Monthly Archives: April 2012

It’s a fair cop

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There are some jobs you shouldn’t take your kids to

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Sequels don’t get approved based on Twitter followers

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‘The Muppets’ Lands Sequel After Box Office, Social Media Successes.

Are the Muppets getting a sequel to last year’s movie? Yes.

Was the movie successful at the box-office? Yes.

Was the social media component of a MUCH BIGGER CAMPAIGN fun and engaging? Yes.

But trying to tie together the idea that social media played a role in the green-lighting of a Muppets sequel outside of the notion that that part of the campaign contributed to the movie’s box-office success is kind of ridiculous for a number of reasons. Not only does it overlook the fact that, to a very large extent, there’s no way to tie the number of social media engagement points to the number of tickets sold but it also overlooks the fact that there were so many other ways that people were exposed to the campaign that may have had a bigger impact than one or two online videos that they may have seen.

Quora looking beyond the Valley

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Quora: We’re Not Just About Tech and Silicon Valley Anymore (Chart) – Liz Gannes – News – AllThingsD.

There was a time – less than a year ago – when everyone was tripping over themselves to be among the first to declare Quora an integral part of a company’s social publishing strategy. At the time I expressed my opinion that if the introduction of Quora (or any other Q&A site) was the first time a company was considering integrating answering fan/audience questions there were probably bigger problems to be overcome. Now the site is looking to make the case that it’s more than just Silicon Valley conversations since I’m guessing it’s going to be hard to survive on just that niche.

Random movie marketing news

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Because I haven’t completely lost the itch.

Did ‘Hunger Games’ Create A New Digital Marketing Template For Hollywood?: Maybe it’s that I wasn’t totally tuned in to this campaign but the amount of press about what were some apparently terribly original tactics seems a might over blown to me. Some OK stuff, sure, but I seem to have missed a lot of stuff that really knocked people’s socks off. Plus, while the box office has been good I haven’t seen any social marketing take those numbers to any sort of next level. Again, maybe it’s just me.

Today’s MPAA Ratings Hold Little Value for Parents: No, you can’t make an informed decision based on ratings. And you likely will never be able to because the last thing that studios want is to discourage people from seeing a movie. If you’re disappointed and appalled after seeing it, well, they already have your $12.

Movie Trailers Have Become a Main Event: This story gets written every couple years so there’s nothing really new here but it’s good to read this year’s version.

Movie tickets: Charge more for hits, less for flops, analyst urges: This is such a bad idea it’s hard to even fathom it. The sudden jump in prices that occurred when every movie starting being released in 3D caused enough audience anguish and came close enough to a complete revolt that you’d think any further discussion of tiered pricing would be dead on arrival. Creating an environment where people were unsure what the ticket price was going to be from week to week would, I’m pretty sure, complete the trend of audiences choosing home video over theatrical.

Movie recommendations and the time-shifted self: Netflix out-thought itself and essentially rendered its vaunted algorithm ineffective because behaviors involving all-you-can-eat streaming are much different than they are around physical discs that require more of a commitment.

Marketing Movie Marketing Takes Meta-Promo Too Far: Anne Thompson is *not* a fan of studios teasing the release of a trailer – a trailer – with a series of snippets and such. More specifically she’s not a fan of the movie news sites that willingly play along with and feed into this because they want the traffic that goes along with posting such things first.

So very true

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The McCormick Place is just a horrible place for a consumer show. The first year I was dazzled with its Jon Rauch-scaled halls and eaves. This year, I finally listened to what every single local told me: no one in the region likes going to the McCormick Place. It’s in the middle of nowhere, hard to get to, expensive to park and just…not friendly. It’s grand and clean I saw a custodian cleaning small scuffs from the granite floors with a tennis ball on Sunday and majestic—perfect for drug shows or bathroom and kitchen shows, but not for cozy comics. Local politics and the economy have botched getting a lot of B-to-B shows to the facility and the surrounding area is undeveloped.

via 12 thoughts about the 2012 Diamond Retailer Summit and C2E2 | The Beat.

My client-related time at C2E2 was fantastic – great people to work with, a great vibe at the panels and a definite uptick in fan attendance and excitement from Friday to Saturday. As one person I was working with said, “Then I realized I was in Chicago, where people work 9 to 5 and don’t take off just to come to a comics show.” Yep, pretty much. Plus the Sox opener was the same day and anyone who *was* skipping work was probably doing that.

See his “C”? It stands for “Chicago”

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