FRANKthoughts

On the weekend I took the kids to see Fantastic Mr Fox. What a wonderful film! It would have to be one of the best ‘kids’ films I’ve seen – quirky, unique, non-stop entertainment underpinned by George Clooney’s brilliance! (Not the point of the story but I thought you should know).

The movie theatre was three quarters full of predominantly Dads with their kids and we all sat through the ads and trailers waiting for the film to begin. Not usually a hotbed of media innovation, the average movie pre-amble is a fairly straight forward affair: first the cheap ads, then the expensive ads, a few movie trailers, a Village or Hoyts plug, lights down and off we go.

On this occasion however we were all shaken out of our comfy daze by a unique and engaging piece of cinema advertising.

One of the expensive ads we saw during the pre-amble was a Federal Govt Spot featuring a melanoma surgeon removing a dangerous mole from a 22 year old girl’s back.

Fairly graphic stuff that had my 8 year old daughter’s hands over her face and my 4 year old boy’s eyes glued to the screen! The message was clear: protect yourself five ways in the sun and you can avoid ending up in his theatre.

A few more ads, a few trailers and just as we thought the movie would begin, the house lights went on, the curtain came down and a male voice began talking about the ad we saw a few minutes ago…. “Hey, that ad to do with skin cancer … was pretty nasty. Did he say 400,000 Australians are diagnosed each year with skin cancer? That’s like 2,000 cinemas like this full of people! They reckon that even short periods of time in the sun unprotected – like the length of the movie we’re about to show – could cause irreversible damage to your skin. So I guess the doctor was right …”

I looked around a saw that most people were listening intently, some nudging each other or simply sitting with puzzled expressions on their face. At the conclusion of this audio-only piece the room went black, the curtain went up and the movie promptly began.

A clever, unexpected piece of cinema advertising and an effective part of the government’s marketing communications mix executed well by the teams at UM and Val Morgan. We certainly took the government’s advice that afternoon at the local pool!

Do you notice the ads in the cinema? How effective do you think they are?

2008 was a record year for the Australian Box Office however the first 6 months of 2009 has already smashed records. Over half a billion dollars was spent at the Australian box office during the first six months of the year which is 15% up on the same time last year!

Some of the big guns in 09 which have helped drive the increase include Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Monsters vs. Aliens, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Angels & Demons & Ice Age: Dawn of The Dinosaurs. I would also assume that the heavily discounted ticket offers early in the year may have played a role.

Interestingly it would also seem the increase at the Box Office has impacted on FTA audiences. Research shows a dramatic increase in light free to air viewing amongst frequent cinema-goers with 50% of frequent moviegoers now light or non FTA viewers.

So can we continue to see cinema attendance grow? I’d suggest the back half of the year is already off to a strong start with the launch of Bruno last week which to date has taken over $7.5m. Whilst this is only marginally up on the Borat opening week of $6.08m, the launch of Harry Potter & the half-blood prince this week has seen the record set for the biggest opening Wednesday ever. Harry took a massive $4.4m Australia wide & broke the existing record set in 2007 by Harry Potter & the order of phoenix.

Source: Val Morgan July 2009

An interesting article from Mashable! popped up earlier in the week which looked at how some brands are using Facebook to engage consumers.

Ben & Jerry’s, Adobe and the Fast & Furious movie release have all used the network in an effective manner recently as part of their overall brand strategy, the results of which are now being promoted on Facebook’s Marketing Solutions . The page is complete with case studies from the above brands, tips and how-tos, and discussion with marketers on how to get the best out of the site.

Adobe engaged design students with a ‘real or fake’ photography campaign using their Photoshop tool, to promote substantial discounts on their software that they were offering this target group. The campaign registered outstanding levels of interaction that eventually translated to sales.

By adding unique content about the new Fast & Furious movie to Vin Diesel’s fan page, the star added an additional 1million fans in a couple of weeks, helping the film register a strong box office result.

Ben & Jerry’s enabled users to share fun and personalised content with their friends about their favourite Ben & Jerry’s flavours, published in their news feed.

Since the rise in popularity of online social media, commentators have been speculating on how sites such as Twitter and Facebook will ‘monetise’ their growth in user base, like Google did with search engine marketing. Many brands have also struggled to come to terms with how they should position their brand on these networks.

With any social media play (and like the examples above), the primary objective must be to add value for the consumer; offering more opportunities for consumers to engage with the brand, where, when, and how they want to. This can only start from having a social media strategy that understands the consumer, the market the brand operates in, and how best they can add value to the consumer on an ongoing basis.

It’s a shame that Hutchison Telecom  in Australia rolled the Orange mobile phone brand into what is now known as 3 in 2006, as we’re being robbed of some great cinema advertising coming out of the UK.

Orange has signed up US stars Danny Glover, Juliette Lewis, Sigourney Weaver and Emilio Estevez to appear in its cinema ad campaign this year, which has been running since 2003.  The creative agency (Fallon) have a new take on the famous franchise, which sees the long-running formula of celebrities having their movie pitches ripped apart by Dresden and his boorish Orange Film Board colleagues replaced by the Orange Film Studios, which makes new versions of Hollywood classics.  A spin-off digital campaign to promote the spoof movie in the latest commercial has also been created.

 Orange is a great case study for having a long term brand strategy.  Their long-term ownership of the cinema medium (in the telecommunications sector) with a humourous take on ‘turning off your mobile’ reaches a young audience spending a lot of time out of home, and using their phone as a social hub.  The strong content of the ads also increases engagement, in an environment where ad avoidance is fairly easy.

Initiatives such as Orange Wednesday continue to add value to the consumer with 2 for 1 films and even pizzas (through a deal with UK chain Pizza Express).  In the mobile phone market, where handsets, technology and deals change as quickly as you can say ‘Harry Potter’, owning a medium and to an extent, a day of the week stands the Orange brand in good stead.

Great stuff!

Good news for Aussie movie buffs, with the Australian version of Rotten Tomatoes launching today.  For those unfamiliar with the brand, Rotten Tomatoes is a US-based website that aggregates critical opinion on movies, along with providing movie trailers, pictures, news/interviews/reviews related to all things cinema.

Their staff search the Internet for as many websites as possible containing reviews of particular films; from the amateur to the professional (for instance, respected cinema guru David Stratton is one of the many reviewers canvassed). They then determine whether reviews are positive (”fresh”, and a red tomato) or negative (”rotten”, and a green splatted tomato).  If the positive reviews make up 60% or more, the film is considered “fresh”; less, and the film is “rotten.”

While this may seem like too simplistic a method to rate movies, especially with people having vastly different cinematic tastes, the numbers don’t lie.  Across 2007 in the US, films released that scored a “fresh” rating made, on average, $1000 more per screen than films which were scored as “rotten”.  It also helps to dispel a common myth that movie critics are elitist, while moviegoers are populist.

Another feature of the site, ‘The Vine’, provides a tool for personal publishing (journals), social networking tools and also access to user forums, adding a community element to the site offering.

Hopefully Rotten Tomatoes helps Australian filmgoers to pick the right movie, and avoid wasting their hard-earned on the latest box-office bomb.  A quick analysis of Jessica Alba’s movie career so far, many people will have to agree with the effectiveness of their methodology!