Movie Marketing Madness: Thank You For Smoking

There’s a recurring bit in the Doonsbury comic strip where a walking cigarette comes out to talk about regulation, legislation and the general absurdity of the relationship between the government and the tobacco industry. As with most things Doonsbury, the satire is sharp and pointed and based largely on fact.

So too Thank You For Smoking. The movie, directed by Jason Reitman (son of legendary director Ivan Reitman) is based on the book of the same name by Christopher Buckley. It follows the life of Nick Naylor, chief spinner for a large tobacco firm, as he makes the rounds telling people that smoking isn’t actually so bad and that it’s all a matter of personal choice anyway. Let’s dive in.

The Posters

Both one-sheets are very cool but one is obviously the best.

First the teaser poster. Designed to resemble the ubiquitous “thank you for not smoking signs” it works perfectly by circling the cigarette by not putting the slash through it. Combined with the title’s obvious play on that very phrase it’s a great one-two punch. The theatrical poster is also quite good but not quite as great. With the cigarette-headed figure holding up a lighter it’s obviously trying to telegraph the point of the movie a bit more than the teaser. That’s a good thing and accomplishes the goal of a theatrical poster but it’s not as subtle, sharp and biting as the teaser. Still a solid effort but I love the first one more. It’s also interesting to note that the teaser image was the one chosen for the tie-in edition of the source novel.

The Trailer

Very funny but maybe a bit too broad in its humor. We’re introduced to Nick Naylor, head flack for and the public face of the tobacco industry. His life is all about making people believe that cigarette makers would never knowingly kill people and that any evidence that they do is purely circumstantial. While he’s doing this (along with his counterparts in the alcohol and firearms industries) he’s also trying to raise his son and have a personal life. Aaron Eckhart (best known for his roles in a number of Neil Labute dramas) plays the oily but sincere Nick very well and the scene of him going up against William H. Macy, who plays a senator questioning him, is great. Another highlight is the scene of him and Rob Lowe, who plays a movie producer, working around a slight problem while trying to cement a product placement deal for Nick’s products.

It’s a good trailer that’s weighted down only by the quick cutting and other visual quirks that are employed. The movie likely has some of these but in the trailer things are going by so fast that they get a bit distracting. The content of the trailer is great, though, don’t get me wrong.

The Websites

It’s pretty low key but it is, after all, a low budget satire and not a huge summer tent pole movie.
The first thing on the site is the Trailer. Nothing new there. Then there’s a link to a list of Free Screenings of the movie. Just pull up the location and date and you’re able to RSVP to request tickets to a screening. That’s a fantastic idea since, by letting interested parties find where it’s playing, they can see it and then spread the word to their friends without spending $10. Since the people who are going to be visting the site are likely those specifically meaning to go there they’ve just engaged a motivated audience to talk about their movie. Great idea.

Next is the Director’s Blog Fox Searchlight setup for director Jason Reitman. It’s almost exactly what I’ve been harping on studios to do for their movies and it’s great that Fox Searchlight has done this. Reitman has shared his thoughts and exhaustion with the audience as he travels around to promote the movie, including a recent stop here in Chicago, where he apparently ordered a Chicago-style pizza from Giordano’s. It’s threw Reitman’s blog that we also learned they setup a MySpace page for the movie. It replicates a lot of the features of the official site, but with the added “friending” functionality of the social network.

The only issue I had with the blog (you had to know there would be at least one) is that an RSS feed is not readily apparent on the site. Luckily I usually use the Firefox browser which is actually able to automatically detect feeds so with a bit of cutting and pasting I was all setup. But as I viewed the updates through Bloglines I noticed I was the ONLY subscriber, at least the only one using Bloglines. So all in all the blog is 95 percent perfect, with the lack of RSS on the page being the only thing that docks it that five percent from being perfect.

Spin Cards are next. They’re kind of a “greatest moments in spin” collector’s set and feature Bill Clinton’s famous “I didn’t inhale”, Ashlee Simpson saying “My band played the wrong song” and other such spin-heavy quotes. Quite funny. There’s a brief Synopsis and a Gallery that consists of all of five pictures. Lastly, you can access cast profiles by clicking their names at the top of the page. Along with their bios and filmos there’s a brief scene from the movie specific to that character that plays.

Overall

Fantastic campaign, probably one of my favorites of the year so far. The teaser poster is fantastic, the trailer is funny and the web effort is made so much stronger with the inclusion of Reitman’s director’s blog. He’s a natural at blogging and has provided the sort of “here’s what’s happening with the movie” updates that I’ve often longed for. Great effort by Fox Searchlight for this flick. Can’t wait to see it.

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By Chris Thilk

Chris Thilk is a freelance writer and content strategist with over 15 years of experience in online strategy and content marketing. He lives in the Chicago suburbs.