Interactive Film Marketing: Creating A Virtual Movie Experience

Movie audiences are continuing to flock to their local Cineplex in record numbers despite a still struggling economy and increased ticket prices. In this day in age, film marketing has bypassed archaic print and radio advertising and jumped whole-heartily into online marketing campaigns. Audiences expect a film to have a website, Twitter and Facebook account; but just as the industry itself constantly evolves, so does the audience, and film marketers cannot afford to fall behind the times.

In true Hollywood fashion, as the movies have become grander, more expensive and interactive, so have the way they are advertised. Interactive film marketing has gone beyond social media connections, sneak peaks, and exclusive contests and has evolved into virtual movie experiences.

http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2012/03/19/business/HUNGER4.html

Daniel Frankel of Paid Content discusses the success 2012’s box office hit, The Hunger Games, had in creating a virtual movie experience that engaged their target audience and changed the face of digital marketing. Knowing the imagery and elaborate descriptions the book describes of this future planet, Lionsgate Studios’ strategy was to invite people inside this world. They created virtual communities on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube that gave their fan base the chance to travel within the pages of their beloved book and experience the world for themselves. This caused a viral digital dispersing by fans that allowed The Hunger Games to open to a staggering $153 million.

The Hunger Games is not alone in creating worlds that digitally engage their fans into their interactive film marketing strategy. iMediaConnection reports on the virtual experience that 2012’s Prometheus created by teaming up with major retailers such as Verizon and Internet Explorer to help transport their target audience into their created distorted reality. This innovative campaign not only propagated the film, it brought a new dimension to the standard sponsorship. Instead of large display advertisements or glaring product placement, this campaign brought sponsors into the experience in an intelligent and seamless manner that is not assaulting to the audience.

Digital marketing is a constantly changing discipline that studio executives and filmmakers find difficult to completely grasp. Although interactive film marketing has changed the standard media platforms, the principles have remained the same. It is vital that studios facilitate a connection between their project and their target audience in order to entice people into the theater. Film audiences across all genres expect visual interest and excitement at the movies and a similar look and feel is assumed in marketing efforts.

Film has a magical ability to transport an audience to another world for a period of time and film marketers are beginning to incorporate this same technique in their advertising campaigns. By bringing the audience into an engaging space and time, marketers are succeeding in leading them into the theater and allowing film to do the rest.

Search Engine Optimization and Independent Films: Mixing Technology with Art

http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2010/02/how-digital-marketing-helped-avatar-break-the-box-office039.html

Film publicity has had many faces over the last century from posters lining busy streets, large glowing marquees in front of theaters, illustrated newspaper advertisements, and elaborate movie trailers. The advance of the Internet led to full trailers with extra features posted online and the utilization of social media to promote films. Filmmakers have taken digital marketing one step further by incorporating Search Engine Optimization or SEO into their marketing campaigns. A practice once reserved for products and businesses, SEO has enabled a film’s website to appear in relevant searches, and in an age where everything is online, it is vital that filmmakers master this discipline.

Independent films famously operate on limited budgets, often times inhibiting artistic expression. When filming is concluded, there is usually very little money left over to put towards marketing and advertising. If used properly, SEO allows a film’s website to rank high on relevant searches and effectively gain attention, virtually free of charge. According to Zach Coffman from the Sundance Film Festival, it also tells potential moviegoers that a site is trustworthy and legitimate by Google (or Yahoo and Bing) giving it their “priceless stamp of approval”.

In a separate interview with Marketing Pilgrim, Zack Coffman relays that the most important feature in using SEO to market a film is to fully understand whom the target audience will be and therefore what keywords they would input into a search. The nature of independent film involves a very focused audience and it is imperative that a site grabs and holds the attention of the viewer. If it fails to do this, the competitor’s website might. 

Finding the appropriate keywords that will grab the audience can be generated by a keyword tool such as Google AdPlanner or be purely instinctual. Knowing the audience and their searching habits is key and the rest, according to Brick Top Productions, is ensuring the words are evenly spread throughout the site and remain relatively masked so as not to confuse or overwhelm the reader.

The independent film industry is built on raising awareness and creating communities around a film based primarily on word of mouth or “buzz”. With more and more individuals choosing the Internet to view films, it is only natural they use the same medium to research, find interesting projects and talk about them as well. Staying creative and experimenting with new ideas and techniques is important for filmmakers to do when making their films and their marketing techniques should be no different. What makes this pairing special is that the freedom and creativity of online marketing tie closely with the spirit of the independent filmmaker.