Role of digital marketing in movie marketing

“I know nothing of life except through cinema.”??????????????????????????????????-Jean Luc Godard

Movies are one of the most impactful art forms when it comes to human mental consciousness. The journey of a viewer across a movie happens across three broad phases namely, pre-release, release, and post-release of the movie. All three are distinct and require different forms of engagement with the viewer. While the release and post-release phase is highly dependent on the content of the movie and the viewer experience around the same, the pre-release phase?is under the control of producers. Filmmakers are continuously looking for new and advanced marketing techniques to maximize the potential of this phase to ensure higher viewer attraction and retention. This phase requires innovative marketing strategies to reach the target audience and engage them.Over the last decade digital marketing has emerged as an incredibly effective tool to develop a stronger connection with the audience. Furthermore, as this strategy can be easily measured through performance-related metrics, detailed insights can be consistently drawn to improve upon it.

The world-wide film industry in 2019 had revenues worth approximately USD 66.7 billion[i], of which US stands at the over USD 25 billion and India at USD 2 billion. In India, the film marketing budget has grown from 5-6% to 15-20% of the film production budgets[ii]. Assuming average profitability of the movie industry around 15-20%, the potential film marketing spends can be as high as USD 0.3 billion.??Movie makers are increasingly allocating sizeable chunks towards digital marketing spends.

Platforms: The cornerstone of successful digital marketing

Various social media platforms are being increasingly used for movie promotion such as YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.?

YouTube:

YouTube has emerged as one of the leading platforms to execute social media strategy. YouTube offers a cost-effective way of marketing the films to the appropriate target set of viewers with low inertia, quick turn-around time. Film Industry is already utilizing diverse strategies such as movie trailers, press conference clips with cast, engagement games, etc. on YouTube. Reruns on YouTube have historically proven to be more effective in capturing the engagement of the audience repeatedly.

Facebook, Instagram & Twitter

Movie promotions on social media platform has been effectively more pronounced with the primary marketing channels being led by filmmakers as well as personal celebrity handles. Celebrities, influencers offer a readymade access to customer base thereby reducing the time in reaching the target audience in turn leading to lower customer acquisition costs. Content such as behind the scenes, dress, teasers, etc. lead to high customer engagement in an organic process. Furthermore, short burst video contents such as reels, active polls, TikToks, etc. have been extremely effective at viral marketing as well.?

?Case Studies: The Indian Context

Indian movie industry has been increasingly leveraging social media to offer multiple routes of engagement with audiences. One of the recent examples was exhibited by the movie ‘Baahubali’. It came up with multiple forms of organic, viral campaigning in form of Picture frame contest, Baahubali Comics, themed stickers on Facebook, etc. The question “Why Kattappa killed Baahubali?” became a household meme. The fanbase of 4.21 million[iii]?on the official Facebook page advocates the success of these campaigns.

Movies such as Bala, Dabangg, Super30, etc. have all come up with something unique to popularize the film before they hit the theatres. The pre-release phase is one of the most difficult phases to capture the customer journey and these films have executed strategies around the same. Imtiaz Ali’s love Aaj Kal had a reported budget INR 8-9 Cr[iv]?for digital marketing alone. Digital Media agencies have reported a 40% YoY increase in digital spends on movies. A look at the social media strategy for the movie Shubh Mangal Saavdhan depicts the creative ways content marketers are leveraging social media for film promotions effectively[v].

Instagram

YouTube

Twitter:

?Whatsapp:

Collaborations:

The advent of social media has presented a complete new dimension of engagement of viewers with films, celebrities, artists, etc. While this article looks primarily in the pre-release promotion, digital marketing spends have been growing in the release as well as post release phase of the movies. The multiple synergies across diverse platforms ranging from e-commerce, payment gateways, booking website, merchandize and fashion portals, etc. offers numerous growth possibilities.

References

[i]?https://www.statista.com/statistics/296431/filmed-entertainment-revenue-worldwide-by-country/

[ii]?https://bestmediainfo.com/2017/12/nearly-50-per-cent-of-a-film-s-marketing-budget-goes-to-television-15-per-cent-to-print-and-digital-each/

[iii]?https://www.acewebacademy.com/blog/role-of-digital-marketing-in-film-industry/

[iv]?https://www.exchange4media.com/people-movement-news/qoruz-appoints-vishnu-kanth-gokul-as-president-of-sales-115948.html

[v]?https://www.marketingmind.in/complete-marketing-synopsis-of-shubh-mangal-zyada-savdhan/