicle for its two young stars. While various rumors have circulated through the decade-plus since the pride of the White Star line met its cinematic fate about what the director would do next there’s been nothing in the way of actual output aside from producer credits on a couple of documentaries, including at least one the revisited the Titanic’s history but without the schmaltzy bookending.
Of course it’s not as if Titanic was Cameron’s arrival on-screen. He had already built up an amazing list of credits, including both (to date) Terminator movies, Aliens, True Lies and others that had already cemented him as a Hollywood powerhouse, meaning he was going in to Titanic with a lot behind him.
So the anticipation has been huge about how Cameron would return after such a long absence. But whatever it was going to be, the one thing that everyone was more or less agreed upon was that it was going to be huge.
And huge it is.
Avatar is the story of colonization. In the distant future Earth is in need of a special mineral, one that is found in relative abundance on a far off world. But that planet is already inhabited by a native species and they are not thrilled with Earth’s efforts to mine that mineral, a process that of course is not the most gentle. So in order to convince – with extreme prejudice – that native species to part with the mineral Earth sends in the Marines. In advance of a full-frontal assault, though, a young Marine is given the opportunity to live with the aliens as one of them. A process has been developed where a human can have his or her conscious mind control the body of an avatar that looks like one of the native aliens, a more subtle and under-handed tactic to weaken them from within.
Avatar is being billed as the most expensive movie ever produced and a grand, dramatic return for Cameron that is fitting of the now extraordinarily outsized expectations that have built up in the last 12 years. It’s also the subject of a long-lived and massive marketing campaign, and that’s what brings us here today.
The Posters
For a movie this huge it’s a bit surprising that only two posters have been created.
The first, what could be called a teaser even though to me it doesn’t *feel* like a teaser – features just the blue face of one of the alien natives. There’s little explanatory text beyond the name of the movie and that it’s coming from Cameron or, more accurately, “From the director or ‘Titanic.’” This was all about teasing the look of the aliens that inhabit the movie’s primary setting and are the form of the avatar that is taken on by the main character.
The second and final theatrical poster was a bit more fully-featured, but also is a little more odd and I think works quite substantially less than it probably should have.
The same blue alien is in the background of this poster as was in the first one-sheet. But this time she shares space with the profile of Sam Worthington, or at least a Photoshopped version of Worthington, with their faces in front of a giant planet looming in the background. Below them is the forest landscape we’ve seen in the trailers, with a native of the planet on one of his winged mounts in the foreground and a flock of Marine fighter planes coming from the back.
This time the top of the poster pegs the movie as coming from the director of both Titanic and Terminator 2. Then – and this winds up seeming a little weird – the movie is labeled at the bottom as being “James Cameron’s Avatar,” as if he were the author of an original novel on which this movie were based. I mean I get what they’re going for, but that seems like a heavy-handed way of branding the film as being form Cameron, an excuse to put his name above the title.
I’m a little surprised there not only weren’t more posters created but that there weren’t IMAX specific one-sheets as well. So much of the rest of the campaign, as we’ll see, is about promoting experiencing it in IMAX 3D that the little throw-away line at the bottom of this poster seems oddly underplayed.
The Trailers
The first trailer is, appropriately for what needed to be communicated to the audience, primarily a showcase for the visuals of the film. With only one line of dialogue in it, the trailer shows what appears to be a more or less sequential order of events from the film: Marines arrive on Pandora, Sam Worthington’s wheelchair-bound character has his mind uploaded into the body of a native “avatar” and then those Marines and the natives of Pandora engage in a couple of battles between gunships and dragons in the air, all focused seemingly around some form of love story.
It’s not bad but doesn’t come close to conveying any sense of epic scale or anything like that, a notion that the rest of the movie’s campaign – especially the copious amounts of press it’s received – more or less relies completely on. Indeed there was plenty of chatter after it’s release that the trailer was tamping down some of the fanboy excitement around the movie since it didn’t live up to either the Comic-Con footage or the scenes shown as part of the “Avatar Day” promotional event. (More on those later.) But it’s a traditional trailer that’s meant to appeal to a wide audience so what was it supposed to do? More than that, what were people expecting? It’s not even two minutes long and so is extremely condensed, something that those expanded looks haven’t been and so naturally it’s going to fall short of expectations.
The theatrical trailer definitely expand and expounds upon the movie’s plot. At 3:30 it’s a full minute or so longer than most standard trailers and fits a lot into that running time.
We’re introduced first to Jake, the character played by Sam Worthington, a Marine who has lost the use of his legs but is now on a mission with others to a distant planet named Pandora. That planet is important to humankind because it’s rich in an important and therefore valuable mineral, though that’s as far as that string of thought goes.
To help the group’s mission – and with the promise that should he be successful he’ll regain the use of his legs – Jake volunteers to control an avatar, a physical body that resembles the planet’s indigenous people who the Marines are trying to move, with his mind while his body is still on the ship.
But as with most stories, the humans here aren’t above moving a civilization whether it wants to be moved or not. And soon Jake – in his avatar form – must choose which side he really believes in and belongs to, the humans who are destroying and invading or the blue-skinned aliens who were originally there, one of whom he has of course fallen in love with.
The trailer, though, just uses the story as an excuse to show off all the special effects Cameron has used to tell that story. We see lots of ships and leathery animals flying through the air, lots of aliens gathering for war and lots of supposed emotion on the faces of those aliens.
I’d say this is a moderately effective trailer that probably packs much more of a wallop on the big screen and in 3D. It certainly makes a strong case for seeing the movie and shows it has more of a legitimate plot than other SFX extravaganzas like 2012. But I see no way this carries the same universal appeal of Cameron’s previous films and, like it or not, that’s the yardstick that’s going to be in place.
About a month before release a new version of that second trailer was released that caused a ton of discussion, not only among movie fans but also social media technology folks.
That’s because this was an “interactive” version of the trailer. Littered throughout the trailer were prompts to click and engage within the spot, with those clicks taking you to behind-the-scenes videos that expanded on a particular point, whether it’s a technical how-to or a character profile. It also brought in feeds from discussions that were happening about the movie on social media sites like Twitter and YouTube and others. To play the interactive trailer required the viewer to download Adobe AIR, which a lot of people who regularly use Yammer, Tweetdeck or other applications might already have but which members of the general audience might now and which might present a stumbling block to viewing for those folks.
While some people saw this, the requiring of the AIR application, as a big downside I actually view it as part of the general attitude of the campaign, which is that it’s aiming primarily NOT at a general audience but at the cool kids in the room so as to get them excited and hopefully influencing all the rest of the folks.
Online
The official website opens with the movie’s second trailer, with the option to download the interactive trailer just below that. You also have the choice to enter the site and that’s just what we’re going to do.
When the site then loads again there are two ways you’ll find to access the content. First is a standard site navigation menu in the top-left corner and the other is a series of window panes that glides across the bottom of the screen. There’s some overlap between the two so I’m going to start with the drop-down menu at the top and then hit the other items from the bottom.
So the first section there is “Videos” and that’s where you’ll find the Theatrical Trailer, a featurette titled James Cameron’s Vision, a Jake Sully Profile and a Neytiri Profile, that latter two of course being deeper looks at two of the main characters in the movie. Odd that the first trailer is nowhere to be found here. The “Interactive Trailer” is found in the next section.
After that is “Images” which has about 18 stills from the movie, including the option to view them on Flickr, which is a nice touch. “Cast” is a pretty basic look at the main actors on the movie and gives you an overview of their career to date and other information.
“Story” gives you a good outline of what the movie is about, including quite a few details (but none of the spoiler variety) that are kind of hinted at but not spelled out clearly in the trailers.
“Downloads” just has nine Wallpapers you can grab.
The next few sections all open up new tabs/windows for outside sites so keep that in mind.
First is “Video Game,” which takes you to Ubisoft’s official page for the tie-in game, which doesn’t appear to have any sort of demo but which does have more images – this time from the game, obviously – that you can view on Flickr.
Second, “Toys,” brings you to Mattel’s page for their toy products, something that’s going to be useful if you’ve already purchased one of those toys and need to activate the i-Tag to play with the enhanced online version of those toys.
“Mobile” takes you to Gameloft’s page for their iPhone app/game, a game that takes place prior to the events of the film. The page has Info, Story background, Screenshots and a Video of gameplay you can view.
The “News” section links to the movie’s official Twitter handle, which is updated with links not only to the official site and the release of marketing material but also information on some of the promotional appearances the cast is making and links to early reviews.
Finally there’s the “Music” which of course takes you to the soundtrack’s site. That site lets you order in either Physical or Digital formats as well as grab a score-specific widget for your blog or social network page.
There are a couple sections in the panes at the bottom of the page that aren’t in the main content menu.
One of those is a link to Pandorapedia and shows the Featured Entry from that site. Pandorapedia, as you might suspect, is a site devoted to entries related to the world of the movie, though this is presented in a straight ahead promotional way, meaning it’s clear this is a movie-related site, and not like it’s something from the actual universe of the movie that people in that universe have created.
There are also links here to Coke’s AVTR site and to the TypePad Blogging Community.
The film’s official Facebook page opens with a promotional prompt to watch clips from the live MTV-hosted chat (more on that later) but from there you can navigate to the usual areas containing Photos, Videos and more.
There are also, down at the very bottom of the page’s main screen, links to the variety of other social networking profiles set up for the movie. In addition to the aforementioned Twitter and Facebook pages there’s the Flickr set and YouTube channel in addition to a handful of others. Both the Flickr and YouTube profiles are pretty well stocked with images and promotional videos and it’s nice to see these being utilized so thoroughly.
Advertising and Cross-Promotion
Like many movies this one got a tie-in video game. But unlike many of those games, this one benefited not only from the two-plus year lead time that the filmmakers have been working on the film but also from an unusually high level of involvement by those filmmakers, a relationship that even resulted in Cameron bringing some of the shots created for the game into the movie itself.
Panasonic signed on as a promotional partner, using the high profile of the movie to promote its line of TVs and Blu-ray players that bring 3D presentation to the home theater. That all could lead to an announcement (well after Avatar has left theaters) that the movie could be the first 3D home video release.
Coke was a major partner (Adweek, 11/25/09) on a couple of levels as well for their Coke Zero product. The soft drink company created AVTR.com, a site that was half ARG and half straight promotion. On the one hand it featured video reports that were supposed to have come from the planet of Pandora, where the reporter is supposed to be introducing the viewer to the planet and what the human explorers are doing there. There are also “Field Report Photo Journals” and an Applicant Test System to see if you are qualified to join the program.
On the other, more straight ahead promotional hand, you can view the tie-in TV commercial and a “nanodisk” spot that played like a Coke Zero commercial from the future. At the top of the screen there are a bunch of “F” buttons to push that, when you do, give you a bit of information on some of the tech that’s used by the humans in the movie.
Coke was also one of the handful of companies in the campaign that utilized Augmented Reality. People who bought one of the AVTR-branded cans of Coke Zero could hold that can up to their webcam when visiting AVTR.com and control helicopters, fire missiles and more.
In addition to the official site for the AVTR campaign there was a Twitter feed that was updated, as of this writing, a whopping three times between September 11 and December 8.
McDonald’s, for its part, also included an augmented reality component in their tie-in effort. The fast food chain is launching a campaign (MediaPost, 12/11/09) that includes TV spots, in-store displays and more. Customers who purchase a Big Mac between 12/18 and 1/7 will receive a “Thrill Card” that will unlock an exclusive augmented reality experience when help up to a webcam. That’s part of an overall “PandoraQuest” game that has been created that take people on an adventure to become part of the research team from the movie, an adventure that is moved along by the promise of unlocking exclusive movie content as they progress.
Mobile phone company LG Mobile jumped on with its own cross-promotional plans (MediaPost, 12/8/09). The company created a TV spot that features movie footage being watched on the screen of its LG eXpo phone, with characters from that spot also showing up on lgexpo.com, which contained more videos of them using their phones to display movie content as well as exclusive promotional material in and of itself. LG Mobile also sponsored special additional weapons Gamespot players of the Xbox and Playstation-based tie-in game could unlock.
There was also an interesting promotion with SixApart, the company behind blogging software MovableType, TypePad and others. Bloggers using the TypePad platform were able to get Avatar-branded themes for their blogs and other exclusive movie content they could publish on those blogs. That availability extends to users of the recently launched free micro-publishing software. As Tameka at PaidContent says, this sort of thing is an interesting way to build a community of online users without making a significant investment in building it themselves. SixApart also worked with Fox on creating an Official Avatar Community on a TypePad blog that allowed fans to get together and chat as well as being automatically entered to win tickets to see the movie.
Parent company Fox also managed to work the movie into an episode of “Bones.” In an episode airing just a couple weeks before the movie’s release the plot has the team of characters taking their investigation to theaters where people are lining up for Avatar and openly talking about how they were excited to see it. The episode takes on a level of pseudo-meta since Joel David Moore is a semi-regular on “Bones” as an intern and also has a significant role as a pilot and friend of Worthington’s character in the movie.
YouTube turned on the live-streaming for the movie’s London premiere a week or so before the theatrical release, with the site sending three of its high-profile video bloggers overseas to conduct interviews and provide other red-carpet coverage from the event. That post also announced a massive ad buy from Fox in support of the movie that would take place on the YouTube homepage.
Media and Publicity
Some of the first bits of buzz – aside from just the very notion that James Cameron was making another movie – the movie generated was actually focused on the technology. The innovative cameras being used, the unique shooting techniques and the film’s general mixture of live-action and CGI all became focal points of the discussion, beginning what was sure to be a long string of stories about the tech Cameron was using, a discussion that was likely to overshadow any mentions of story or characters.
Then, of course, there was the budget. Time Magazine came out swinging (3/19/09) with a piece that pegged the budget as being in the range of $300 million just for production, before any marketing costs were added on, a number that got many, many tongues a-wagging about how massive a success – or failure – the movie was going to be. That story was also meant to bring 3D back into the discussion at a time when Monsters vs. Aliens was being positioned as the first real must-see-in-3D flick. The $300M number was walked back shortly after the story went live, with Time posting a corrected version that said the budget was more in the $200 million range.
There was also plenty of talk throughout the year about how Avatar was going to be the movie that will “change filmmaking” (New York Times, 4/24/09) on some sort of fundamental level. All of this was more than a little overblown since, at its core, the movie was made the same way but with some cool special effects.
The movie next got some publicity not for something about the movie itself but about its distribution. In mid-May IMAX (struggling for some positive buzz as they fought criticism around screen sizes and ticket prices) announced they were planning to run Avatar on their big, big screens for three whole months, an incredibly long run. To some extent this is based on thinking that combines the anticipation this film will be as groundbreaking technically as it’s being made out to be as well as the idea that, simply by virtue of it being James Cameron film, it will be popular with audiences for a sustained period of time. Time will tell whether either turns out to be true.
Also related to the exhibition of the film was the round of glad-handing theater owners and others the director made in the months before the movie’s release. Cameron hit the road with footage to show people in part of make the case for as many 3-D screens as he could muster up. While theater owners are happy to have Cameron back in the director’s chair, the technical specifications for the movie combined with it not being a franchise film in any way was the cause of a little unrest, unrest that this media tour was meant to quell.
The movie, unsurprisingly considering it’s expected to be a big old geek fest, made a promotional appearance at Comic-Con this year. Banners for the movie that gave a sneaky look at the film’s aliens began appearing around San Diego in the weeks leading up to the event, building up a little bit of hype around the idea that this appearance would give fans some sort of look at the movie beyond the couple of pictures of James Cameron that made up the lion’s share of the publicity campaign to date.
All that teasing ultimately led up to a Comic-Con presence that was pretty significant. Full-size mock-ups of some of the technology and vehicles from the movie were displayed in the hallways and a panel appearance by director Cameron, the center-piece of which was the showing off by him of something like 25 minutes of footage from the film, which of course was shown in 3D. Reaction to that footage was pretty unanimously along the lines of “ZOMG” with most everyone praising how fantastic the special effects looked and how complex the environments Cameron had created seemed to be. There were, though, some dissenters from that opinion, with a handful of people admitting that it was super-cool stuff but not necessarily a game-changer in terms of technology or filmmaking. Part of that was, some folks said, because the hype had just gotten out of hand and expectations were set impossibly high for what anything could actually deliver.
One of the announcements made by Cameron at that panel was that Fox would be releasing 15 minutes of footage from the film to IMAX screens on August 21st, about four months prior to the film’s release, that people could go see for free. While the release of footage has become commonplace in online movie marketing, this move to put it in theaters is one that comes with the acknowledgment that that’s where it needs to be seen to be fully appreciated. Online apparently just isn’t going to cut it so it needs to be seen on the IMAX screen in order to get people excited and buzzing about the film.
When that did happen it produced what seemed to be exactly the desired results. It didn’t start off smoothly, though, with the website where fans could order tickets to the screenings going down for a long time under the massive demand of so many people logging on at once. But once those problems were ironed out “Avatar Day” resulted in a good deal of not only positive word-of-mouth from those in attendance but also a great number of media stories about the promotion and how it was meant to appeal to the audience by showing off an extended look of the movie.
Even the appearance of Avatar toys at the convention became a news story because they were touted as including “augmented reality” technology that allowed people to extend their playing with the toys to their computers and such, with each product including a tag that would unlock exclusive content.
Shortly after Comic-Con ended, Fox released the first official look at one of the movie’s aliens. It’s not much – just a blue-skinned face and a single eye – but it was more than had been seen before by the general public.
That was followed by various critics reporting on their various opportunities to see the movie, including lots of mentions of “the uncanny valley” when describing the movie’s special effects.
With all the hype of Cameron’s return going on it was more than a little surprising when a feature story turned the spotlight on Worthington for a change. Stories like this (Los Angeles Time, 10/28/09) focused on Worthington’s career and how a couple of star turns in high-profile films in the last couple years have turned him in to one of the most in-demand young actors working today.
The release of the second trailer was even turned into a media event. The spot made its debut at the new Cowboys football stadium in Dallas to a crowd of 80,000 or so spectators, a number Fox promoted (Variety, 10/29/09) as being the largest live audience for a trailer ever, clearly signaling the studio was interested in making every single last bit this campaign into huge event. The trailer also was shown on TV during the game’s broadcast, of course, significantly expanding that audience and bringing it more to the general public than vast portions of this campaign had been prior to that point.
The topic of the movie’s budget came back up in November, this time as the hook for a story about the audacity of spending that much money at a time of falling DVD sales and diminishing returns on high-profile cinematic investments. The latest figures presented in that article (New York Times, 11/8/09) peg the total budget – production and marketing somewhere in the neighborhood of $500 million. There is also in that story the question of when Fox and its partners could reasonably expect to see a profit based on that budget, which is sometime about a week after not likely.
Peter Bart in Variety (11/27/09) took up the issue the budget as well. He poses the question of who exactly benefits when filmmakers go hog wild with massive budgets like this. His first answer is the audience (we pay the same for a ticket whether the movie cost $500,000 or $300 million to make) but then he points that ultimately the audience loses since it’s just part of Hollywood’s continued emphasis on “tentpole” releases at the expense of small or mid-range riskier films.
Whether or not the film could be profitable – especially given its unknown nature – was also the subject of an LA Times story (11/15/09). Once again the entire thing is being framed within Cameron’s self-congratulatory nature and looked at it as a big, bold experiment.
Reading that story, which looks at the movie being risky because it’s not part of an existing franchise of some sort, it occurs to me that the breadth and depth of the campaign, including the focus on Cameron in all the publicity, made me realize that Fox is actually trying to sell it as a franchise – a franchise in and of itself. You look at the blue-skinned aliens and you automatically know it’s Avatar. At this point It’s a franchise already and that’s exactly what I’m guessing Fox was shooting for.
The focus continued to be on Cameron as he sat down with “60 Minutes” for an interview. And the filmmaker’s instinct to debut the movie on friendly territory emerged with reports he would bring it to Harry Knowles’ annual Butt Numb-a-Thon screening festival.
Cameron and some of the cast also participated in a webcast (Variety, 11/29/09) hosted by MTV in conjunction with Facebook. The event had MTV editor Josh Horowitz beginning the interview but then transitioning over to questions fans submitted via Facebook. That event even got its own round of online advertising to drive people to the streaming chat.
Overall
For the most part, as I look at the campaign from top to bottom, I still find myself agreeing with Pete Vonder Haar:
But I stand by my assertion that – while visually arresting – Avatar just doesn’t look all that interesting to me. I have nothing more than a gut feeling telling me it will open decently, and have some legs early on because of people’s desire to see it in IMAX. It will probably perform well, but “well” versus almost $2 billion for your previous movie, when this one cost maybe twice as much to make, isn’t what Fox is hoping for. And whatever the spin when the smoke clears, not topping Titanic is going to be viewed as a disappointment.
This campaign is huge – it’s one of those where the scale is almost so massive you begin to lose perspective on whether one component or another works or not on its own merits. And since the target audience seems to be “everyone” here it makes it tough to put any thought into whether perceived goals are achieved.
I do think Fox has put together the best campaign they could but, honestly, the actual “marketing” that’s been done seems kind of lightweight. Just two posters, just two trailers and a website that doesn’t seem to be all that innovative.
I actually, though, think that’s kind of a smart move. Because instead of focusing a ton of content Fox has instead:
- Let their promotional partners (McDonald’s, LG, Coke, Panasonic, etc) do their marketing for them.
- Maximized the conversational aspect of each component.
The latter point is important. Is the Facebook profile all that interesting? No, but the live chat that took place there was and had people talking. Was the second trailer all that engaging? No, not in and of itself. But by pushing the boundaries a bit and making it “interactive” they were able to create a ton of buzz around it that otherwise would not have existed. Is it that unusual for a movie to show off extended footage? No, but by doing it for a select group of influencers, making it an event and doing it in 3D it became a much discussed component of the campaign.
So from that perspective this is a tremendous success.
But what, to Pete’s point, is the landscape going to look like once this mass-appeal campaign releases its product to the masses? Does Avatar have the repeat-viewing appeal of Titanic? My guess would be that it does but not to the extent Titanic did.
Part of the problem with engaging in a campaign that showed off the movie – or at least good-sized chunks of it – to so many people is that those folks, who might have come back two or three times once it was released, now have less impetus to do so. They’ve already, in some cases, seen it once. So they’ll see it upon release and then be good. They don’t need to buy a second ticket. So by co-opting them into the word-of-mouth marketing Fox may have cut into the repeat ticket buyer group a bit.
Still, the marketing for Avatar is nicely executed and certainly robust. Now it simply remains to be seen if the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on production and marketing have created something not only profitable but memorable.
PICKING UP THE SPARE
- 12/15/09: The LAT’s Hero Complex blog has a look at how creating the tie-in toys took Mattel out of their comfort zone via an interview with the company’s marketing director.
- 12/18/09: Public Radio’s Marketplace program has a brief piece up about the influence of the film’s marketing campaign.
- 12/18/09: AdAge’s Simon Dumeneco has the announcement of Avatar Day being declared. OK, not really, but that’s more or less where he arrives after analyzing the last week’s buzz.
- 12/29/09: Blah blah blah Twitter mentions blah blah blah.
- 01/04/10: Yeah, Fox spent a lot of money on the marketing effort that has turned Avatar into a success.
- 01/04/10: I think I missed any mention of Fox using MySpace to livestream the red carpet premiere but The Cycle has my back.
- 01/06/10: Panasonic’s partnership with Fox on the movie, something that’s designed to herald the arrival of quality 3D home video, was a major part of the technology company’s presence at CES.
- 01/08/10: I’m going to remain skeptical as to how much social media helped Avatar hit its box office records. Oh sure it played a part, but I’m thinking that even the very nice social media push that was put together represented a small part of the huge mainstream campaign that was executed.
- 02/08/10: PBS’s MediaShift blog dubs the Avatar campaign the “most comprehensive” online campaign to date, with its bevy of social media touchpoints and other interactive elements.
- 04/14/10: Fox set up a booth at The Grove mall in LA that featured facial recognition technology that let people create Na’vi versions of their face around the time the DVD was released.
- 06/09/10: Despite the fact that there are no near- or long-term plans for a cinematic follow-up, Fox is looking for continued licensing opportunities for the movie that keep it at the top of people’s minds.
- 07/17/10: The absolutely expected re-release of the movie, which features additional footage, got some advertising of its own.
Ad network transition
With more publishers and media companies – the latest being CBS with its package of online properties – dropping third party ad networks I think we’re seeing that those networks, which exploded like wildfire just four years ago or so, were indeed transition tools. They helped publishers monetize sooner rather than later online as they built out their own staff and were eventually able to take on those responsibilities themselves. The move to self-contained media ad networks that stretch through all their online properties makes a ton of sense at this point, where I might have said differently as little as three years ago.
What the…
Why is the guy in this Banana Republic ad for sweaters playing a trombone outside in the middle of winter? Were there storyboards created showing what comes next, including the ride to the emergency room when his lips become frozen to that mouthpiece? Why does the woman look like there’s nothing odd going on? Is this a normal thing, some outside snuggling with an impromptu solo trombone recital? Or is there someone across the street in the same position with his sweetie but playing a trumpet and this is a musical game the couples play on a regular basis? Does he look totally uninterested in her and does she seem OK with the vibe of emotional neglect he’s throwing off by focusing on his instrument instead of embracing her? Or am I reading this wrong and there’s a free trombone thrown in with every sweater purchase? If I don’t want a trombone can I get a saxophone? I NEED MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THIS SCENE!!!
A heckuva day in the media business
Bill Adee gets promoted to VP of digital development at The Chicago Tribune.
James Finklestein and his partners have purchased Adweek, Mediaweek, Brandweek Billboard, The Hollywood Reporter and Backstage from Nielsen. Some of my favorite writers (Brian Morrissey, Todd Wasserman and others) are at the Xweek titles so I’m hoping they’ll be around post-purchase.
That purchase did not include Editor & Publisher, which has announced it will be shutting down after 108 years of publication. Big loss here, folks.
Jonah Bloom is leaving his post as editor-in-chief at AdAge to work for the Breaking Media blog network. Wow.
Oh, and Variety is going behind a pay wall. You can still access five free stories a month and they’re not blocking search engines, but they basically want people to pay every time they read something.
Movie Marketing Madness: Invictus
There’s a lot of good stuff in Clint Eastwood’s film history. He’s been especially active the last couple decades as a director and, while everyone’s going to have their opinions on which ones were more interesting or successful artistically than others, there’s no denying that his legacy is secure not only as an actor but in that role as a director. Some films have had him merging the two jobs but a strong argument could be made that the director part of his career is equal to, if not possibly surpassing, the portion as a pure actor.
His latest effort behind the camera is Invictus. The movie tells the story of the days immediately following Nelson Mandela’s, portrayed by Morgan Freeman, release from the South African jail he’d spent decades in. Coming out of that prison and seeing the racial divide in his nation, he begins to look at the South African rugby team as a way to bring the country together and so pushes them to make a play at the World Cup. To put this into action he approaches the team captain, played by Matt Damon, and convinces him to push the team toward that goal and therefore begin to heal the country.
The Posters
Just one poster here but it’s a good one. In the forefront is Damon, smiling and triumphant as the soccer team captain standing in front of a roaring crowd. Above him is the image of Freeman – or Mandela himself, I honestly can’t be sure from the angle he’s presented at – who’s kind of looking over and past the scene as if he were some form of benevolent deity.
Not only does the image present the characters very clearly in addition to a quick glimpse at the plot, the design also just works in terms of selling the movie as an inspirational and uplifting story. That’s not just from the smiles on both actor’s faces but also from the stature with which they’re carrying themselves
The Trailers
The one trailer is, to say the least, dramatic. We open with a voiceover by Freeman, beginning with a shot of his prison and then going into the fact that he’s now free. But as a news announcer proclaims he’s taking office as President, his motorcade passes a group of children being told by their coach that “this is the day our country went to the dogs,” a shorthand for the racism that was prevalent in South Africa.
But then we transition to the story that includes Damon as he’s brought in to Mandela’s plan to unite the country through a rugby win. We get a few shots then of Damon’s white team playing with black children and whites and blacks cheering together. As it shifts into montage mode we get plenty of footage of rugby being played in a variety of locations, Damon and Freeman shaking hands and such and overall a very triumphant tone is what it ends with.
Eastwood’s involvement at the director level is not a major theme of the trailer, with his name not appearing until halfway through the spot and then again in the ending credit block. That says to me that they’re not pegging on his name being a major draw for the general audience but instead are selling it as an inspiring true story with two fine actors. Take that interpretation for what it’s worth, but that’s my read of how it’s presented.
Online
The movie’s official website opens up with a recreation of the poster art on the left as pull quotes from early reviews of the movie scroll on the right, a scroll which eventually gives way to the film’s trailer, but you can alternate between the two by clicking on the quote that appears at any given time along the bottom strip.
Accessing the Menu, the first section is a “Synopsis” of the story, a synopsis that gives a good overview of the film before segueing into the credits of the actors and filmmakers.
Those individuals are the subject of the next section, “Cast and Filmmakers.” While the only cast members to get the spotlight are Damon and Freeman, there are a number of the behind-the-scenes folks, starting with Eastwood, that are have their profile shared here.
“Videos” has the trailer and four TV Spots, while “Photos” just has about four or five stills from the film. You can grab any of the three Wallpapers or three Buddy Icons from “Downloads.”
Rounding out the site is a section devoted to the music featured on the film’s “Soundtrack” that’s complete with prompts to buy the album on iTunes or Amazon and “Sweepstakes” section that links to the sites who were running contests in conjunction with the movie.
The Facebook Fan Page for Invicutus contains a good stream of updates with links to reviews, the trailer and TV spots and other information to keep people engaged.
Advertising and Cross-Promotions
A surprising number of TV commercials were created and then aired in heavy saturation. I say “surprising” simply because the movie isn’t exactly a Michael Bay blockbuster with unlimited franchise potential. So the fact that there were four spots pushed out – and that even with my limited TV watching I saw them pretty regularly – says something about Eastwood’s power both within the studio and with the audience.
There was also a fair amount of outdoor advertising done. Again, in my limited travels I saw billboards which re-purposed the key art for the film pretty regularly along major highways and other high-traffic areas.
Aside from the substantial paid media support there was also a 35-DVD box set (Variety, 12/4/09) of Eastwood’s films, right up to last year’s Gran Torino, put together by Warner Bros. that celebrated the actor/director’s entire history with the studio.
Media and Publicity
Of course the release of a new Eastwood film wouldn’t be complete without multiple tributes to the actor/director, including a batch of endorsements from actors he’s worked with (Variety, 11/30/09) and other collaborators (Variety, 12/2//09)
Of course there were plenty of other stories in and around the movie, including the requisite Oscar buzz for Eastwood and Freeman in particular.
Overall
Hard to complain with the campaign as it exists. The tone is appropriately earnest and inspirational – in keeping with Eastwood’s reputation and the subject matter. And the reach of the marketing, especially in the unexpected paid advertising campaign shows the studio isn’t slouching on trying to sell this to the public as a serious movie this Oscar season.
I like the trailer and the poster and while I feel the online component is where it begins to fall down a little – why not include more biographical information on Mandela and the history behind the true event – that’s not a big thing I’m going to harp on. A good effort for a movie that’s certainly going to be making a mark this week.
Movie Marketing Madness: Crazy Heart
The idea of an older, grizzled man who’s set in his ways but trying to get back to the glory of his younger days is not exactly new in Hollywood. There have been countless stories of redemption being sought and found by individuals who have led a life up until that point of stubborn refusal to change their ways, no matter who it’s honking off or who they wind up alienating – from friends to spouses to parents to children – only to eventually realize they’re utterly alone and miserable and so seek to mend fences and repent. It takes a good script and talent both in front of and behind the camera to make these stories rise above the level of “treacle” though.
So thank goodness this one stars one of my favorite actors, Jeff Bridges. Bridges stars in Crazy Heart as a Bad Blake, country musician who’s in the second half of middle-aged and is feeling the years and all the troubles piling up on top of him. Shuffling from bar to bar, he’s coasting on momentum at this point after some early success but finding little to keep him going beyond the need to maintain a minimal income. In comes a reporter doing a feature story on him, played by Maggie Gyllenhaal, who eventually becomes romantically involved with Blake and who is the first person in a long time to motivate him to do better and seek not only stability personally but a new success professionally.
The Poster
Clearly the campaign is putting Jeff Bridges up front and center and this poster does just that. An obviously grizzled Bridges – you can tell by the unkempt hair and the grey, thin beard – looks to the middle distance while holding his guitar up to him.
It’s simple but I like it. The solid black background makes for an uncluttered image and draws the focus to Bridges, which is exactly the intent. And the slight…roughness to the image makes it look like he’s sitting in sunlight. Finally, the typeface used for the names and title treatment are clearly evocative of a Western type of feel.
The Trailer
The one trailer that was created is moving and clear in its goal of how it wants to sell the movie. We meet Bridges character at the same time we meet that of Gyllenhaal, who plays a reporter doing a story on him. He’s clearly a down-on-his-luck musician of some fame and we see a few scenes of him at various bars performing his songs.
She, of course, falls in love with him as the story progresses and there also, of course, is a kid involved. Her hope in him inspires to get back on the horse and write a new song and toward the end we see him on a massive concert stage, apparently having earned the redemption he was due for.
Also prodding him along is his father, played by Robert Duvall, and his performance combined with Bridges’ may just set a cinematic record for laid back, naturalistic portrayals of grizzled middle-aged to older men. Not saying that’s a bad thing – not at all – but I’m saying we may have a new high water mark on our hands.
Online
The official website for the movie opens by playing the trailer, which is worth re-watching if you haven’t done so in a while. Next to that at the top is a “Synopsis” that gives a very brief overview of the plot, which lays out very much the same story we see in the trailer. You can also listen to the “Featured Song,” an original composition from T Bone Burnett and Ryan Bingham that’s labeled as being the theme from the movie.
Below that is the usual mix of goodness from Fox Searchlight. You have
- a scrolling Photo Gallery
- a Featured Video of Bingham performing his theme song
- a stream of mentions of the movie from Twitter
- a Featured Review that actually takes you to a content page of multiple review – with links
- a Meet the Cast & Crew section that, instead of trying reinvent the wheel, just links to everyone’s IMDb page
- a Film News section that contains steady updates about the movie
- an In the Headlines section that just links out to outside coverage of the movie
- a Related Links section that points to the official websites, MySpace pages and other information on the principles on the film
I continue to be impressed with the websites Fox Searchlight puts together. Not only is this everything I need to know about the movie, but it shows that outside opinions are just as important as official messaging.
With the official site being so sociable, the Facebook Fan Page almost becomes redundant. Not to say it isn’t well done – there are great updates, photos and videos there – but usually this sort of things fills in a gap that’s left by the official site. But that gap doesn’t exist in this case.
Advertising and Cross-Promotions
Not seeing much of either. There was a bit of online advertising that I came across but mostly what I’ve seen in the last few weeks have been “For Your Consideration” ads that are shooting for Oscar nominations. The lack of general-audience ad support alright to some extent since there’s been plenty of…
Media and Publicity
While there had been some buzz around it before this, the movie first appeared on most people’s radars when Searchlight acquired it in July of this year, first announcing it would be aiming for a Spring, 2010 release. But the word of mouth the film was generating at that point appeared too good to let go to waste and so it was moved up to December, largely in the hope that it would then be better positioned for a run at the Oscars, particularly Bridges’ performance.
Indeed a fair amount of the press after November, for example this New York Times story (11/18/09), position it as this year’s “movie out of nowhere,” the kind of film that has just kind of hunched along until it emerges as potentially one of the best of the year. There was also plenty of attention, given the focus of the movie on the music, on T Bone Burnett (New York Times, 12/6/09) and what an interesting and eclectic career he’s had.
Overall
There’s a lot to like about this campaign, especially the trailer, poster and website that were created. Adding to the fact that they’re all fairly brand-consistent with each other you have the notion, at least this is how I see it, that they were all created pretty quickly. It’s only been five or six months since Searchlight announced the acquisition of the film and all the material was released around late October or so, meaning they were working on a pretty tight timeline as, especially after they shifted gears to achieve a December release.
I think what I like about the campaign in general is that it doesn’t try to be overly slick or flashy – something that keeps with the general demeanor of the central character in the film. The poster simply speaks of a man with a lot on his mind and the trailer reinforces that. There isn’t a lot of sizzle in the campaign, just a relaxed self-assured feeling that does a lot to make the film seem attractive to those who might not be hip to the whole publicity effort that’s gone along with the paid, formal effort.
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