Mark Cuban (thoughtful if loud Texan entrepeneur, who with his partner Todd Wagner and their $5.2 billion trying to re-invent the US film industry in a rather similar way that we are innovating in the UK) recently posted a challenge on his blog

” 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.”

Because Mark’s challenge so precisely matches that which we’ve set ourselves here at slingshot, I took the time to post a pretty long response, here it is:

“Slingshot’s 3 part hypothesis for the re-invention of movie marketing:

FIRSTLY: that going forward the marketing of niche films is going to have to be a lot LESS about undifferentiated media buying and a lot MORE about a long term, direct mutually consensual two way relationship between creative talent and their core audience.

SECONDLY: that at the key of this two way relationship is a recognition that a successful film’s function is to fulfil profound psychological needs for its audience, and it is only through an understanding of the specific emotional needs that the communication can be meaningful.

THIRDLY: that Web 2.0, analytically driven CRM and associated technologies enable this direct relationship between producer/film-maker and audience more effectively across a wide number of people, then has previously been possible.

OK, now let me anticipate some objections and critiques.

First, yes, our focus is on niche films, not block-busters. But I think that is the more interesting place to start this thinking.

Marquee marketing, by very definition, is going to be expensive. The expensive bit of marketing is when you can’t target because you don’t know who your audience is so you have to let them self-select.

The challenge therefore is effective targeting of an audience group that cares about what you have to sell.

With effective targeting, you don’t need huge spend because (a) you know who they are so there is no wastage in reaching them (b) you know they are predisposed to see your movie, because that’s the basis on which you targeted them.So your wastage drops, and within it your marketing cost/audience member.

Now that’s the theory, and it is relatively easy (as Mark admit) for the 10% of movies with a clear special interest group large enough to matter and congregated enough to be easy to reach through focvused media and grass-roots activities. (e.g. christians for THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST).

But how does one effectively target for movies that don’t have such a specific niche to serve?

I think that’s where the second leg of our hypothesis comes in. That the core motivation for seeing movies is an emotional one.

Everyone knows this is true, from their personal experience, but despite that knowledge, most movie campaigns target demographic groups rather than socio-psychological ones.

Why? Because psychological segmentation and targeting is hard. And messy. And heavily analytical. And the people who like hard, heavily analystical, messy work tend not to live in the marketing departments of movie companies.

Where do they live? We’re finding them in the pollsters who work for political groups; in the folk who shift high end consumer goods (automobile); in people who build neural networks to forecast complex and cummulative behaviour,  and in the people who do the fan base management work for sports teams and other long-run fan groups.

Once you can target socio-psychollogically, then the size of niche is no longer limited by the size of the lifestyle group (bird watchers, skateboarders) but instead by the size of the niche for whom the emotional need that the movie fulfils is an important one (generally much larger).

And that’s where the final leg of our hypothesis comes in. Its not enough to be able to identify these people, you need to be able to manage a releationship with them over a long period of time. Not just the 12 weeks before your film opens, but the 12 months from the day it goes into pre-production, till the day it comes out. And you have to do that cost-effectively, which was impossible pre the internet, but it beginning to become more possible now - the effect of increased computing power and powerful data capture and analytical tools is that it is possible to give high degrees of attention to large numbers of people at an acceptable cost.

That’s not the whole of it, of course, one still needs decent movies and good venues to see them in (and I like a lot of what I have read about theatrical experience here) but its a start.

Lets see. Our first film shoots in 3 weeks. Its marketing starts in 2 weeks. Watch our blog for how we do in reducing that cost per audience acquisition...

Arvind

something we have been thinking a lot about at slingshot recently is the effect of blogs on movie marketing. it appears we are not the only one: check out the buzz about Universal’s recent engagement with the blogosphere: (Movie Marketing Madness: Movie Marketing Madness: Miami Vice) for the MIAMI VICE campaign, here as documented by Marketing Prof blogger Mack Collier: The Spontaneous Marketing Campaign
What’s most interesting for me about this, is the realisation that bloggers clearly consider themselves a meta-community; i.e. it is the identity of being a blogger, rather than the particular subject matter about which you blog that seems to be the uniting factor; c.f this comment:

“A. I shall go to see Miami Vice as my show of support (and really don’t have any interest in so doing, but support I must).

B. I shall not go see Snakes On A Plane because they didn’t allow bloggers to screenings, only critics, and that’s just poor form since the blogosphere catapulted them into legend & lo”

or this one:

Part of the unseen, untold story is that each of the bloggers involved (myself included) now has an investment in the success of the movie.

I don’t take enough time to watch many movies - but you can be this will be one I watch.

Posted by: Mike Sansone | 07.24.06

I guess this should’t be a surprise, like any cutting edge activity (raving, rock & roll, roller-blading); those who are first to adopt it bond together, before the rest join in, at which point the community fragments to be a microcosm of the larger world. How nice that hasn’t happened for bloggers yet, and we are all still one.

Arvind

Guy de Beaujeu in the Guardian making a lot of points about the British Film industry which we agree with here at slingshot, even if he makes them more angrily than is our polite wont….

“Lights, camera, bonza!

(also a great anecdote about drugs and a sales company)

It was July last year that Rachel Connors, Luke Montagu, Thomas Hoegh and myself decided to start a new type of film company. A year. That’s hard to fathom - if you believe the press we only launched last week, but no, like most overnight phenomemon, slingshot was being incubated and we were slogging away at it for time before that.

So what have we acheived in the year? Well, in 4 weeks, our first feature will shoot. Yes, and you heard it here first. Press release will follow, but what kind of next generation, all digital film company would we be if we didn’t use our blog to tell the world first?

That which was COLLISION, and now re-named SUGARHOUSE LANE will shoot on location from 21 August. Watch this space for announcements of cast and crew.

There is other news to come, but for now, on a hot Satuday night: happy first birthday slingshot, and many more to come…

Arvind