I spent some time at the American Film Market this week wearing my badge with my name and company on it. Most of the time when people read it, they said “oh, you’re a publicist” and I thought, “no, that’s not what I am. Why do they think that?” I guess a publicist is most often associated with films after they are made, but I do not really think of myself this way. I use publicity as one element of a marketing plan. So, it is more accurate to say that I am a marketer who uses publicity, among other tools, to build awareness of a film, gather an audience and ultimately make money for the filmmaker and their investors. I do these activities before, during and after the production process. What’s the difference between marketing and publicity? I mean all of it is promoting a film, right?
Marketing is a combination of all the activities that help to increase the sale of your film, including a mix of public relations (publicity), advertising, online marketing, social media marketing and other promotional activities. It encompasses two basic things. One, identifying your audience. Who they are; why would they be interested in your film; and how to reach them? Two, building a plan for how to make the audience aware of your film and see it or buy it.
Publicity is one tool in the mix and it uses the media to reach the audience. This includes reviews; print, radio or television interviews; blog mentions; Twitter mentions; Digg/Linkedin/Deli.ci.ous mentions, etc. Publicity is a less expensive method to advertising and a less visible process, but when successfully used, its effects are long-lasting in helping to build up a reputation for the film and the filmmaker. A publicist is the the film’s advocate and a conduit to the media, essentially the informer to journalists and bloggers that their audience may be interested in your project because of various reasons (angles) and that they should consider checking it out. This is known as a pitch. There is no guarantee that the journalist will decide to make that connection with the film and write about it but the chances that they will are increased if they have been made aware. I do this work and have been successful in getting press attention, but it isn’t the only element I focus on.
I am mainly concerned with creating an overall plan to use as many outlets as resources will allow to build awareness for the film that will lead to increased sales and recoupment of costs with profit.
Here is a good visual to explain the differences between the elements in product promotion.
The professional online networking service, LinkedIn announced yesterday that it will be integrating its services with the microblogging phenom, Twitter allowing users of both services to sync their tweets and “network updates” on LinkedIn. Users can further share information through a “tweet this” box that will post their LinkedIn updates to Twitter and while on Twitter, users can add the established hashtags of #in or #li to posts in order for their tweets to appear on their LinkedIn profiles. And if that wasn’t integration enough, a new app called Tweets, lets users put their Twitter stream on their LinkedIn profiles.
So what does this mean? According to Allen Blue, LinkedIn cofounder and vice-president of product strategy in a his blog post, the two services go together like peanut butter and chocolate. As discussed in this video, this integration further allows a user to amplify their professional identity and brand by broadcasting their messages via Twitter.
This also means that if you choose to participate in integrations like this, you must continue to “Think before you Tweet” and keep your personal and professional brand top of mind.
Prepare to see less shelves of DVDs and CDs at your local Best Buy. In a recent piece from the LA Times, we’ve learned that the mega-retailer sees that the tide is turning for physical products down the line, and is beginning to look towards further supporting digital downloads and streaming services. This doesn’t mean Best Buy will be giving up on new DVD, Bluray, and CD releases—but expect to see less room for older and less popular films and music on store shelves.
Ryan Pirozzi, direct of Best Buy digital media, sums up their new outlook: "Digital is developing as an important channel, and our three-point strategy is to drive adoption of Internet-connectable devices, drive connection and drive consumption using our deep consumer relationships."
And here I thought Netflix was one of the few companies making significant steps away from physical media. The common bond with Netflix and Best Buy is that their current models completely rely on physical media, and if they are to survive in the next few years, they need to cement themselves as leaders in delivering content directly to your living room television (not to mention other rooms and devices).
Best Buy recently signed a deal with CinemaNow to allow access to their library of digital content in future internet-connected televisions, DVD and Blu-ray players, as well as other devices. They’ve also signed a deal with Netflix to bring their Watch Instantly feature to cheaper Blu-ray players (fascinating that this is becoming almost as big a draw for these players and Blu-ray discs alone). And let’s not forget that last year Best Buy bought Napster—which they haven’t done much with yet, and still remains in fifth place for digital music purchases.
LAT mentions that current execs are already envisioning what a future Best Buy may look like: "Instead of rows and rows of DVDs and CDs, the center of the store will be a ‘hub’ that emphasizes home connectivity by bringing together Napster and the new online movie service with devices needed to watch them."
While that may indeed seem a bit fantastical, if Best Buy becomes an integral part of customer’s digital download and streaming experience, it doesn’t matter what the stores will look like in the future. They’ll survive as long as they remain synonymous with their customers’ media experience. - Davindra Hardawar
Earlier today, video gaming giant Electronic Arts (EA) announced its blockbuster acquisition of the Facebook/social gaming company Playfish for between $300-400 million. It’s a major move by EA into the social gaming space and one that places a smart team and a set of top-rated social networking games (e.g. Pet Society ) into its control.
While it’s too early to understand the ramifications and implications of the Playfish acquisition, we do firmly believe that the potential impact of the EA/Playfish combo are enormous. This is the first time the social and video gaming realms have truly merged. In fact, it could prove to be a watershed moment for not only the social gaming industry, but for video games in general.
After thinking about the current state of gaming and how social gaming could affect, we’ve come up with a set of six predictions surrounding how social gaming could affect not only Electronic Arts, but the entire video gaming industry. Here are our predictions:
1. There will be more Social Gaming Acquisitions
Playfish will not be the last social gaming acquisition by a video gaming or entertainment company. Zynga and Playdom are potential targets, and even peripheral companies such as virtual currency platforms could become attractive. There are many smaller, independent social gaming companies that could be snatched up as well.
As to who will acquire them: the possibilities range from console and game makers (e.g. Nintendo and Microsoft) to online content kingpins (e.g. MySpace.).
2. EA Will Find New Ways to Monetize Social Gaming:
Over the last week or so, there has been a backlash against cost per action (CPA) and lead generation offers within social games. The result has been deceptive ad crackdowns and the pulling of these offers from platforms such as Zynga, where they account for a significant chunk of total revenues.
Yet we are not worried about the ability of social games to monetize, especially in light of today’s acquisition. EA knows how to turn a profit and will find unique ways to generate revenue from its newest addition. Subscriptions, console-based virtual purchases, and more prominent advertisers could (and probably will) all become part of the mix. It won’t need CPA ads to monetize.
3. Virtual Goods Will Become Even Bigger Business:
Related to prediction #2, we believe that there is huge upside for the virtual currency, gift, and goods market. It shocks us how big the virtual goods market has already become. The U.S. market alone is thought to be worth $1 billion and the Asian market to be worth around $7 billion.
The virtual goods market hasn’t come close to reaching its potential, though. As more and more users join social games such as FarmVille and become more comfortable spending their hard-earned cash on virtual seeds, that number will go up. Couple that with upcoming payment platforms from Facebook and PayPal, and you have a recipe for a high-growth emerging market.
4. You Will See a Wave of Social Gaming on the Console:
EA’s core competency is creating video games for consoles such as the Xbox, the Wii, and the PS3. Games such as Pet Society or Who Has The Biggest Brain will likely make their way onto the console, either in disc or downloadable form. It’s lucrative and people have proven their willingness to pay for the HD, console-based experience.
Other social gaming platforms will either be acquired or strike lucrative deals to bring their games to the console as well.
5. EA and Others Will Make Even Stronger Moves on Mobile:
As we wrote back in September, game console makers are feeling the heat from Apple. The iPhone has quickly become a powerhouse of a gaming platform, providing a new challenge to your standard handheld gaming device (e.g. the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP).
Social games are already on the iPhone and utilizing Facebook Connect to share scores and allow friends to compete. Zynga’s Live Poker and Playfish’s Biggest Brain are prime examples of social games turned iPhone apps. That trend will only increase exponentially as mobile (especially the iPhone and Android) become stronger gaming platforms.
While the heterosexualized poster for Tom Ford’s not-so-heterosexual “A Single Man” caused a wee stir last week, it seems the recently released trailer has just re-enforced those complaints.
A comparative study of the trailer that Tom Ford’s production company released as the film premiered in Venice and Toronto and the trailer The Weinstein Company just put out tells quite the tale. The new trailer uses the same music and mostly the same shots, except it adds in a bunch of quotes that not-so-subtly emphasize the film’s Oscar buzz, leaving out a few choice shots - pretty much all of which are suggestive of the film’s gay content.
The new trailer essentially is altered to suggest the core of the film is the relationship between Colin Firth and Julianne Moore’s characters, even removing from the end of the trailer the names of both Matthew Goode and Nicholas Hoult (who play Firth’s love interests). Moreover, in the first trailer, we see Firth’s character kiss both Goode and Moore, in the second we just get Moore. There’s also a sequence of shots in the first trailer which crosscuts Firth, who plays a professor in the film, staring into the eyes of both a female student and a male student. In the second, as you might guess, we only get the female (in a telling twist, instead of cutting to the male eyes, the trailer cuts to a quote from Entertainment Weekly saying “[Firth’s] performance is bound to win attention in this year’s Oscar race”).
Gone completely in the new trailer are a few shots of Firth running into the smoking (literally and figuratively) male prostitute outside a liquor store (one of the film’s more homoerotic sequences), as well as a few shots of him and Hoult running romantically and shirtlessly into the ocean together.
In with the Oscar buzz, out with the gayness. It seems The Weinstein Company doesn’t want to take any chances with all those homophobic Academy members. Call it the “Brokeback Mountain” approach (and remember how well that worked out).
Normally I try to keep this Blog news/information related, but a lot of people have been asking me what I watch and I've gotten quite a few E-Mails asking me the same, so I have decided to post my recommendations for Films that I recommend once a month. So here we go.
(500) DAYS OF SUMMER
OBJECTIFIED
ADORATION
GOODBYE SOLO
AWAY WE GO
Swedish filmmaker Lukas Moodysson is known for vulgar provocations like "A Hole in My Heart" and the spiritually-aware sex-trafficking odyssey "Lilya-4-Ever," so the director's latest, "Mammoth," is something of a departure. Trading in the lion's share of his frequently bunk sensationalism for quiet introspection, Moodysson comes up with one of the most agreeable, and unexpectedly poignant, globetrotting mosaics thus far — and there have been quite a few (anyone remember the dead-on-arrival "Rendition"?).
Though similar in many ways to Alejandro Gonzàlez Iñarritu's "Babel"— even sharing actor Gael Garcia Bernal — the scaled down "Mammoth" is (at least I think) a more satisfying film because it's not trying to eat you alive with its self-importance, and, at least until the the last act, which is a tad overwrought and melodramatic, the focus is placed more on people than big, we-are-the-world statements and tragedies that bring people together.
This domestic trailer for the film just doesn't capture that. One of "Mammoth's" real strengths is its understatement, evidenced the social realism of its performances; the identifiable duress of the film's overworked mom — a spiritual cousin of Catherine Keener's stressed parent in "Where the Wild Things Are" — magnificently played by Michelle Williams; and the earnest but a little naive husband (Bernal), who runs a popular gaming website and who, at the outset of the film, travels to Thailand with his sleazy lawyer to sign a multimillion dollar contract.
This trailer more of less reduce the movie to a series of generic titles ("their family seemed perfect," "perfection is not what it seems") and dramatic moments, of which in reality there are very few. "Mammoth" is made to look like a kinetic piece of filmmaking here, rife with sex and action, but people looking for that from Moodysson's film will likely be as disappointed as the booing audience at the Berlin Film Festival earlier this year.
"Mammoth" is set for a limited release from IFC, opening November 20th.
Also, for a better representation of the film, along with a glimpse of its most frustratingly leaden globalism metaphor (a young girl's frequent trips to the planetarium), be sure to check out "Mammoth's" original, international trailer. - Source: The Playlist
