Author: mbowen

The film Cowboys and Aliens opens in theatres months from now, on July 29, 2011, but the movie studio that produced the film has been advertising to build awareness since the summer of 2010. Whether or not the movie is actually well reviewed, many people will line up to see it just because awareness for the film has been growing in many different media channels. Major film studios are effective in their movie advertising because they have evaluated and selected the perfect channels of media to target their audiences.  On a mass media level, not only have trailers for Cowboys and aliens been showing on movie theatre screens since the summer of 2010, but they have also recently started to be aired during television commercials. However, since television is an extraordinarily expensive channel, the studio has come up with a combination of media to spread out their spending as well as reach more consumers. To cater to film buffs, Cowboys and Aliens has also been advertised in niche media, such as cineplex magazine.

While it is the combination of all media channels that drives viewers to the theatres, in my opinion movie websites are the most effective channel in media advertising for films. Internet as a media channel has an advantage of being able to link consumers to more detailed content.  For example, the Cowboys and Aliens website invites users to join the Cowboys and aliens social conversation and gives them a link to the director’s twitter account. This website is also flexible and interactive for the user, allowing them to watch the trailer, flip through images in the gallery and download twitter and desktop backgrounds.  The movie website for Thor even has an option for users to watch the trailer with an Earth background, and an Asgard background (which is a planet that the main character comes from). These movie websites deliver a clear, consistent and compelling message to their intended audiences while giving them a chance to interact.

I recently read a blog post, written by Tim Blonk, that described the product life cycle of a band. This blog post was creative because bands aren’t generally considered products that have a growth, maturity and decline stage. Not surprisingly, this innovative post was linked by Pierre Schiffler, who pushed the product life cycle idea further by applying it to a specific genre of music, the relatively recent dubstep.  By using the ideas generated by these two bloggers, I would like to apply the product life cycle idea to another complex product, 3D movie technology.

At this point in the 3D technology cycle, many would assume that the product is in the growth stage. Recently, the rate of adoption has been quick for 3D technology since a 3D movie is only a few dollars more than a regular ticket, therefore increasing its trialability. Movies with complex settings, such as in Avatar, benefit from the use of 3D because the images appear to surround the viewer, giving it a relative advantage. The complexity of 3D technology is low, since all it requires for the audience member is to wear a pair of glasses.

However, 3D movies have been appearing in movie theaters since the 1950’s, which means that 3D technology has actually reached the maturity stage.  Movie theaters have recently been able to extend the product life cycle with a few key strategies.  They have changed the product design of the glasses, moving from the blue and red lenses to black and changing from paper to plastic. Even a helmet version of 3D glasses was created to appeal to Transformers 3 audiences.  3D is now available on home television screens, rather than just in theatres.

In an earlier blog post, I suggested that 3D movies are most likely a passing fad. After further research, it seems that popularity of 3D grows then declines every 15-20 years. Just like Pierre’s description of the life cycle of dubstep, I believe that people are going to eventually tire of 3D graphics within the next 5 years.  However, unlike the dubstep cycle, 3D movies are likely to become popular again in the future.

Product placement in general is quite an effective form of sales promotion. Being a frequent movie watcher, I have seen my fair share of blatant product placement, but usually the product is squeezed somewhere into the plot so that the advertising is smooth and sneaky for the audience.  A movie that I recently watched that had effective use of product placement was the Adjustment Bureau, which was pretty smooth in sliding in the appearance of GQ magazine with Matt Damon on the cover.

Another one of my favourite product placement examples is Sony’s appearance in the James Bond Film Casino Royale. The placement aligns with the film’s plot and results in a higher perceived quality of the product, since it appears to be used by spies, who only use the most high-tech gadgets.

I was really excited to watch Katy Perry’s music video for her most recent song, E.T., since Katy Perry’s videos in general are quite creative. The video is interesting, but what I remember most about the music video is not the cool costumes or settings, but the appearance of the strangest product placement I have ever seen.

In the video, Katy Perry puts on a pair Vogue eyewear, while she is dressed as an alien, to watch a sunset. It makes absolutely no sense in the plot of the music video and as a result makes Katy Perry and the vogue eyewear brand look strange.  Vogue eyewear definitely did not do their research when they decided to place their product in this music video. Unfortunately for Vogue eyewear, my opinion of the brand has decreased since now I find the brand to be tacky and it is even more unlikely that I will ever buy a pair.

Watch and you’ll see, (around 4:20) it’s bizarre.

If you have been to a movie theater in the past year, you may have noticed that prices keep rising and rising, with no signs of stopping. Not only is a movie ticket somewhere around thirteen dollars, you’re paying an extra six dollars if you order a large popcorn. Not the cheapest form of entertainment.  With increased competition through Netflix and On Demand, you would expect that movie theatres would slash their prices in order to capture more customers and make more money. As a movie-goer myself, I don’t know how much longer I will be visiting movie theatres when it is much more convenient and cheaper to watch a movie online or at home.

Surprisingly, however, these skyrocketing prices haven’t had much effect on movie theatre profits. Somehow in this extremely competitive market, the movie theatre industry has come up with a pricing strategy that works for them, which does not involve lowering their prices. Their goals obviously aren’t competitor-oriented, since each movie theatre’s ticket prices seem to be generally the same.  They definitely aren’t sales oriented since as the ticket prices rise, the number of tickets sold each year gets lower and lower. Instead, theatres are trying to lure us in by communicating the value offered by the movie theatre experience through surround sound, 3D technology and popcorn soaked in butter.

However, are these pricing strategies effective? 3D movies command a three or four-dollar premium above the regular cost of a ticket, but do not represent an increased value to all consumers. 3D technology doesn’t provide value to consumers, mostly from older generations that experience dizziness and double vision from watching the 3D technology. It is likely that the popularity of 3D movies is just a fad. In order to capture the consumers who are price sensitive, and do not want to pay a premium for 3D movies, I would recommend that theatres charge lower prices for movies that have been in theatres for a longer period of time. Movie theatres consistently have a decrease in ticket sales for films that have been out longer anyways, which is why I think that their pricing strategy should combat this issue.

Since my last trip to the movies was a success (see my last two blog posts), I thought I would get a jump on finding the next film to spark my interest. After watching a few trailers for movies coming out later this year, I noticed a common theme. Here’s a few trailers I watched: Captain America, Cowboys and Aliens, Green Lantern, Thor and X-Men.

All are action-packed blockbuster material, likely to feature explosions and rebellious characters with superpowers. At first I was confused to see a lack of dramas in the line up, but after our class discussion about the Angry Birds iphone App game, it all makes sense! Large studios keep pumping out these action sci-fi adventure movies because they have a huge opportunity for brand extension. Each one of these movies has the chance to make massive sales after the movie has left theatres. Action figures, video games, even rides at amusement parks have all extended from blockbuster films. As for the drama films that keep disappearing, have you ever played a pride and prejudice video game? Didn’t think so.

The key to marketing movies today, just like the Angry Birds App, is building a strong brand through unique, likeable characters and a simple story line.  Its even better if those characters have supernatural abilities that people would want to test out in a video game.

So what does this mean for the movie industry? It’s likely that marketers will keep pushing films that have the possibility to expand into new markets, while low budget dramas will become increasingly more rare.

In my last post, I blogged about my NEED to see the Oscar nominated film, The King’s Speech. After seeing the movie, I can happily say I got my money’s worth. Not only did the Oscar nomination give the movie an increased profit and publicity, but the distributing movie studio, the Weinstein Company, is now planning on marketing the film to an entirely new demographic, moving from a concentrated targeting strategy to differentiated.  And who is this new segment that the studio believes will be itching to see a period piece about a stuttering middle-aged man? Teenagers and children of course!

Currently the movie is rated R, due to some strong, but necessary for the plot, language. The Weinstein Company plans to cut the bad language to give the film a new rating of PG and capture the 17 and under crowd. To appeal to this segment, further plans are to reposition the film as a classic, rather than simply critically acclaimed. It’s even getting a new tagline: “Some things never go out of style: Friendship; Courage; Loyalty,” which differs from the current tagline of, “It takes leadership to confront a nation’s fear. It takes friendship to conquer your own.”

While I think it’s clever to target a new segment, I’m not so sure the segment targeted is attractive in this case, or worth the marketing effort. While I loved the movie, three or four years ago I probably would not have jumped up to see this film. Teenagers tend to be more interested in fast-paced action and slapstick, in-your-face comedy. This film unfortunately has neither. While it is inspiring and well-made, I think the studio should do a bit more research on what teenagers find entertaining before investing in a new ad campaign.

Every year, I count down to one event, the exciting and always glamourous, Academy Awards. Like many other film fanatics, each year I bet on who is going to win best actor, director and the coveted Oscar for Best Film. This weekend I’m going to see a movie called The King’s Speech. While I’m sure it’s a great film, there is really only one reason I am going to see it, and that is because it is a front-runner to win this year’s Academy Award for Best Film. I have always strongly believed that if a movie has been nominated for an Oscar, it must be a brilliant piece of art that won’t waste my time or money, but it was only recently that I realized that many other people feel this way too.

Clip Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_Dw_w-Jnk8&feature=fvst

Oscar nominations are not only an honour for the nominee, they are also powerful marketing tools in the film industry. By attaching the strong Academy Award brand name to a movie, the film has a much higher perceived value to viewers. According to the brandchannel blog, Best Picture Oscar Winners made 22.2% more in box office revenue after their win.  Whether or not a person actually watches the Academy Awards on television, Oscar ‘buzz’ surrounds each nominated film and brings people to the theatres. Movie-goers like myself believe that if the Academy approves, there is less of a performance risk associated with choosing to buy a ticket for that movie.

My loyal relationship with the Academy Awards’ brand has been lengthy because they have rarely let me down and have consistently delivered high quality entertainment. When deciding between two movies to watch, I almost always choose those that have won or been nominated for the Academy Awards. Let’s just hope The King’s Speech will be able to deliver equally great value so that my loyal relationship with the Oscars continues.

When Gillette introduced the four razor blade, the male population was excited to finally have their closest shave ever. A few years later, after exhausting many versions of the disposable razor, Gillette thought why not take it one step further and introduce a fifth blade? Unfortunately, this time around the male population was skeptical that the extra sliver of a blade would deliver value equal to the higher price.

Marketing maintenance products to men is always more difficult than the opposite gender because men don’t tend to spend tons of money on their looks. It is even more difficult when men don’t feel any sort of functional need for the product. According to the Financial Post Marketing Blog, Gillette tackled this problem through a spoof commercial that pokes fun at the ever-increasing number of blades in their razors.

The spoof is an advertisement for an 80-razor blade, which I believe works by targeting men’s psychological needs rather than their functional needs. Since razors are cheap, men will not take long to make their purchasing decision. They will gravitate towards the Gillette 5 blade-razor because it is associated with being fun and not taking itself too seriously. The funny ad even manages to trigger man’s need for love on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, by displaying the freshly shaven man with an attractive blonde. While it may seem like a funny spoof at first glance, it manages to incorporate the correct balance of functional and psychological needs to target the adult male population.

With a cheaper, disposable product such as razors, consumers are not likely to invest in a lengthy external search for information about the product. Gillette has launched the video on youtube, which is an ideal site, since its target market spends a large amount of their time searching for funny videos and it is likely that this one will eventually pop up.

http://business.financialpost.com/2011/01/21/fp-marketing-gillette-mocks-itself-in-multi-blade-viral-ad/

In today’s world, everyone has a cell phone and consumers can be reached in a few seconds by a simple text. Marketing agencies and departments, which were quick to jump on the social media trend, are meeting this opportunity with the same level of enthusiasm. Long gone are the days when companies had to wait until a consumer stumbled across their advertisement on a website or in a magazine.

From a marketing point of view,  mobile marketing is brilliant. People who don’t have Internet or haven’t picked up the latest vogue still have a hope of being reached by phone.

We’re used to being bombarded with ads every day on billboards, online, and even clothes, so maybe it’s logical that cell phones are next. But is there a point when it becomes too intrusive?

As a consumer, mobile marketing sounds a lot to me like spam. I dislike spam on my email, and I’m pretty sure that won’t change when I receive it via text.  If mobile marketing is anything like those irritating emails I receive, a lot of consumers are going to become ticked off, rather than more loyal to the brand.

http://www.b2cmarketinginsider.com/mobile-apps/mobile-marketing-in-2011-–-are-you-ready-09551

image: http://www.themarketingchefs.com/img/header_home.gif

Nothing is more important for a company than attaining respect and trust from its consumers. Unfortunately, Toyota did act in their consumers’ best interest when they neglected to announce the safety errors discovered in their vehicles.

Toyota’s reputation first went down the drain when it failed to recall 2.3 million vehicles with faulty accelerator pedals for 4 months. Now the company has to pay the largest fine in automobile history: $16.4 million! Toyota designs vehicles that can potentially cause death if the smallest piece doesn’t work. Shouldn’t they have been prepared to react to a situation like this?

The problem now is that the recall didn’t just happen once. Last week, the recalls continued with 600,000 Sienna minivans, which had faulty spare tire cables, and all 2010 Lexus GX 460’s were recalled earlier today. Toyota is now apologizing for how it handled the initial recall, but it may be too late. Toyota’s reputation continues to fall and it is likely that loyal Toyota customers have already begun to look elsewhere for safe vehicles. Toyota is no longer considered number one in quality and safety. It will be difficult for Toyota to regain consumer trust after this incident.

http://detnews.com/article/20100419/AUTO01/4190391/Toyota-agrees-to-pay-$16-4-million-fine