As my good friend Ian Schafer points out via MediaPost, Google/Nielsen's study of 2,000 U.S. moviegoers last June shows how the Web is neck and neck with TV in the race for moviegoing influence.
Great affirmation, right? But remember: Online = 3.7% of $3.5 million spent per-film on marketing in '06... Something doesn't add up!
I'll be emailing this study to all my clients so they can bring it to their next budget meeting.
Samsung is celebrating the unsung heroes of independent film in their new program called blueseat.com. Not all the deets are in, but from what I can tell, it seems like their sponsoring an indie film every eight weeks to help market and raise awareness via exclusive behind the scenes content. They're also hinting at what seems like a partnership with Landmark Theaters that will reserve two "blue seats" in theaters for optimum viewing and comfort for members of the program.
Will Samsung benefit from borrowed interest from the hipster indie crowd? Will it sell more Blackjacks and home theater systems to the art-house set? Only time will tell, but I'm sure the branded blue seats in theaters will spark conversations. And hopefully the online effort will engage even deeper.
Sadly, I'll miss the "thing" a friend invited me to tomorrow night for blueseat.com, so in full disclosure, I did get ping'd about this - but I do think it's a good way for big brands to engage with movie audiences.
Part two of our Movie Marketing 3-Way on Across the Sound is up now. But you'd know that because part one prompted you to subscribe to the feed... right?
Joe Jaffe, Chris Thilk and I discuss Red-Band trailers, Balls of Fury and Spiderpig. I rant about John From Cincinnati being canceled. Apparently, I'm the only one in the world who liked it. Good fun.
In a daring move by Newmarket, the official site for The Nines is essentially a blog. Now, Fox Searchlight and others have fully embraced 2.0 features, adding social media content, aggregating, and otherwise evolving with the latest trends, but here they've stripped it all down to one of the barest-of-bones movie websites in recent memory. All the same content is there, but it's presented in a familiar blog format with next to no Flash animation and I gotta say... it's refreshing.
Judging from the trailer, it seems this 2.0 approach fits well with the theme of the movie. I wish I could say it has paid off at the box office, but the $11,800 per screen average this weekend doesn't bode too well for word of mouth to take off.
I've always been a fan of using blog software as a full website platform. I'd love to know if this was 100% created by the new media folks at Newmaket, because it could have been, and it would have cost them next to nothing for the blog theme.
