Skip to main content

Marketing in Film.

"You can't sell anything if you can't tell anything".  Beth Comstock

 It is apt that I begin my first blog of 2016 featuring a female marketeer, Beth Comstock who initially studied science, moved into television production and is now the new vice chair of business innovation at General Electric, USA.

More than her achievements, it is her take on marketing that excites me.  Essentially a sale cannot occur without a story, and so here, the big global companies of the world are all banding to create stories for their products that potentially induce an emotion or a journey for the consumer so that the product is appealing and consequently sold. I have to add that right there, is the one advantageous aspect that filmmakers have, the ultimate storytellers, and yet, the concept of marketing in the filmmaking process is always thought about right at the end, and by then, it can be all a little too late.

The big studios have caught on to this and are now employing marketing producers in pre production.  The marketing producer sits in all of the meetings and ascertains the vision and the direction of the film and from the onset devises a marketing strategy that begins at that point before the film is even created to the conclusion of the film and beyond.  Consumers, or the potential audience of that film, is reached before the film is even released.

Just because the big studios are doing this, does not mean that indie filmmakers cannot do it.  It is simple, at the onset of the film, whether it is a short or a feature, documentary, drama, comedy, animation, or any genre for that matter, a marketing producer must be employed at the beginning and a story devised surrounding the concept, theme, idea behind the film and a campaign formulated that can include social media, print, and events.  Be creative, but as a marketeer there must be a story to tell the story.  Just look at the marketing campaign of the 'Hunger Games' to understand how serious this business really is before the film is ever made.  Local shop owners do the same when they lease out a shopfront, before the business has even opened, it is advertised for all to see.  A filmmaker should not be any different.


I like the way FaceBook has a feature that indicates on their client's pages, how many people are actually talking about the page or the post.  It is imperative that consumers have a product at the forefront of their thoughts for it to be a success and that is why a marketing campaign must begin for a film right at the beginning.  The consumer or the audience needs to know about it, fed the story behind the story, in small unfolding doses, in any media that works, whether it is a virtual world, interactive website, vines, pics, it can be endless and thought provoking, ultimately leading to box office sales.  I find it an enormous exciting challenge to do this, and something I am thinking about as I plunge into the development of some major projects ahead, no doubt there will be a lot of telling on my part.  Stay tuned.



Stella Dimadis
January, 2016


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Writer's block

Writer's block The Writer's responsibility is to his art.  He will be completely ruthless if he is a good one.  He has a dream.  It anguishes him so much he must get rid of it.  He has no peace until then... William Faulkner  Having written films, articles, essays, reports, it has always, at one stage or another, plagued me when I have had writer's block.  That moment when I sit staring at the computer screen as if it is an alien standing it's ground in a duel for battle with me.  Eyeing me, daring me to drop my weapons of my imagination.  The frustration builds up and chocolate beckons, serenading the virtues of itself.  It is all too familiar, this battle, and I may have thrown my writing in all together had it not been for my editor in the late 90's when I completed some articles for Who Weekly. I remember grizzling into the phone line with him that my writing was not perfect...there was something missing...I couldn't pinpoint it....
2 comments
Read more

Memories are the key not to the past, but to the future.

"Memories are the key not to the past, but to the future. "   Corrie Ten Boom Corrie Ten Boom was a Dutch watchmaker, who had helped many Jews escape during the Holocaust, was a prisoner and then a writer.  She held many memories, no doubt, fears; images that would stay forever and haunt her, but they were able to unlock a future for her that she would never have imagined.  Her writing and her boldness initiated her knighthood by the Queen of the Netherlands, The King's College in New York City named a new women's house in her honour, her book "The Hiding Place", was  made into a feature film, twice. Locked away in our computer hard drives are examples of our work and lives that we lock away when our computer sleeps, forgetting about their importance because we are always told to focus on the now, forgetting about our past.  Well, perhaps it is time that we also learn to love our past, regardless of what it was like, so that we can understand what our...
Post a Comment
Read more

Cruella

Cruella “Cruella was in a box a long time, now Estella can be the one who makes guest appearances!” -Cruella Every so often, a film encapsulates all of the factors that make it ‘wow’, leaving the audience totally satisfied.  Cruella, directed by Craig Gillespie, starring Emma Stone, Emma Thompson, screenplay by Dana Fox and Tony McNamara, produced by Disney does exactly that. It was released in Australia on May the 27th, 2021, not the best year for a release due to the Pandemic and inherent lockdowns in this country, but nevertheless a real treat on any screen. The film follows Estella before she becomes Cruella De Vil; a gifted, precocious girl whose rebellious streak, fighting spirit and desire to become a fashion designer is the perfect mix for her journey through life.  She was orphaned at 12 from whom she thought was her biological mother, but of course the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree and with the help of her two childhood partners, Horace and Jasper, Estella e...
Post a Comment
Read more