Apr 09
8
P2P Marketing, The Big Studio Way
I read in the paper today that the new X-Men movie is the most popular download pointed to by The Pirate Bay, whose servers live somewhere in Amsterdam, I believe. The movie stars Australian actor, Hugh Jackman.
Apparently a rough cut of the movie “escaped” from the editing room in L.A. and found its way onto a server somewhere…
Now let me, for a moment, take you back about 30 years to when I was managing a band called The Saints. (For those too young to remember, The Saints were a band from Brisbane who were part of the early punk movement). I had taken the band to London to cash in on the incredible vibe that had been created by the band’s first single, “Im Stranded”. We had recorded a follow up that had been recorded in London to coincide with the band’s first tour.
At that time every record released in the UK had to be in a special edition of some kind. They were pressed as 12” versions in pink or green vinyl or some other gimmick. It was all part of the marketing.
I had a meeting with the marketing guys at EMI. The band was a priority and these guys were masters at the game.
They had the bright idea of releasing the band’s single as a 12” disk with three tracks on it, but with only two tracks listed on the label. The outside packaging was to have a sticker on with words to the effect of: “We apologize for the error. There are three tracks on this disc, rather than the two that are on the label. There was an error in the manufacturing process which will not happen again, honest”. I thought it was a great idea and green lit the campaign.
The marketing ploy worked. The retailers stocked the disc. The press breathlessly told the story. The punters bought the record. The record went into the charts.
The moral of the story might be, “Never let the truth get in the way of a good story”.
I think is more like, “Never get in the way of a marketing department that has prioritised a record – or a movie”.
P2P networks are a great way to create buzz for creative marketers. Imagine the possibilities. You leak a rough cut of a movie, like the new X-Men movie, onto the net without the full sound track, and without all the special effects, perhaps without the real ending…
Everyone starts talking about the movie. People download it are fans of the franchise. They watch it incomplete and want to find out whether the version that is released is the same as the one that is online. So they go to the movies. That gives them the benefit of seeing the movie on a big screen with the big 5.1 experience – the whole immersive experience that they could never get from even the best rip….
The economics of the distribution part of movie industry are as follows:
The majority of the box office receipts typically go to the studio for the first few days – or perhaps week – of release, then over time the revenue splits become more favourable to the theatres.
So from the studios’ point of view the task is to get the maximum number of bums on seats during the sweet spot when the majority of the revenue comes home to papa. Hit movies don’t happen by accident. They are the result of big marketing spends. Because all the entertainment companies like to be able to apply scientific models to revenue generation – it keeps the analysts happy because revenues can be predicted.
The marketer’ job is to know just how to hit the right emotional buttons. Using Pirate Bay as the means to create a box office success must represent the ultimate sweet irony for the heads of the studios who are able to use it to maximise the take while at the same time using the leakage of the rough cut as the argument to toughen up copyright laws to stop piracy.
Of course this scenario would never happen in the real world, would it? Just like a three track single could never be accidentally manufactured in the EMI factory, right?