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Stradella Road was pleased to once again co-produce the Variety Film Marketing Summit, which brings together industry leaders from both major and independent studios, as well as pioneering marketing and technology companies. The following is the first in a series highlighting key issues, strategies and opportunities that came to light amidst some very candid conversations.
Marketing Across Windows. Marketing across product release windows, through multiple platforms and types of viewing experiences, marks one of the greatest challenges and opportunities facing the entertainment industry today. It is the type of business model disruption that can radically shift balance sheets, as well as the balance of power—witness the rise of iTunes and Amazon.com, and the rise (and fall?) of Netflix.
We see four core issues for marketers: Coping with the complexity of messaging, moving beyond lip service to actual inter-departmental cooperation, dealing with discoverability, and really getting a handle on how social media ties all the pieces together.
With movies distributed across so many platforms—theaters, multiple flavors of 3D, iTunes and Netflix, Video on Demand—marketers need to figure out how much time and resource goes to explaining how and where a film can be found without letting a campaign’s larger message get lost. “Every second you spend telling people where to get something or how to get something, that’s a second you’re not telling them about the product,” said TJ Moffett, Executive Vice President of Home Entertainment Marketing for Summit Entertainment, the studio behind the hugely successful Twilight franchise.
“We’re still seeing double-digit growth for VOD,” said Audrey Freeborn, Fox’s Senior Vice President of Marketing and Product Management for Worldwide Video On Demand and Electronic Sell-Through. “But now we’re also accessing more rooms of the house. The store is in the kid’s bedroom, he can buy in on his Xbox, and now we can go with you on the train, on the plane.”
“Ideally you would say, ‘Get it Tuesday.’ Just shut up and sell the movie,” Moffett said. But while you have to show your product in its best light, you have to deal with the reality of platforms with wildly varying experiences and calendars. The balance is critical.
The need for coherence in messaging requires a previously unprecedented level of teamwork across departments, Freeborn said. “Collaboration between digital, home and games, is much more than it was five years ago, as is the need for a more targeted approach. There is more of an emphasis than ever on having a cohesive message.”
The power of social media further reinforces the need for more cohesive messaging. Your Facebook page is your Facebook page, regardless of the business models and interests behind release windows. “There has to be a persistent connection to the audience,” said Vince Broady, CEO of social media publishing platform ThisMoment. “One cohesive program that starts in theatrical, runs through to home entertainment and bridges the gap between multiple installments of a series.”
The challenge in maintaining that level of consistency and awareness throughout the product cycle is compounded by increasingly savvy online audiences who demand more and more information about a film, while at the same time having increasingly short attention spans prone to tuning out marketing the moment it fails to stimulate their interest.
“All the beats have to be continuously hitting in an engaging way,” said Scott Nocas, a multi-platform entertainment consultant who has worked on both the Playstation and X-Box platforms. “You have to be constantly engaging the consumer even when you don’t have something to sell them or they aren’t going to come back two years from now when it appears.”
The diversity of new platforms has, perhaps paradoxically, not always made it easier for marketers to connect with audiences. The issue is one of discoverability, as new services struggle to present their offerings. VOD, and other interfaces, deliver a largely alphabetically-arranged browsing experience that doesn’t lend itself to consumers easily stumbling upon titles, as they might have while strolling the aisles of a video store. How do you get into the Top 10 or Most Recommended or Hot Titles lists? “You have to somehow overcome this discovery challenge or you’re dead,” Nocas said.
This, of course, is why so much attention is being focused on social media—the place where consumers can see what their friends are seeing, and interest clusters can find their way to content together. “The idea that we can muscle our way into your world, that’s becoming harder and harder” Broady said. “You have to earn an authentic connection with a consumer at a much higher level then you used to.”
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We’re excited to have worked with The Los Angeles Times on an engagement focused on advertising and social media. Working in close coordination with a variety of key stakeholders, we delivered recommendations in the following areas:
1. Ad inventory – We helped create a path for acquisition/aggregation of video content and directed a successful search and evaluation of potential video ad network, rich media, and local ad partners. As a result, The LA Times was able to increase the quantity and placement of ad inventory and create new opportunities for premium-priced advertising.
2. The LA Times Sales Story – Along with upgraded units and placement, we helped The LA Times focus their use of metrics and reporting, bringing in new tools and partners, and weaving these pieces into a new and improved sales presentation.
3. Social Media Profile and Revenue Opportunities – We provided tactical approaches for targeted expansion of social media efforts, including creation of social-friendly account tiers, new sponsorship opportunities, and potential partnerships that editorial and marketing are currently developing.
4. Opportunities in Mobile Development – We explored the realities of mobile development within the existing editorial organization and infrastructure and identified potential areas for expansion, as well as developing specific mobile product concepts that leverage areas of editorial strength.
“The Stradella Road team have been great partners, delivering strategic initiatives resulting in revenue expansion and improved content and user experience for our audience,” says Andy Vogel, SVP, Digital/Mobile at Tribune Company.
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Needless to say, we’re super excited about progress on THE HOBBIT. Peter Jackson and team have finished their first block of shooting and moved straight into location scouting. Meanwhile, Warner Bros. has begun to release some first look photos, including this shot of Dori, Nori & Ori. Other recent recent peeks included these shots at EW.com and this cover for Empire magazine. For more news and behind-the-scenes info, keep an eye on Peter Jackson’s Facebook page and THE HOBBIT BLOG. More news as it develops!
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In the latter half of the 20th century, the “Big 3” meant one thing in the media world:
 Big 3: NBC ABC CBS It was a simple time. Mass media was just that. A decent commercial and a three-martini lunch could get your brand message seen by the “eyeballs” you were interested in. From the 1950s until the early 1990s, every hit series appearing in the top 20 Nielsen ratings was aired by one of the Big Three Networks, according to Alex McNeil’s Total Television, 4th Edition.
That may be our DNA but, well, things change. A new major network (FOX) and the proliferation of Cable networks in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s began the audience fragmentation we see so much hand-wringing about today. With the popularization of the Internet, it seemed that those that owned the “on-ramps” to the “Information Superhighway” were the companies to watch. We saw a new Big 3:
 Big 3: Prodigy AOL Compuserve But these “walled gardens” soon felt quaint and restrictive and when Marc Andreessen created the world’s first Web Browser in 1994, it was as if the gates to the Wild West were opened, driving a flood of investment and optimism about this media revolution. Yes, there was a new Big 3 in town:
 Big 3: Netscape Mosaic Explorer (That center logo is Mosaic, the first browser, in case you don’t remember.) Now it became clear that if you owned the interface with the Internet, you owned the eyeballs… Or did you? Was it the window to the Internet or something to do with content that captured audiences? And so began the rise of the portals, directories and search engines! Now, surely, these were the REAL Big 3:
 Big 3: Yahoo MSN Google Or were they? What about those powerhouse e-commerce sites like Amazon.com. And why were major marketers all cozying up to bloggers all of a sudden?
In time, the world survived the Dotcom Bust and Y2K and in the “mid-noughts” a new contender emerged as the REAL, REAL Big 3… Social Media. People, it seems, actually want to connect to PEOPLE through the Internet and on their fancy new glass-crusted smart phones. At last, the biggest social connectors would finally return us to the glory days of mass media! The REAL, REAL Big 3 had to be:
 Big 3: MySpace eBay Flickr Oh wait, did we say, “Myspace, Ebay and Flickr?!”… Sorry, we meant to say:
 Big 3: Facebook YouTube Twitter RIGHT. So there you have it. The REAL, REAL, REAL BIG 3!
It’s obvious that Facebook, Youtube and Twitter have won, right? Game over! What? Add Google back in? What about Apple? Look, we don’t make the rules: It has to be 3. It’s a cosmic principle or something.
Anyway, you never know. It’s possible that today’s leaders might actually win the race. Then again, this quick glimpse at very recent history reminds us just how many Big 3’s there have been over such a short period of time. If we were the betting types, our money would be on… well, the point is, we wouldn’t bet the farm just yet. Like they said on one of those Big 3 Network TV shows once upon a time, “Let’s be careful out there, people.”
(Bonus points for anyone who actually remembers the name of the show, rather than just Googling it!)
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We recently completed an engagement with Flixster Entertainment, the popular social network for movie fans, and we are pleased to note their acquisition this week by Warner Brothers. Per CEO Jeff Bewkes, Warner will use the Flixster brand and its technical expertise to launch and/or accelerate initiatives that aim to dramatically improve the consumer proposition of owning digital movies—in a way that should benefit the whole industry.
We are glad to have supported Flixster over the past six months, helping them integrate a “Path to Sociability” initiative, repositioning key value drivers and product/service attributes and building a solid foundation for growth. Other elements of our engagement included:
- Quick-hit research/reality check with clients to explore value drivers needed to support sales.
- Optimization of pitch approach and materials aimed at studio clients.
- Suggesting interim design and content improvements for Flixster sites.
- Insight and guidance on new units and rich media vendors.
We wish our friends at Flixster the best of luck with their new relationship and look forward to seeing Flixster and Warner Brothers take the business to the next level.
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We’ve been thrilled and amazed with the incredible reaction to Peter Jackson’s Facebook Page. In less than a month, the page has more than 215,000 Likes and has already delivered millions of impressions. What’s more, the community is exceptionally eager, active and supportive.
The secret to its success is shockingly simple: It delivers Peter’s true voice and core Social Media values, particularly Immediacy, Interpretation, and Authenticity. Oh, and there’s also this truly fabulous, super-special, ten-minute behind-the-scenes video peek at the start of production for THE HOBBIT!
Enjoy, and stay tuned for more.
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