I have always enjoyed the subtle art of persuasion (also the not so subtle, and the super anti subtle for that matter). There is something interesting to me about making compelling arguments to convince others to do something they may not have otherwise been inclined to do. Sometimes it can be something as simple as visibility as there are many things I would like to spend money on if only I knew they existed, or more complicated like convincing people who are not horror fans to go see a horror movie.

Movie Marketing is a really big deal. When it comes to the big movies they say the marketing budget often rivals the production budget, often coming somewhere in the range of 50-100% of the cost just to remind and convince you that you need to see this thing, you need to see it now, and you should also see it on the biggest screens possible. There is some exceptions to this, like we covered a few weeks ago if a movie is expected to bomb anyway or get dumped in early winter often the studios will spend very little on the marketing as they are expected to lose out anyway why spend more on a futile endeavor? I mean it really isn’t that hard to cut a few trailers and then pay to have them in rotation on TV, internet ads and on the screens in front of other movies you are watching, you can even pay more to throw that stuff up on big ticket items like the Superbowl halftime ads and many studios do in fact make sure their movie commercials get seen in this way. I would assume that this must be effective because they keep doing it every year so there must be some return on those dollars.

But just as might does not make right, you do not need to just throw money at every wall to be seen. Clever people often come up with clever ideas to sell you things without the regular and somewhat boring spend-a-thons. I mentioned this last week but Anchorman and Borat had the main characters doing interviews in character prior to the release of their movies. I remember Cloverfield going the opposite route and hyping the mystery of what exactly it was to get people interested. When it comes to marketing and particularly with movies there can be a ton of great ideas that make it irresistible to the movie-going public.

Which brings me to this weeks prompt: What are some examples of great movie marketing? I mentioned my answer last week, but I full on loved Lilo and Stitch‘s marketing inserting Stitch into iconic scenes from other Disney movies such as the ballroom scene from Beauty and the Beast to cause harmless mayhem (Full Disclosure: Lilo and Stitch grew to be my favourite movie so I am openly biased). It perfectly sets up what Stitch is, pokes a little fun at themselves and does a neat callback all in one go. Marketing can be fun, interesting, inventive and inspiring and the best part is new movies will always bring new ideas so possibilities are theoretically endless.