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Made By Marketing by Aparna Bakhle 2002 was the year of the runaway box office. The overall tally set an all-time high at $9.37 billion, and more movie tickets were sold this year than any since 1958. The year had a few memorable movies, as well as a few memorable duds. But after being inundated by spiders in bus stops, and seeing three X's on every trash can from here to Canada, one reason seems obvious: stellar marketing. Sony Pictures had seven #1 movies in 2002, enough to power the studio to an all-time worldwide record of $2.85 billion. And while some pictures were pre-sold behemoths like Spider-Man and Men in Black II, other titles faced a much tougher sell. A prime example was Sony's co-production with Revolution Studios, Maid in Manhattan, starring Jennifer Lopez. Her career box office high was for The Cell, which grossed a disappointing $61 million. And her previous effort this year for Sony also underperformed, when viewers decided they had had Enough at $39 million. Sony/Revolution came up with an innovative campaign to promote the film, by using original content to augment Lopez's natural star power. They created 28 short films, titled "Maid in Manhattan Love Stories", which featured real life couples, sitting in movie seats, speaking to the cameras about the moment when they fell in love. |
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These multimedia pieces were then posted on the film's Web site, along with the traditional film elements. The 28 couples ran the gamut from engaging and funny, to mundane, but they were all unquestionably real, in that reality television way. Terry Curtin, marketing and distribution chief at Revolution, notes, "We are always seeking unique ways of being more than just a film site. Since it is such a universal Cinderella story that redresses old themes in fresh ways, we sought an equally unique approach." They found that through the multimedia campaign, which extended the audience by empowering them to acknowledge their own encounter with true love. Brad Sexton, the head of online marketing for Revolution, also stressed the importance of acquiring viewers by launching the campaign with several strong online partners, such as Yahoo!, Windows Media, Apple, and Univision. Both attest to the importance of multimedia for all future projects. Says Curtin, "Offline media responded very favorably to the campaign, it gave their coverage a unique angle from which to address the larger themes of the film, as well as engage audiences on a more personal level in terms of recalling their own stories of finding love in New York City." Curtin sees multimedia as symbiotic, as an "incremental and vital aspect of Revolution Studios." This enables a stronger presence with wider reach than through a simple Flash site. Curtin is part of a new wave of marketing heads, unafraid to try newer, more interesting and more effective ways to reach audiences. |
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The other member of the Maid In Manhattan campaign was the team from Sony. Among the marketers at the various studios, Dwight Caines the Online Marketing guru at Columbia Pictures stands out. Caines leads the industry in effectively harnessing the growing power of broadband. His approach shows that if the message connects with the audience, this leads to closer affiliation with the film and more tickets sold. The success of this multimedia campaign sends the clear message that heavy traffic to a film's site can be meaningfully utilized when the studio creates a compelling emotional connection with content for audiences who come to the site. Revolution is looking into ways of introducing the campaign in foreign markets and other unexplored Terrytories, and is considering launching a second version of the campaign with more couples to extend its shelf life. And in the ultimate convergence of content and marketing, "Maid in Manhattan Love Stories" will also be included on the film's DVD. Maid in Manhattan has been Lopez's most successful film by far, grossing $85 million to date. |