Movie Marketing Madness: Love and Other Drugs

There are few things that make me uncomfortable.

OK, that’s just an outright lie. Just about everything makes me uncomfortable. I wake up feeling awkward and it just gets worse form there.

But very few make me as uncomfortable as the commercials for erectile dysfunction drugs. Stuck in-between the beer spots and ads promising us that every kiss begins with the letter it starts with are ones that feature middle-aged folks who are planning a night of romance with some pharmaceutical help.

The new movie Love and Other Drugs is about the introduction of those little blue pills to the world. Specifically it’s about a pharmaceutical salesman (Jake Gyllenhaal) who charms his way through doctor’s offices racking up sales figures and receptionist-shaped notches on his bedpost. One day, through a bit of deception, he meets a young lady (Anne Hathaway) and the two begin the purely physical relationship they’re both looking for, he because he’s a player and she because she’s in the early stages of multiple sclerosis. But of course things get more complicated and the relationship grows despite the initial intentions of both people.

The Posters

I was more than a little shocked when I first saw the poster for the movie since it doesn’t try to be anything other than plain about what the story involves. The only thing on the poster is Gyllenhaal and Hathaway luxuriating nakedly in bad, pillows covering up their naughty bits. That makes it pretty clear to the audience that the movie is about these two people finding themselves in bed quite a bit but that they seem pretty happy about that. Which, lets face it, is pretty easy to understand.

The Trailers

The trailer starts out by showing us how much of a player Gyllenhaal is and what tricks he has developed to charm the ladies, which has its benefits for both his personal life and his professional one. But when that crosses a line and he observes Hathaway’s breast exam she beats him up in the parking lot before going out for coffee and winding up in bed together for, the dialogue implies, a no-strings-attached fling. But then things get more personal and it winds up being him that wants more of a relationship while she wants to keep him at arms’ length. The trailer doesn’t go in to why, though.

It’s a decent trailer that shows the movie will live or die based on how much the audience feels the connection between the two leads. It also presents the movie as a known quantity with few surprises – it includes what I presume to be the finale – that may upset people’s expectations. Knowing what is keeping Hathaway’s character emotionally detached there may be some problems with that as they find elements to the story that aren’t hinted at here, though. But the trailer makes the case for the movie being a light, breezy and amusing romantic comedy that isn’t going to upset any apple carts.

The movie then got a red-band restricted trailer that starts off establishing Gyllenhaal’s character as a ladies man in a much more explicit way than the first trailer did. We then get more explicit versions of other scenes we’ve seen before, mostly in terms of the language that’s used in those scenes. We’re also shown that the movie’s focus on erectile dysfunction drugs does pay off in a scene in which Gyllenhaal has to visit the doctor because he’s having an extended reaction to the same thing he’s selling to doctors.

Online

As usual the official website opens by playing the trailer. Once you enter the site and stop the full-screen video from playing there as well the first section of content is “About the Film” which just has a three sentence synopsis of the story.

Second up is “Video” which just has the trailer and then there’s the “Photo Gallery” that has just six stills from the movie in it. “Downloads” has just three Wallpapers. Lastly there’s a “What’s Your Love Personality” quiz that you can take if you’re so inclined.

Much of what’s on the movie’s Facebook page appears to be hidden behind the “Like” wall, meaning you have to Like the page before you can see it. But if you go back to the Wall there are the standard sort of updates about the film’s marketing and publicity. There’s also video, photos and even a Check-In partnership with GetGlue.

Advertising and Cross Promotions

I think there’s been some TV advertising done, much of which has just re-edited and shortened the trailer to fit the 30-second time limit. These have played the movie up as a straight romantic comedy without any of the melodrama or heart strings that the end of the trailer hints at.

Media and Publicity

Since the movie is about finding love under difficult circumstances, much of the press involved Hathaway’s personal romantic life (Vogue, 11/10) but which also took a look at the actress’ career to date.

Hathaway also got creative adoration from her director in the press (Los Angeles Times, 11/2/10) where he went on about how dedicated she was to her performance and how she was, in his words, at “the height of her powers” in this movie.

Some stories also focused on how the movie diverged from the real life (Fast Company, 11/15/10) of the man who Gyllenhaal’s character is based on and who wrote the book that inspired the film while still retaining its spirit.

There was coverage too of the fact that this fell well out of director Zwick’s usual filmmaking scope (New York Times, 11/19/10) since he’s usually more prone to sweeping epics that have a ton of emotional undercurrent than a movie that’s focused on relationships and, to the point, a lot of sex.

The fact that the two stars saw each other naked a lot – and how they went about dealing with that and approaching a story filled with sex and nudity – was the subject of a number of stories (LAT, 11/21/10) that also focused on the fact that this wasn’t the first time the two had been paired romantically on film.

There were also the usual other profiles and interviews with the two stars as they made the rounds of the press and the talk shows and everything else.

Overall

I’m not sure what audience is going to latch on to this campaign since it doesn’t seem to fall in to any of the usual easy-to-define buckets. While at one point it seems to embrace the idea of it being a romantic comedy at other times it almost seems to actively reject that label by showing two people who are only out for their own pleasures. It also seems to be making an active appeal to men with the way Gyllenhaal’s character is portrayed, which is a bit unusual for a pure-play rom-com. So there’s a bit of a disjointed feel about the campaign not because it doesn’t know what it is – I actually think it has a strong and consistent identity about itself – but because it defied conventions.

But the campaign does know what it’s doing and so presents a movie that’s definitely geared toward adults and so doesn’t shy away from being graphic about selling the film for what it is: the story of two people who are just looking for a little physical pleasure in their lives but who realize there might be something more in the relationship they’ve reluctantly started on. All the elements of the campaign work well together pretty well and it’s all complimented by a decent publicity push that allows the issues within the movie – specifically all the sexual content – to be addressed in ways the paid push just can’t.