Movie Marketing Madness: Heartbreaker

Guys who appear out of nowhere and proceed to break-up a relationship, whether it’s one where the couple is dating, engaged or even married usually have one of a handful of monikers applied to them. Usually these labels cast disparagement upon that gentleman’s character and call in to question his cleanliness and perhaps even the circumstances under which he was born in the first place.

The term “professional,” though, is rarely, if ever used to describe that guy. But it’s exactly that word that describes the central character in Heartbreaker a new import from France. The movie tells the story of Alex, a gentleman who is particularly good at breaking up couples by swooping in and helping the woman realize she can do better than whomever she’s with. So he puts this talent to good use by hiring himself out to do just that, usually at the behest of the woman’s family who’s dissatisfied with her current beau.

During one such assignment he’s hired to disrupt the pending nuptials between Juliette, a wealthy heiress and her financier fiance. But the assignment comes loaded with potential pitfalls as not only does Alex wind up having to confront his past in the form of angry ex-boyfriends and creditors but he also confronts the fact that he may break his one hard and fast rule about such engagements, that he not fall in love with the woman in his sights.

The Posters

There’s not much to the poster. He is walking toward the camera, looking scruffy yet handsome and charming while she is in a photo behind him in front of a beautiful French coastal scene.

It’s not bad, but does fall victim to the design cliche of using hot pink for some of the text coloring, something that appears quite often in romantic comedies because…I don’t know, it’s supposed to be girly? Really not sure here but I see it a lot and using it here doesn’t really add anything to a so-so poster.

The Trailers

The trailer starts off with a bit of plot exposition – a wealthy business man doesn’t like the guy his daughter is about to marry – but then we get a bit of background on Alex, the titular Heartbreaker, including some scenes of him on previous assignments. But then he gets this gig and we see the cat and mouse game the two play as he attempts to learn everything he can about her and follow her as closely as possible and she resists the imposition. As the two continue though, things change and, as the voiceover says, he winds up breaking his only rule: Actually falling in love with his target.

It’s a light and bouncy trailer, a feeling that’s aided by the fact that it features not just “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life” from Dirty Dancing (this is actually a plot point) but also Wham’s “Wake Me Up.” So the amusing actions of those on screen are complimented by a lightweight soundtrack, all of which add up to an interesting trailer.

Online

The movie’s official website is a collage of photos, sticky notes and push pins on a map like the kind you’d see as part of a planning session.

In the upper left hand corner is a widget that has a rotating stream of (presumably curated) Twitter updates about the movie.

The “Photos” section has about 14 stills from the movie and you can download a high-quality version of the movie’s banner by clicking on that image just below the “Photos” area.

The “Are You a Heartbreaker?” section is a quiz for women to take so they can see if their man is really as bad as they might suspect he is. Similarly, the “One of your friends…” section is something for women to use to warn a friend that they’re going out with or married to a complete twit.

Moving over to the left, the “Events” section has information on the movie’s appearance at a couple film festivals as well as Q&As the cast and crew has appeared at in advance of the film’s European release, which was a couple months prior to its appearance in the U.S.

“Interviews” has video interviews with the movie’s cast and “The Team” has information on the characters in the story and background on who they are and what role they play in this adventure.

“The Assignment” then is a synopsis of the movie’s story.

The video player at the bottom opens what amounts to the Video section of the site, with the trailer, a teaser (that is nowhere else in the movie’s American marketing) and a coupled of extended clips from the film.

The movie’s Facebook page has plenty of updates on various promotional activity, photos from the movie and various events related to it and more.

Advertising and Cross-Promotions

Nothing that I’ve seen in any regard.

Media and Publicity

The film made a couple of festival appearances on this side of the Atlantic, one at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York and one at the City of Lights, City of Angels film series in Los Angeles.

Other than that there wasn’t much. About the only other discussion in the press of the movie was the announcement, right around the time of Tribeca, that the movie would be Americanized in the near future.

Overall

It’s a charming campaign for what appears to be quite a charming movie. The marketing coasts along heavily on the fact that we’re watching a huckster and basically a con-man who works his charm on the ladies and so it’s natural that carries over into the campaign, where the effect is to make the audience smile and be swept up in the emotion of it all.

While I’m not a huge fan of the poster since, as I said, I don’t really care for its use of Romantic Comedy Pink #352 in the title and other copy, I do really like the trailer and feel like it can go along way to sell the movie to people who might be looking for a different take on the rom-com genre, or at least something that doesn’t have the woman walking into a light pole or the guy taking a kick to the groin.

I would have liked to have seen more in the Advertising and Publicity areas but understand that this is a small import and so it’s not receiving a huge push. But what there is works more often than it doesn’t.

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