Regardless of the medium, undoubtedly one of the best aspects of using social media and web 2.0 interconnectivity to market your product or service is the fact that it is often very cheap, if not FREE. For a very minimal overhead, you can reach a massive percentage of your target audience, by (as Bernoff & Li continually restate) focusing on the relationships rather than the technologies.
With this in mind, it is no surprise the independent film market has been attempting to use social media extensively to promote their films. They simply do not have the enormous budget to rely on the previous "old school" model of film marketing used by major studios, primarily TV an pre-Film Trailers, or the network to distributing promotional posters to theaters nationwide (let alone world-wide).
One of the first example's of effective use of social media marketing to promote a film (even before the "groundswell" Li and Bernoff discuss) was the Blair Witch project. A invaluable component to their marketing approach was an accompanying website that from the start pitched the idea as if the film was genuine "found footage." With this in mind, the website continued bio's of the filmmaker's, historical data, everything and anything to create the initial allusion that the film's occurrences were real.
http://www.blairwitch.com/aftermath.html
It was not the technological set up that mattered. What was significant was that it got people interested, it got people talking amongst themselves. Mostly, what these curious interested viewers were wondering was "Is this true?" Some thought so, others did not, but what was important was they created relationships and engaged in discussion. In fact, in 1999 the New York Time's even called the Blair Witch Marketing scheme "the center of a new form of synergy and an inspired multimedia blitz." CNN summarized their statement by relating "In other words, expect new films to rely on their Web sites more, and expand their plotlines to other media." http://www.cnn.com/SHOWBIZ/Movies/9907/27/blair.witch/
If only they knew how right they were! Before social networking as we know it existed today, a hotly debated online community emerged from this clever marketing, creating a huge buzz for the film with very little cost or effort.
While Blair Witch proved the effectiveness of groundswell tactics for the Independent film, Hollywood "studio" pictures soon caught on as well. Social Media marketing, first seen as unnecessary, then accompanying, is now practically the most prominent marketing for motion pictures out there! So why has it become a necessity? According to a 2008 study by film marketing guru Gordon Paddison, 73% of 4,000 moviegoers have established profiles on social media networks. At this time the number has only dramatically increased.
Similarly, Dave Poland (http://moviecitynews.com/)makes this assessment
94% of all moviegoers are online; this is true across age groups. 88% have high speed/broadband connections.
86% of moviegoers across all demo segments go online via computer or mobile device at least once a day. They spend more time each week online (19.8 hours) than they do watching TV (14.3 hours).
90% of all ages of moviegoers have mobile phones; 32% of moviegoers no longer use a landline (44% of the 18-29 demo).
93% use Internet search to find more information about movies. Exposures that trigger online search include: Seeing a trailer (71%), seeing a TV spot (60%), someone telling you about a movie (58%).
Furthermore:
CRITICISM:
84% of moviegoers make up their mind to see a movie regardless of what the critics say about it.
62% of moviegoers now get review information online.
45% of heavy moviegoers rely on movie review aggregation sites, placing a high value in seeing an average score.
75% say they trust a friend’s opinion more than a movie critic.
80% say positive reviews from other moviegoers make them more likely to see a movie (vs. 67% who say a positive review from professional critics does).
40% say negative reviews from other moviegoers make them decide not to see a movie (vs. 28% who say negative reviews from professional critics would keep them from going).
In effect, the movie industry practiced another one of Bernoff and Li's MOST critical points before they took action. They LISTENED!
After realizing of simply "Listening" for market research and to realize what consumers wanted out of a relationship, they finally let go of purely analyzing by data, and learned to truly think like the consumer.
Observe a more recent film very comparable to The Blair Witch Project. Paranormal Activity is similarly a low budget horror film, but again was a HUGE success due to clever and cheap marketing.
Advertising Age.com summarized four major lessons to be learned from Paranormal Activity's success:
- Let consumers dictate distribution.
- Don’t waste money on large-scale TV campaigns when you can talk directly to your fans.
- Don’t create false hype
- When there are low financial barriers, have fun
http://adage.com/article/madisonvine-news/low-budget-movie-marketing-paranormal-activity/139588/
All of these aspects throughouly exemplify a groundswell approach. Notice in particular, relating to "false hype" Bernoff and Li state "strategies based on deception are doomed to failure (p.239)." There is simply such a steady stream of feeback in today's world, your customer's will not stand for it!
Unsurprisingly, the main points continually reinforced throughout Groundswell are what advertising agencies are finding work well to promote films. Just as the Bernoff and Li emphasize on pg. 240 "Never forget that the groundswell is about person to person activity. This means you as a person must be ready to connect to people you haven't met, customers of yours." Using the examples of cancer patient Lynn Perry and luggage buyer Jim Noble, they state how crucial it is to engage in a two way conversation with your audience. This audience conversation is particularly efficient in the film market as potential moviegoers are typically VERY well connected via social technologies.
On February 10th, the film X-Man: First Class (Due out June 3, 2001) debuted the trailer on facebook. There was a clever catch however, you first had to "like" the page to unlock it. Furthermore, the more you shared the trailer, the more you unlocked special items. http://www.facebook.com/xmenmovies. Not only does this make it fun for the audience, but it is some great free marketing assistance. Hollywood has come a long way, from being underwhelmed with the groundswell, to premiering the trailer of a major blockbuster exclusively on facebook. There is no telling how much more creative future efforts willl be, but as long as they appeal to consumer's sense of interaction and entertainment, there is no telling how daring and bold groundswell film marketing will grow to be.
