The third annual Variety Film Marketing Summit covered a range of topics from movie-going opportunities in BRIC countries to social marketing and the current state of film distribution and marketing. On the list of conferences and seminars, this one would have to be near the top due to the quality of speakers and moderators.
The first discussion of the day was perhaps the most intriguing, “Opportunities in Emerging Markets.” With representatives from Fox International Marketing and RealD the focus was mainly on China, the second biggest film market in the world.
China is the wild west of film. Numerous inconveniences stand in the way of American studios but it is too large of a market to ignore. Studios rely on the China Film Group’s revenue numbers to collect their percentage of the share, and even then it takes a long period of time to receive the money. The China Film Group also restricts foreign films to 40% of the market and has a large influence over release dates, often not giving the studio advance notice of the final release date. At this point it becomes a mad dash to get the marketing in order.
Films are marketed in China largely via TV, outdoor and digital media. The largest social network in China, Renren, is used regularly and social media had a large impact on Titanic recording $145MM in revenue. Director driven publicity goes a long way in China. James Cameron made an appearance at the Beijing Film Festival to coincide with the Titanic rerelease.
3D Films are very popular in China, accounting for about 40% of the box office. 3D is a way of piracy protection because consumers know they can’t replicate the same experience at home with their bootlegged version.
Another interesting topic covered the marketing for the film Ted. While I rated it the worst film of 2012, I would consider it the best-marketed film of 2012. Universal Pictures had a great understanding of the film and its target market. They knew the crude humor would be difficult with the MPAA restrictions so they enlisted the help of the filmmakers who were already hugely popular to push the film.
Seth McFarlane and his writers had 3.5 million Twitter followers and Family Guy had 40 million fans on Facebook allowing Universal to leverage the filmmakers’ current fan base and create one of the most viral campaigns in history. Like in the movie the marketing team gave Ted, a talking teddy bear, a real personality in the digital world. By the time the film came out Ted had sent out 300 tweets and had hundreds of thousands of followers anxious to see the film.
There were also over 10 million downloads of a photobombing app called “My Wild Night With Ted,” a brilliant complement targeted at the under 35 crowd that is most likely to go see the movie. The campaign continued to the home entertainment release and beyond, and now that a sequel has been green lit the studio has an established fanbase already in place.
Ted’s marketing success is another example of how knowing your product and knowing your market are the most important things in marketing.