Month: November 2010

One thing about me is that my life pretty much revolves around movies. I’m obsessed with watching all the new trailers and keeping up with casting news and new releases for the next 3 months. It’s not that I’m obsessed with celebrities or anything because that’s not why I’ll watch a movie (okay FINE. Sometimes it is. SOMETIMES.) I am genuinely just really into the whole movie culture. I’ll watch Hollywood blockbusters at the Scotiabank Theatre or indie movies at VIFF or old school flicks rented from Blockbuster. And even though not everyone may be as into movies as I am, it’s undeniable that movie culture has a HUGE influence on contemporary culture. And not only that, but it’s a great way for certain companies to make some quick cash by creating promotional products or advertising schemes for a limited time while there is still a lot of anticipation for an upcoming movie to explode in theatres.  2 really prominent ones that I’ve seen lately are the pair-ups of Pantene/”Tangled” & Hurley/ “Tron”.  Pantene is obviously a company known for their hair products so it seems extremely appropriate that they would partner up with “Tangled”, a movie about Rapunzel, for their line of shampoo and conditioner products. A not so obvious connection is Hurley, a clothing company. Although they’re usually known for their clothing and shoes that reflect a skater/urban vibe, the ad for their partnership with Tron is something that looks very different from their usual merchandise of board shorts and bomber jackets. The model in the ad is wearing a sleek black mini dress, with a design that’s similar to the outfits that the characters in the movie are seen wearing.  This just goes to show that a movie can provide a good excuse for a company to go beyond their comfort zone and provides a chance to capture a new target market that they would normally not be able to reach.  And with the movie, Tron, soon to be released in theatres and already generating A LOT of hype, Hurley can expect that their new line of “Tron clothes” is going to be a success.

The same marketing technique can also be used in the reverse way: using an already famous entity to create hype for a movie. As my friend, Andrew Kwan, mentioned in his blog (https://blogs.ubc.ca/akwan91/2010/09/29/500-million-friends/), the movie “The Social Network” got a lot of attention because it was a biopic about Facebook, a zeitgeist of our generation. Not that it was the only reason that the movie was such a huge hit (since Jesse Eisenberg did do a STELLAR job portraying Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of Facebook) but it certainly didn’t hurt that the social networking site has practically become a necessity for most students in high school and college.  In fact, the movie poster for the movie had nothing but the actor’s face on it and the title of the movie line across it. Even just by seeing the font, it was easy to make the connection that the movie was somehow related to Facebook. The font used in its logo is a brand in its own. And it did a little more than help the blockbuster get more publicity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTWFuZEcJlo

Hurley x Tron Website:

https://shop.hurley.com/department/tron-legacy-10132.cfm?killnav=1

It was just last week that we were talking about shelf talkers in class and how they’re an effective way to grab a shopper’s attention as they’re browsing through a store.  When I was working at HMV, we would use shelf talkers to let customers know about special promotions for the day so I was already familiar with the term. But our shelf talkers were just hot pink labels that we would use on the dividers. They weren’t anything too fancy.

But yesterday while I was looking for popcorn at Safeway, I walked past a shelf and I suddenly heard popcorn popping coming from the boxes on the shelf. I was so confused and I immediately stopped and looked around, desperately trying to find out where the sound was coming from. Finally, I saw a black box with speakers placed camouflaged on the shelf among the boxes and bags of popcorn. My first thought was. “Holy breadsticks! That is so awesome!” and the next thing I thought was, “Look at all this popcorn! I need to buy some kettle corn NOW!” It went something like that anyway.  But the point is, the shelf talker was really attention-grabbing and even if I wasn’t initially thinking of buying popcorn, after hearing the sound of popping popcorn and seeing all the different varieties that I can choose from, I would definitely start considering buying some to snack on later.

Best shelf talker. Ever.

Twitter is such a large part of our generation nowadays that it is used to market close to everything. Many clubs at UBC have their own twitter pages to update their members about new events, opportunities, etc. Restaurants, bars, radio stations, and everything between and beyond  have their own pages as well to tweet about things happening within their realms.

Recently, I came across this nifty, vintage packaging for post-it notes:

First, I’d just like to say that I LOVE the packaging. I love anything vintage so this little box that the post-it notes come in is definitely appealing to me. They even changed the way the “twitter bird” looks to make it look a little more like it’s from the 1950’s. I’m feeling the throwback. Even though the concept is nothing new (meaning the post-its aren’t anything new. They’re still square, yellow, and awesome), I still feel compelled to buy this “new product” because 1. the packaging is so cute & 2. “vintage twitter” sounds so retro and cool.

It’s suckers like me that fall for these corporate, marketing traps but I’m not going to deny, it works. And if it works for one, naive consumer, I’m positive it’ll work for a million more.

Gee golly, good show! (that’s what they would’ve said in the 1950’s right?)

Even though we probably don’t think about it that often, there’s actually a lot of marketing that goes into making a book successful.  As I remember once hearing in a nice little movie called Cheaper by the Dozen, “If there’s no book tour, there’s no book.” Recently, I’ve noticed that there is actually a lot of publicity going into a book before, during, and after its release. I guess it’s pretty much like any other product.  Books always seem to sell themselves though. It’s almost as though the author comes up with some brilliant idea, gets a book published, gets it on a shelf, and then waits for the money to start rolling in. But in reality, there’s a lot more work than just sitting around and waiting for their book to do the work for them.

Surprisingly, I came to this realization through Twitter. I was following Russell Brand, famous for his roles in movies such as Forgetting Sarah Marshall and newly wed to Katy Perry. He released his second novel a couple of months ago which was titled, “My Booky Wook 2”. His first book did really well so I assumed that when he first mentioned a sequel’s release, he’d maybe do a book signing or two and call it a day. WRONG. He was promoting his book for over a month through tweets. But promoting didn’t just mean mentioning the book.  It meant mentioning the dozens and dozens of signings that he was holding over the span of months at bookstores located around the WORLD, not just North America where he currently resides. Books are kind of a big deal.  And sometimes he’d take pictures at these book signings and it’s absolute pandemonium at them sometimes. People are hoarding around him, books pushed into his face. Of course, not every book signing is going to be this chaotic because obviously not everyone is a celebrity/comedian/actor/married to Katty Perry who decides to write a book. But the fact still holds that something as humble as a book has extreme marketing tactics around it. To sell a book, you need events and exposure like this.

Another thing worth noting about books is that when it does get to the point where it can sell itself based on a good story, usually after generating enough buzz by being a New York Times #1 Bestseller, it becomes trendy to recruit that book to be made into a movie. Sometimes, even into multiple different versions. The book I’m specifically talking about is “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” which I’m reading right now (it’s SOOO GOOOD by the way. I’m only 121 pages in right now but it’s already addictive!! Cheers to failing my finals because of the Millennium Trilogy! Jokes. Hopefully).  If you already don’t know, all 3 books have already been made into 3 very successful films in Sweden. But that’s not where they’re stopping. American versions of the movies are now in production and are scheduled to be released in 2011.  I know this all seems kind of irrelevant but the fact is that filmmakers wouldn’t have even know about this book if it weren’t for very good marketing on the book’s publisher’s part. And of course the success of the Swedish films were a major contributor to the Americans’ decision to create their own version of the movie. I haven’t seen the Swedish version of the movie yet but I’ve heard a lot about it which reveals, again, good marketing. When it was first released, Blockbuster promoted the film as one of their “Hidden Gems” and every visitor to the store is greeted with an ominous image of Lisbeth Salander upon first entering. The successful marketing of the Swedish version of “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” in North America has undoubtedly contributed to the hype around the work-in-progress American version. It is already a highly anticipated project and I personally can’t wait for it to come out next year. After I finish reading all 3 books.

I recently got a position in a UBC advertising club called Advertisinc and I was fortunate enough to make it onto the team that I wanted to work on: Warner Brothers.  We worked in conjunction with a company called Gray Marketing which was hired by Warner Brothers.  We were essentially responsible for promoting the new movie “Due Date” starring Zach Galifianakis (Alan from the Hangover!!!!) and Robert Downey Jr, who is Iron Man of course.

Warner Brothers was able to host a pre-screening of the movie this past Monday at the Norm Theatre which was really cool because the actual release date for the movie isn’t until this Friday.

The reason I brought his up was because as a team, Advertisinc was responsible for promoting this movie, which means getting the word out and letting people know about the movie.  We were given lots of swag and premiere tickets to work with but basically, we had the freedom to plan/organize any events or promotional strategies that we thought would work.  The only request that we were given was to make sure that we got proof from each event about our promotional efforts, which basically just meant get tons of photographs to show Warner Brothers that we were doing our job.

Before this gig, I had prior experience with event-planning but nothing that had ever been so “start-from-scratch” or with such limited time either.  We got all our ideas together within 2 days and had only 2 weeks to plan and implement everything in time for the day of the premiere.  From other events that I’ve helped plan, there was always a precedent that we could refer to, or some kind of protocol that we had to follow.  But with this process, there was nothing like that.  We were able to have a brainstorm session where we just blurted out any ideas that we could possibly have to help us promote the movie.  I always have really outlandish ideas that are over-the-top and usually taken as too crazy but it was different for this project because we were looking for insane and attention-grabbing and out-of-the-box. Of course, a lot of the ideas were impossible but it was really refreshing to experience the creative side of marketing where I could come up with really crazy ideas and it could be considered “all part of the process.”

This has definitely been one of the best experiences I’ve had with marketing/advertising.  And I’ve really realized that this could be something that I would genuinely enjoy as a career.  I’ve known now for awhile that I’ve wanted to major in marketing, and recently decided that I want to work in the advertising industry (my dream job is to work with ReThink Communications.  LOVE THEM!)  And being in Advertisinc has really given me a good taste of the kind of work that I could potentially be doing. I love being able to get creative, to just get all my ideas out, and to have a supportive group around me that welcomes new ideas, both the good and the bad ones, mind you.  But accepting nonetheless.  I’ve been in the field, and I’m liking the scenery.