In June 2010, Steve Jobs sat down for a 90-minute interview with Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher at the D: All Things Digital conference. It would be the last of his six appearances; one that foretold a “radical shift” -- a movie industry marketing revolution, much like the music industry had undergone years before.
For filmmakers, studios and film marketers, the future is bright. Consumers’ love for movies isn’t changing anytime soon. Millions of people are deeply engaged in an ongoing, online dialogue around movie choices, themes, topics, actors and film franchises on a daily basis through social media.
The cost of marketing a film today is steadily increasing. In 2014, The Hollywood Reporter shared that the cost of marketing a film was $200 million and rising, an increase from $175 million in 2012 and despite the fact that U.S. box office was down 20% over the prior year with many other territories flat.
In most industries, a 90% failure rate for products you launch every year would be unacceptable. But in one industry, the film industry, it’s considered acceptable practice. It's not surprising that "Big Studio" films are increasingly coming under scrutiny by movie studio execs seeing marketing expenditures increase and increasingly savvy investors evaluating their investments.
I just returned from hosting our Social Intelligence and Film panel at the NAB show in Las Vegas where a common theme among our panelists was the use of social media influencer data in the content creation and distribution strategy. According to the panelists, this year, advertising spending across social media has reached $23.68B and will reach $35.98B by 2017. Is it working? Not necessarily, at least not for the film industry that’s seen their profitability flatten in recent years.
