This afternoon I found Mark Cuban's blog, blogmaverick.com, where he recently posted a challenge to readers to find a way to advertise a movie effectively without spending $60 million per movie.
This is an open challenge. You come up with a solution, you get a job. Seriously... How can you convince 5 million people to give up their weekend and go to a theater to see a specific movie without spending 60mm dollars? ... Its not unusual to spend 8, 10 , 12 dollars PER PERSON that goes to a movie in the opening weekend. Shoot, its not unusual for studios to spend that much per person to get people to go to the theater through a movies entire run ! ... So go for it. Come up with a great idea that i want to use and I will come up with a job for you to make that idea happen.
My response to his challenge is that he's looking for a result that won't be a product of a marketing solution. By this I mean that convincing 5 million people to go see a movie on the weekend without spending $60 million will not be achieved by implementing a new marketing strategy for a particular movie. It will be achieved by correcting the factors that are actually influencing people's decision to stay at home or go elsewhere instead of going to a theater... and a lack of advertising is definitely not a factor in that. The two factors I see are shoddy movies and a terrible "theater experience" (which Mark addressed in his follow-up post to his initial challenge post).
The Shoddy Movie Problem
If the question is really, "How can advertising drive hoardes of people into theaters to see an ill-conceived story with added profanity and nudity to draw an audience?" I don't think there's an answer other than throwing $30 million at the problem. Take snakes on a plane for example... a movie which gained internet popularity for being such a stupid idea. The film makers went back and re-shot scenes to add nudity and profanity, a sign that they realized they had a lemon on their hands - almost too late. Advertisers are dealing with the problem in every way possible, advertising through phone messages (as seen on this blog) , tv spots, trailers... a hard fought campaign.
The Movie Experience Problem
I haven't been back to Tinseltown in Shreveport since the last time (the second time) that a group of 8 or so black kids walked in and sat down at the front of the theater in the middle of the movie. They started being loud, then all ran out of the movie, came back in once more to yell something then left.
That was the final straw... but the whole experience is not pleasant anymore. Too many people, aging theaters (not in a classy way), sticky floors,
What advertisers could possibly do to overcome these factors
As I said before, the only thing that trumps my longing to stay home for a movie is a great review by a trusted source. In years past, I saw a movie every weekend. Now, I'd rather watch a DVD at home unless I have to find out what everyone's talking about.
My first thought is to show dozens of outdoor, low charge sneak previews of a movie which has scored well in order to build up initial theater sales (nation-wide). Movie theaters aren't risking revenue by devoting a screen to a possible lemon, and people who see the movie were already interested, increasing the likelihood that if the movie was between decent and good that they would recommend it (free of charge).
It could be a regular event, for which you would need to buy a projector, inflatable screen and a small amount of local advertising (hardly approaching a substantial amount). Switch up the locations, rinse, repeat.
To wrap up this post, other various money saving approaches include: