How to Sell Your Movie to an Audience — Film Marketing Strategies [Stages of Filmmaking Ep. 5]

making a film can feel like a miracle this series demystifies the entire film making process in our previous episode we looked at post production today we'll see how the final product gets sold to an audience and what a filmmaker can do to maximize the number of viewers for their movie well get them into the theater come on all you need is a trailer moment oh these are the stages of film making marketing it's AAR before we start spreading the word don't forget to subscribe to Studio binder and enable notifications to catch future episodes in this series today we're joined by Season movie marketing executive David Edwards and independent key artist Eric Reese now it's time to channel our inner Don Draper let's begin marketing is critical to the commercial success of a movie most movies cost a lot of money and marketing is necessary to make that money back David Edwards explains what marketing means it's kind of a catchall term a good friend of mine once said nobody knows what it is and that's why they call it marketing because it's just you know it's very Broad and basically in the case of movies it's making sure that the movie is on screen and that they're aware and hopefully encouraged and and interested in seeing it ultimately it's where a film goes from being a self-contained piece of art to being a sort of broadly accessible piece of culture a marketer must build anticipation for a film targeting the right people and generating interest so that a film gets as large an audience as possible markting can be expensive so it is crucial that a project has a portion of its budget set aside for the pivotal stage this portion is called the prints and advertising budget for bigger Studio films a typical marketing budget might be 50% of the film's production costs in some cases advertising can cost even more than the film itself get out for example was made for a reported $4.5 million while it's estimated marketing budget was 30 million considering the film made over 255 million worldwide it was money well spent thank you so much good night typically the marketing stage is led by a studio or Distributors Chief marketing officer or president of marketing their Vision will be executed by the marketing manager who should be skilled at identifying a target audience interest and developing a strategy they are often aided by marketing assistance advertising agencies may also be contracted to lend expertise and resources marketing can take many different shapes varying wildly depending on the type of film and its budget marketing is also a rapidly evolving field with the internet smart marketing can result in overnight viral phenoms let's look closer at the different types of marketing great marketing doesn't depend on one method for building awareness first there are various media streams that can be generated to gain attention these streams can be divided into three types of media paid earned and owned paid media refers to advertisements and trailers which the marketing team must directly pay for it's ad space you know it's could be a Super Bowl spot it could be a billboard or a bus bench space that you're buying you know for a month or two it could be boosted social media posts in feed I am buying a defined amount of Impressions or video views or whatever it may be there's a guarantee against it and it's and it's achieved you know through a transaction earned media is content generated by word of mouth and third party sources like reviews and social media reactions a marketing team can encourage earned media but it isn't completely within their control you know anytime something goes viral that's earned media you know it's basically hit the slipstream of social commentary and conversation and it's been shared because there's an quality to it that people want to discuss and share and then hopefully headlines and conversation around your film is is generated and earned through the activity within the campaign owned media often refers to branches within a Studios company that can promote the movie for example a Marvel movie may be covered by ABC which would count as owned media since both properties are owned by Disney owned media that could be the studios's Tik Tok Channel which they don't pay to post on you know but when they do post often it reaches a you know million or 5 million or 20 million people and you know you can do that without having to pay to play it can also refer to a studio social media accounts as well as content created during production including onset interviews and behind the-scenes footage this media is typically overseen by the electronic press kit producer the EPK producer will work with the marketing manager to build out all of the content they think they'll need for the press kit and and coordinate with the assistant director to figure out where to put BTS cameras on set there are a few materials nearly every marketing strategy requires the first is the trailer which is put together by a trailer editor a trailer is vital for generating interest great trailers capture the tone and characters of a film while emphasizing its hook what makes the movie unique why should an audience want to see it by design a trailer should leave an audience wanting more a larger movie with more built-in anticipation May release a teaser before a full trailer TV spots are often shorter but both are designed to maximize Intrigue a marketing campaign also relies on strong and clear visuals collectively known as key art key artist Reese explains the key art is supposed to tell the entire story of the movie in a single image if you can encapsulate the idea of the story in a takeaway like when you walk out and you go oh now that makes sense you did your job this includes posters Billboards bus ads as well as online banners and social media posts the post is created by a poster designer so a poster designer design is the poster but that that's an Antiquated term because now we're streaming right so really what you're doing is you're making the piece of art that somebody gravitates towards that hopefully you'd want to hang on your wall if it was a piece of art but really nowadays is what makes you stop scrolling and click on it and like a trailer it should convey the theme of a movie and highlight reason and audience should see it it should tell the story of the movie if it can't do that it should grab your attention it should stop you in your tracks a movie poster might Forefront a popular actor an auring premise a catchy tagline or a filmmaker with a track record of success if a film has received positive critical attention its poster may include quotes from critics or Film Festival accolades today a good marketing team must be good at digital marketing most films will build up a significant online presence before being released this means having their own social media accounts and website the goal of these accounts is to generate word ofm mouth buzz it may release intriguing BTS content or Amplified teaser and trailer releases different social media platforms may be better for different content Instagram for example is better for poppy visuals captured by the unit Stills photographer who is hired on set to take high quality images of scenes Facebook meanwhile is better for targeted ads and Tik Tok is best for building and engaging with Trends marketing teams may also use influencers align with their target audience to promote their film stars too often have large followings online so having them promote the film on their accounts can be extremely useful this is usually coordinated through an actors's publicist who schedules their appearances on talk shows interviews and popular social media accounts actors will also partake in press junkets where publicists schedul a series of interviews with various news outlets in a single location typically a press kit will be sent out to journalists and other respected voices in order to build Word of Mouth a unit publicist will usually put together press releases and work as a liaison with a film set to schedule press visits press screenings are held exclusively for critics to hopefully generate positive word of mouth advanced promotional screenings and sneak previews are also great ways to build anticipation directly with fans movies with the potential to win high-profile Awards like Golden Globes or Oscars may also run for your consideration campaigns to encourage voters to select their film if the film does win some of these coveted Awards there is often a renewed marketing campaign highlighting the recent accolades Studios may also resort to showy publicity stunts the movie smile paid actors to grin creepily at cameras during sporting events in some cases these can actually backfire like when the marketing for Mission Impossible three inadvertently created a bomb scare in La larger films will often also build awareness through product tie-ins like Happy Meal toys action figures or video games these tie-ins can work as marketing and generate Revenue I mean look at all that cheddar there are countless ways a marketing team can build hype around a film but all these methods may be a waste of money without being streamlined into a coherent marketing [Music] plan marketing plans can look very different depending on the movie marketing an indie film for example is vastly different from marketing a blockbuster the biggest differences between Studio marketing and and marketing for an indie release obviously budget is probably the the number one thing but with that and sort of by extension it's it's access and its resources typically indie films do not utilize wide reaching but expensive mediums like television commercials they will rely more on social media and Word of Mouth generated by reviews targeting a more specific audience they also often employ outside independent marketing agencies such as David Edwards thanks pictures big studios meanwhile typically are vertically integrated meaning they have an in-house marketing arm for their blockbusters these Studios will use a 360° marketing approach attempting to reach as many people as possible this effort is typically reserved for what are regarded as four quadrant movies movies that cover the entirety of a quadrant table divided by male and female and over and under 25 years old so it's really an all ages sort of crowd pleaser all audiences film they're trying to kind of you know ride the line and make sure everybody feels welcome and invited whereas like a two quad movie for example might be a a movie that only appeals to older audiences or only appeals to men certainly there are lots of women that want to see them but generally speaking you're going to over index with with a male audience and so that's where the marketing money goes and that's where the resources are are committed identifying a film's potential audience is crucial When developing a marketing plan marketers will divide a theoretical audience into three categories the target audience or core audience is the group of people that a marketing team is most certain will want to see a film the secondary audience or opportunity audience is the audience that might end up seeing the movie but wouldn't be as motivated the tertiary audience is the least interested group but if the movie becomes a hit they may develop curiosity about it deciding on Who falls into what audience is a result of demographic research psychographic research is also useful for a marketing plan this refers to targeting an audience based on lifestyle choices politics income and other individualized elements all this research can help a marketing team understand the potential box office for a film which in turn tells them how much money they should be spending on Advertising it can also inform a marketing team on whether people will actually go to the theater for a film or if they will wait for it to stream this can affect the timeline of their marketing strategy of course the quality of the movie itself will also dictate some of the marketing strategy if a marketing team anticipates negative reviews for a film they may not provide any screenings before the official release so bad word of mouth doesn't sour the opening weekend a smart marketing plan is equally important for the smallest Indie and the biggest Blockbuster effective marketing can result in exponential dividends at the box office let's look at a few examples of successful marketing campaigns great marketing campaigns often require the ability to think outside the box we would love it if you could just get into that giant box get that Barbie the Barbie marketing team engaged in several publicity stunts Warner Brothers Discovery created a unique take on the owned media approach creating a reality TV series barie Dreamhouse Challenge on its Channel HGTV the team also built a real world Barbie dream housee in Malibu and put up blank pink bill boards around the world which only had the release date for the film studios can also use marketing to expand their films worlds Toy Story 3 released fake commercials for some of the toys in the film The Dark Knight team created an alternate reality game designed to build maximum Intrigue for the movie's release ex makina got attention for for creating a fake Tinder account for one of its primary characters this generated awareness in Austin Texas before its South by Southwest premere as well as hinted at some of the key themes in the film but Creative Marketing isn't only the domain of big budget [Music] Blockbusters paranormal activity which was shot for only $115,000 used footage of test screenings with terrified audience members to create interest I'm still here used its star power in a unique way making it unclear if Wen Phoenix had in fact lost his mind what do you what do you have them on I'm sorry I'm sorry what do you what do you gas them up with which in turn made audiences more interested in the FAE documentary with foreign movies marketing teams face additional challenges often not having the best benefit of recognizable Stars David Edwards and his team worked on Godzilla minus one which became a smash success as the highest grossing Japanese film in US history the film was released in Japan to celebrate the franchise's 70th Anniversary November the 3rd 2023 and Edwards and his team were confident it could play well in the US alongside Toho International the marketers utilize Japanese created assets by trailers and posters and localize them for the us as well as creating their own trailers that debuted the same day as the Japanese release the team created additional material for IMAX 40x and Dolby Cinema including new posters and teasers digital marketing was also crucial Partnerships were created with online Outlets like IGN and Corridor Digital the film also had various social media accounts which often used clips from the entire Godzilla franchise hoping to excite the sizable fan Community anticipation was further stoked by a us Premier in Los Angeles on November the 10th which was attended by director tekashi yamazaki and Star rusuk kamiki as well as an early access Fan event on November the 29th the film was then released on December the first in 1800 theaters this was much closer to the Japanese release than with previous Godzilla movies the team hoped this smaller Gap would keep the excitement of the film going and they did not ask theaters to commit to a specific run since they were confident the film would stay on screens with a strong performance this turned out to be true and Godzilla minus one enjoyed a lengthy theatrical run by its second week the film was expanded to 2500 theaters the Run was extended even more by the release of G1 minus color a black and white version of the film this version was also marketed heavily with its own trailers and posters and was released in US theaters for one week the marketing team then ran an fyc campaign for best VFX and successfully secured an Academy Award nomination Godzilla minus one success in the US shows the importance of smart marketing generating Word of Mouth hype through a variety of [Music] media making a movie is a gruelling process so it's important that when it's finished someone sees it that's why marketing shouldn't be treated as an after thought a great movie can only be deemed as great by an audience and an audience only shows up if a movie's been marketed when it's time to Market your own project use Studio binder to create a key art gallery and schedule your marketing campaign subscribe and enable notifications to see our next entry in the stages of filmm series distribution where a film is finally presented to an audience and be sure to check out the studio binder Academy channel for in-depth interviews with industry professionals like David Edwards and Eric Ree and step-by-step tutorials goodbye for now time to build your [Music] audience

Channel: StudioBinder

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Keywords: Film marketing strategies, marketing indie film, modern day film marketing, utilizing youtube for film marketing, indie film marketing, the best film marketing strategies, innovative movie marketing, film marketing, digital marketing film, marketing strategies for film, film marketing campaigns, what is film marketing, international film marketing, how to do film marketing, how to market a movie, marketing a film online, marketing, social media marketing, studiobinder

Id: X1tn9gaqSJU

Length: 21min 59sec (1319 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 04 2024