More and more movies are starting to rely on the Internet for marketing

Absrtact: Looking back at the domestic film market in the past six months, "the embarrassment", "Beijing meets Seattle", "The 101th Marriage proposal" and the "youth" which is aggressively, have created the box office miracle in different degrees. Carefully observed, these films have one thing in common: both

Looking back at the domestic film market in the past six months, "the embarrassment", "Beijing meets Seattle", "The 101th Marriage proposal" and currently aggressively "to youth", have created a box-office miracle to varying degrees. On closer inspection, these films have one thing in common: they are marketed through social media such as microblogs and space, and have achieved remarkable results.

Inadvertently, we found, as ever movie marketing "Troika": posters, trailers, TV ads, is now gradually reduced to a supporting role. With the advent of the digital age, more and more films began to rely on the Internet for marketing. Because they look cheaper and more efficient.

Such a set of data might be more telling:

"Thai embarrassed", the total cost of about 50 million yuan, marketing costs about 25 million yuan, box office 1.266 billion yuan;

"Lovelorn 33 Days", the total cost of 8 million yuan, the box office 360 million yuan;

"Beijing meets Seattle", the total cost of 30 million yuan, the box office 500 million yuan;

"Ghost Record", the total cost of 15,000 U.S. dollars, the box office 150 million dollars;

"Hunger Games", the total cost of 78 million U.S. dollars, marketing costs about 45 million U.S. dollars, box-office 684 million dollars;

"To Youth", the production of marketing costs 60 million yuan, the current box office 641 million yuan.

These films, without exception, use the Internet for publicity. So how does a movie find a breakthrough in the digital age? Tencent technology will take you to see the movie in the digital age of new marketing.

Make a short film outside of a movie

CCTV "10th room" has said: "Lovelorn 33 days," the significance of Chinese film is that it first excavated a copy of the marketing model. It sells movies as a product, walks through a whole set of marketing routes, and uses a lot of new tricks. ”

"Lovelorn 33 days," the marketing team to "lovelorn" as the theme, let the young people from different cities in the country tell about their lovelorn experience, and then spread through a variety of social platforms, causing great repercussions and resonance, so that "lovelorn" become a large number of young internet users of the popular topic, and thus stimulate the attention of the film.

The 101-time proposal, released this year, let "cock silk father", former national athletes Liyi filming propaganda film "cock Silk why can't find girlfriend", and launched the Star, children, golden age, such as multiple version of "Universal Confession" video and three Li Tun "flash proposal" video. According to the disclosure, only Liyi of the promotional film, Baidu Post posted on the trailer has more than 100 million clicks.

Last year's fire, "Ted", was aimed at Xu, Baoqiang, Huang Bo three starring as well as "elevator Simon" did 5 minutes of the video special, told the film before the scene behind the scenes, and select the essence of the film, half cover and half of the "spoilers", and thus ignited the people to watch "The Thai embarrassed" enthusiasm.

Let the audience take the initiative to ask for a movie

The "Ghost Record", released in 2009, is the perfect embodiment of this strategy. The film cost only 15,000 dollars, but it won more than 150 million dollars in the box office. Among them, the movie distribution party sends the paramount industry to be not to be done.

"Ghost video" trailer unique gimmick, the theater audience fear of the scene to capture the response. Screams, escapes, covers the mouth, closes the eye this kind of thriller expression itself, is more persuasive than the real movie picture, lets the person be full of curiosity and anticipation.

However, most importantly, on a large scale, he uses Facebook to promote films, conduct online surveys, collect fans ' opinions, draw up plans based on feedback, and let fans vote to decide where they want the film to be, and claim that if more than 1 million people want to see the film, Will expand the scope of the screening.

The response was stunning, with Paramount in the first week receiving requests from fans across the United States to step up the size of the hospital line according to the number of people sending requests everywhere. The more people who have seen the film, the more people who vote on the internet will grow, and this kind of snowball effect can not be collected, and soon "ghost record" will be extended to 159 theaters across the United States.

What has proved to be most effective in this strategy is that it allows fans to create a sense of ownership of the film. At the same time, the level of awareness and relevance that it generates cannot be obtained from radio and television programs.

Viral marketing

The action thriller "Hunger Game", released in March 2012, can be seen as an exploration of new marketing methods. The "Hunger Game" story is not particularly innovative, the cast is also general, but the release, but even broke a number of box-office records, reached 600 million dollars, the limelight even overshadowed the "Twilight of the city."

The New York Times believes that most of the box-office success of The hunger game is due to the company's sophisticated marketing program. In addition to distributing posters and advertising banners, the company spent all its money and manpower on platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Yahoo and mobile gaming.

In March 2011, The hunger game began by posting information on the staff on Facebook, assigning special executives to manage and focus on all the fans and blogs associated with the film, and launching the lottery, such as inviting fans to see the movie.

In October 2011, The Hunger Game launched an event on Twitter, which attracted 800,000 of people who had previously registered on the site and had a digital ID on the site to contest a fictional "Shihui" government position in the film.

In November 2011, The Hunger Games marketing team posted a formal movie promo on itunes, which attracted 8 million of visitors in just 24 hours.

The Hunger game launched a new poster in December 2011, dividing it into 100 small, confusing pieces and posting the digital poster fragments on 100 pages, allowing netizens to post fragments of posters they found on Twitter and stitching them up together.

In March 2012, the Game of hunger, in collaboration with Microsoft, launched a new game on Facebook, which allows netizens to experience a virtual Capitol tour, which is naturally linked to film-related elements.

Lion Gate Film in the year before the movie release, joint well-known platform, continued to launch online activities to a variety of gimmicks, earn enough eyeballs, the film viral marketing classic.

The power of mobile applications cannot be ignored

The development of the application provides a new way for people to use the space time for entertainment. For studios, mobile apps also offer a way to attract viewers, even to sell movie tickets directly.

In 2010, Disney created an app called Troniverse on Facebook for the sci-fi film Genesis: War. The app uploads movie-related comments, videos and pictures to social networks and shows the movie to more users.

In addition, Disney has developed a ticket sales program for Toy Story 3, and one of the benefits of selling movie tickets through Facebook and other platforms is that you can invite friends to join you.

Looking at the country, "to youth" has been and the game company Hot cool Agreement, in the popular game "to find your sister" to create "youth" special checkpoints, add a film of several characters of the cartoon head, into all aspects of young people's lives, so that the film reached the level of universal popularity.

Summary law

1, guide the user to participate actively in the film propaganda

Daniel Dipama, senior vice president of the digital marketing department at Lion Gate, said: "Before, people used to tell the public which movies are better, but now is not so, the public attitude is more active, we are willing to let the public comment on the quality of the film." ”

"Hunger Game" marketing key point is that, let the audience think of discovering a movie, and actively consciously into it, like role-playing games, once involved in the difficult to extricate themselves. Tens of millions of users through word of mouth, creating a film word-of-mouth effect.

Tong, vice president of Ray Media and information Services, told Tencent that the official microblog of a movie was useless before it was released: No fans, no word of mouth, no influence. This time, often need to rely on some big V user's propaganda, and make similar to # Youth memory #, #小三捍卫爱情 # and so on the high interactive topic, the promotion Netizen participates, and in the social media raises a hot discussion storm, thus enhances the movie popularity.

Famous fashion talent Wu to Tencent Technology, the film's social marketing, the role of the decision is not the official active marketing, but the film extended from the topic, actors, stories, filming and other factors. If these elements can meet the deep needs of users, they will be able to motivate users to automatically spread, and this through the social platform spread, the scope of a broader, lower cost, more credibility.

For the "micro-broad v" role, Wu that, one is to play a guiding role, to guide users to participate in the topic of the discussion, but to a certain extent played a "brainwashing" role, so that users at different times, different places can get the film information, and real-time participation in the topic of interaction.

It critic Black Ma Liang once said, "Youth" social Marketing: 1, the official micro-Bo 2,409, recorded the film Choupai, boot, and so the whole process; 2, Big V: incomplete statistics, 24 forward micro-Broad V, the total number of fans close to 370 million; 3, create "Zhao again: you have neuropathy ah" micro bo body, Frequently let the cast participate in micro-interview, continuing the micro-bo heat; 4, a large number of film critics to write good reviews.

2, rhythm control must be moderate

The magazine successful marketing has summed up several important points in the microblogging spread of "Ted" (the following are 2012-year points):

November 8, "Thai embarrassed" official micro-Bo combined with the "double 11" to promote, to Thailand to stimulate the encouragement of the participation of netizens, activities set off the first small climax;

November 28, "Tae-So" released a "Simon" edition of the film, "Beauty" in the identity of the "Simon" "Crazy", a short time the topic was shared 3,436 times, participated in the discussion 5,676,149 times;

November 20, "Ted embarrassed" announced the adjustment of the schedule, video warning to inspire netizens excitedly;

December 12, "Ted" release, the first wave of the viewer online discussion and two of creative, opinion leaders affect more people pay attention to the film.

There is media analysis, by contrast, "1942" in the publicity by a certain control, review through to theaters, less than one months time, the accumulation of nearly a year of publicity resources released, will give the outside a bit of the feeling of excessive marketing, the audience will have rebellious. The director and the actor also only have the last more than 10 days to be able to receive the visit, to the outside world's feeling is: the publisher keeps saying this movie, but this kind of movie, does not need so excessively to unscramble?

Wu believes that the film's social marketing, should take the "first tight and then loose" strategy. In the period before the film release, make a lot of bedding, such as the external release of filming tidbits, characters, theme song, etc., so as to hang the audience's appetite. And when the movie really wants to release, the film producer, the issuer does not need to carry on the special propaganda, lets the ordinary netizen take the initiative to participate in the topic hot discussion, the effect will be better.

In short, the effective integration of quality content and social media to meet the needs of consumers, while the marketing team at the right time to do the right thing to control the marketing point of time, in order to continuously stimulate the user's preferences.

With the Lion Gate film chief marketing officer Tim Perry summed up the digital era movie marketing Secret: "You have to give the audience a lot of fresh things, let them surprise, and try to keep these surprises continue until the film distribution." ”