Advertising Ourselves to Death

The A-Team

[by Sunni] Editor's note: I have just started a new job. Nancy is immersed in full-time employment and working on her PMBA. So there is a minimal amount of time we can devote to blogging. Apparently, however, we have oodles of free time for instant messenging -- and our conversations usually cover advertising industry issues. You know, what we should be blogging about. It could be possible that we lack time management skills. On the other hand, we're refining and enhancing our theories through discussion. So that these brilliantly refined and enhanced theories do not get lost in the vacuum of IM, I'm going to post our latest conversation word-for-word (besides some minor edits to the worst of the typos and off-topic remarks). By all means, join in our discussion...

Sunni says:

are you talking about Second Life in any of your marketing classes? because it is the ONLY thing any marketer is talking about these days: http://secondlife.reuters.com/

nfallen says:

no, we're looking at more high-level business management and strategy stuff right now. But thanks for doing your very important job of keeping me updated. This might be something I could very well use in our gambling project...

nfallen says:

...when we're talking about new delivery systems for worldwide customers, this could be a good match.

Sunni says:

this would have fit with your consumer behavior class -- are you taking any marketing classes right now?

nfallen says:

just the one... and it's not a lecture class, we're just doing this big project.

nfallen says:

BUT, I'm taking the Consumer Behavior teacher's next class in the spring. It's the Marketing Communications Strategy class -- it will DEFINITELY come into play there...

Sunni says:

if he doesn't bring it up, you have to -- it should be a whole class by itself! it's my theory that the only people that use SL are marketers and journalists doing "research" -- there are no where near the number of members that would warrant reuters having its own "news channel" devoted to SL

nfallen says:

What you're saying is that the only people using it are marketers and journalists, but they're so into it that they're creating hype that doesn't actually reflect the number of average joe people using SL?

One size fits none

[by Nancy] (YES, Life interfering with blogging... blah, blah, blah. It is now my mission to post more often than Sunni. Get ready, people.)

Many thanks to Todd for calling my attention to this week's L.A. Times series inspired by a recent poll (conducted by the Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg) on the entertainment consumption habits of teens and young adults. To me, the two most interesting of these articles ("No Big Demand for the Small Screen" and "Far Removed from the Multiplex") concerned not necessarily the specific influences of entertainment media on the young 'uns, but the ways in which they access their entertainment.

Movie exbihibition has been a hot topic of late, with people like Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner proposing monumental changes to a business that has functioned in a relatively steady state for decades, and theater owners struggling to keep established film distribution windows in place (and patrons in their theaters) for as long as possible.

Being something of a film purist myself (and, thus, still completely in love with the idea of sitting in a darkened theater with strangers, experiencing the interaction of light with sound, audience with movie, and peanut butter M&M's with buttered popcorn and diet Coke), I have to access the argument from an economic standpoint in order to be truly fair. And thinking about it from that perspective (while talking the point to death with all sorts of people), I've prepared myself for the fact that, like it or not, the system is poised for a massive change. It has simply become infeasible from a business perspective for the large film studios to agree to keep distribution windows in place.

Reading both of the L.A. Times articles reinforced the notion that film exhibition is about to look vastly different. One of the primary reasons is that the theatrical experince holds very little value for most of the filmgoing public. This is not surprising, of course, but actually hearing these sentiments from a representative sampling of Hollywood's most coveted demographic is sobering.  Case in point:

"The poll found that many teens and young adults would be happy if that window were eliminated altogether. Asked where they'd prefer to watch a new movie if it were simultaneously available at home and in theaters, about a third said they would choose to stay at home, and another third said it depended on the movie. Going to movies at theaters still has appeal, particularly for younger teens, but among respondents ages 21 to 24, 56% said they wanted to see the new movie at home, and only 9% said they would rather travel to a theater."

Wow. 9% would rather not have to go to a theater to see a new movie. So, basically, keeping distribution windows in place makes little sense economically for film distributors and it runs completely counter to what customers in the target demographic want. Sounds like a GREAT way of doing business to me.

Purist that I am, I was happy to see that most in this sampling are not at present terribly interested in watching full-length televison shows or films on wireless devices or video iPods. And I don't blame them. I could never watch anything requiring an attention span longer than a couple of minutes on a screen that small. Then again, I am the daughter of a man who bought a large-screen televison, got it home, realized it was TOO large for the living room when the rest of the family got motion sickness from watching it, and remedied the situation by knocking out living room wall so that the space could be expanded by a few feet to accommodate his new toy. So I may not be the best person to ask about this one.

Interesting to note, however, were this group's reasons for shunning the small-est screen:

"Many young people said they were intrigued by the notion of getting their entertainment on devices such as cellphones and iPods. But two major obstacles have so far dampened their enthusiasm: the cost and the uneven quality of the experience."

With time, both of these issues will be handled -- prices will decrease while quality improves. And I imagine that convenience and accessibility (being able to watch what you want, where you want, when you want) will trump screen size in the end. Even now, according to the poll, over 40% of this group would rather watch movies on their PCs, many of which are portable and all of which offer users the opportunity to access their entertainment in personal, highly customizable way. Clearly, one screen size no longer fits all.

So where does that leave the current state of film exhibition? Looking...ummm...not so current, if you ask me.

The Most Frustrating Job Interview EVER

[by Nancy] I know, I know... I'm supposed to be talking about MOVIE marketing, not TV. But I can't just let this one sit out there without comment. And besides, in this case, "It's not TV, it's HBO."

Two weeks ago, just when the doldrums of summer were beginning to set in, the new season of "Entourage" began. Curious to see what was going on with my favorite crew of Hollywood layabouts, I investigated the website. I was hoping for a new blog written by Lloyd, the long-suffering (and surprisingly steadfast) assistant to Jeremy Piven's blustering Ari Gold, talent agent extraordinaire.

Alas, there is no Lloyd-blog (and too bad! I love it when oddball characters get their own forums for online discussion -- I think it is a brilliant way to further showcase excellent writers while building a community around a show). HOWEVER, I was interested to see that HBO had put together an apropos interactive Flash game featuring Ari. Since I've had my share of interviews with prospective employers recently, I was even more intrigued to discover that the game was, in fact, a faux-job-interview with Ari. As the user, you play the applicant, while Ari subjects you to his distinctive...well...charm. Figuring that no real-world job interview could ever approach the potential browbeating I was likely to receive from this particular fictional talent-agent, I signed in and eagerly awaited Ari's merciless grilling.

Here's the problem: The thing timed out, so Ari hiccupped. He hiccupped and had little seizures and stopped completely in the midst of sentences. First, I figured my home wi-fi was running a little slowly, so I moved to a more reliable location and tested Ari again. No luck. Then I moved on and tried again. Then I downloaded the most recent version of Flash and checked to make sure my browser was up-to-date. I even borrowed a couple of different computers to see if my particular setup was the problem. Still awful. So I called in some friends and had them try the interview on their computers. They experienced the same frustrating result.

HBO, Ari is sick, and I'd like you to fix him, please.

If the game featured almost any other character from the TV universe, this would merely be an annoying instance of a good idea that suffered from bad execution. I could get over it and move on with my life. This is Ari, though. Ari Gold, people, whose rapid-fire, staccato delivery of off-color sales pitches, come-ons, wheedles, diatribes, threats, explosive vitriol, and sleazy soliloquies would exhaust an auctioneer and make a whore blush. His tornadic tongue-lashings are the very best part of "Entourage," the flights of linguistic fancy that keep audiences coming back to watch week after week. HBO rightly tried to tap into that energy with this viral piece, but the rampant glitches strip away the very thing that is most fascinating about the character. Rather than motivating me to a) email the interview to friends, or b) actually watch the show, all I want to do is scream (and certainly not complete the interview itself -- the whole thing is just too depressing).

And listen, I realize that on some people's computers Ari probably conducts his intimidating job interview just fine, without a hitch. But those people who get a defective Ari aren't going to stick around long enough to figure out what sorts of tech configurations they need to have to make him shout at them properly. I get it that interactive designers/programmers must often walk a fine line between creating cutting-edge work that captures the attention of taste-makers and producing something that will be accessible to the widest possible audience. But I have a new system (bought in the last year) running up-to-date software. The Subservient Chicken will drink a beer or boogie around the room when I tell it to, so why can't I get Ari to yell at me?

Yesterday I mustered some strength (and a glass of wine) and sat down with Ari yet again. For the sake of research, I made myself ignore the hiccups, seizures, and all-out stoppages to reach the end of the interview. And even though Ari wasn't quite as evil and I'd expected him to be (which could be classified as another problem -- watered-down Ari is not nearly as fun), I could tell that the game would have been diverting enough to play more than once if it were working properly. Fortunately, I didn't need to play again. Ari hired me.

Lightning (and snakes!) in a Bottle

[by Nancy] Hi folks! In the few days (weeks?) since Todd invited me to take on movie marketing for his esteemed blog, I've been fighting with myself over the subject of this first post. While I'd like to jump straight into some of the brilliantly creative or totally doomed campaigns that are sucking dollars out of distributors' pockets at a dizzying pace this summer, I need to get something out of the way first.

As part of a forum created, to investigate, in part (as Todd so elegantly puts it in his manifesto ), "consumers taking over the marketing message, tearing it apart and rebuilding it to suit their desires," I think I must begin by giving a nod to the proverbial elephant in this summer's screening room. Of course, I mention it knowing that unless you've been living under a rock on an island with no internet access for the past few months, you are well aware of the Snakes on a Plane phenomenon. (No offense to you sub-rock island dwellers - if you need a quick catch-up, see the recent recap in the San Francisco Chronicle or the ever-expanding Wikipedia entry.)

The short version is this: New Line Cinema greenlit a film with a working title (the aforementioned reptiles on the aforementioned air transport), the simplistic ridiculousness of which serendipitously inspired film's most beloved badass (Samuel L. Jackson) to sign up. With visions of Jules Winnfield or Mace Windu battling pythons and rattlers providing the necessary impetus, fans quickly expressed their enthusiasm by producing their own blogs, trailers, and theme songs. Throughout the film's production process, the creative efforts of this intrepid group of cine-avia-reptile admirers opened up a dialogue of sorts with New Line, resulting in material alterations to the final film product.

My intention in bringing it up is not merely to add to the already ubiquitous furor surrounding what will surely be, as far as artistic merit is concerned, a sub-par Hollywood product, but to highlight everything that New Line has (intentionally or not) done right in selling this film to the public.

1. They kept the working title.
   Early in the production, New Line actually attempted to change the title to the less descriptive, more derivative Pacific Air Flight 121. Kudos to them for caving to pressure from fans and Jackson to keep the original, high concept name intact. The glaringly insipid moniker not only gave fans an instant and vivid image of what to expect, but it also stands as a ready-made critique of the Hollywood studio groupthink that keeps lowest-common-denominator films in the pipeline. The title has effectively courted those who can't wait to see yet another wild-animals-run-amok-horror-film as well as the snarky film snobs who can't wait to laugh at the most ridiculous film of the year.
2. They secured Samuel L. Jackson to star in the film and kept him happy.
   Even though Jackson admits that the film's title is what led him to the project, New Line surely made the deal sweet enough retain him for the long haul, even after Jackson's buddy, director Ronny Yu, left the film. Jackson is arguably the hardest-working actor in the film business, and he is certainly one of the most profitable. He has been promoting the film for months, and boldly championed its supremacy once again at last week's MTV Movie Awards. I say go ahead and give the guy an Oscar. He's earned it.
3. They didn't harass the fans.
   Instead, New Line stood on the sidelines while the online community took on a life of its own and promoted the film by lampooning the premise. Not only did this fan-created promotion create a humorously schlocky appeal that succeeded in capturing even more attention, but the critical mass of buzz on the film has also led to the the kind of editorial coverage in the mainstream press that money can't buy. I should note here that New Line has a good track record with according online fan communities the proper respect. Remember the canny way they wooed all those adorably geeky individuals who spoke Elvish prior to kicking off a rather successful franchise called The Lord of the Rings?
4. They embraced fan expectations and altered the film to fit.
   Classic audience feedback model. The interesting variation here is that New Line didn't have to wait until a rough cut of the film was completed or spend money on test market screenings, surveys, and the like (it's doubtful they would have done so on this type of B-movie fare anyway). Instead, they could do free research by checking out YouTube and the blogs devoted to Snakes on a Plane discussion to figure out what their audience wanted to see. The result? Reshoots to move the film from a PG-13 rating squarely into R-territory and (I assume) to capitalize on fans' embrace of the more absurd aspects of the premise.
5. Continued focus on fan-created blogs, videos, and other collateral material not produced by New Line as part of the film's "official" marketing campaign.
   New Line's Snakes on a Plane website is, at this point, a little boring in and of itself. You can check out video and audio clips and download images and wallpaper, but that's about it. I imagine they'll be adding other functionalities as we get closer to the film's release date, but right now, the focus is still where it should be - on the fans. Links to a "fan site of the week" take visitors to YouTube, Snakes on a Blog, MySpace, and, surprisingly, McSweeney's, where individuals ostensibly not employed by New Line are keeping the rest of us up to date with the latest Snakes on a Plane news, gossip, and parody.

All of this has worked remarkably well. I, for one, will be watching with interest see how the next two months unfold. Will the fans keep the current momentum up until August 18th, or will backlash (or worse, indifference) set in before then? Will the film end up near the top of the summer box office heap? Will Samuel L. Jackson be able to get the m-f-ing snakes off the m-f-ing plane? Will Nancy ever write a post this long again?

All I can tell you at this point is that the answer to that last question is "no."