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MARKETING TO MOVIEGOERS
Marketing to
Moviegoers
A Handbook of
Strategies and Tactics

Robert Marich

Second Edition
Southern Illinois University Press / Carbondale
Copyright © 2009 by Robert Marich
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America

12 11 10 09 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Marich, Robert.
Marketing to moviegoers : a handbook of strategies
and tactics / Robert Marich. — 2nd ed.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-8093-2884-0 (alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-8093-2884-4 (alk. paper)
1. Motion pictures—Marketing. 2. Motion pic-
tures—Distribution. I. Title.
PN1995.9.M29M37 2008
791.43'068'8—dc22 2008016284

Printed on recycled paper.

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum
requirements of American National Standard for In-
formation Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed
Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992. ∞
Contents

List of Figures vii

List of Tables ix
Preface xi

Introduction 1
1. Creative Strategy 5
2. Market Research 29
3. Paid Media Advertising 59
4. Promotional Tie-Ins and Product Placement 97
5. Licensed Merchandise 123
6. Publicity 146
7. Distribution to Theaters 179
8. Exhibition 207
9. Major Studios 232
10. Independent Distributors 247
11. Foreign-Language Films 275
12. Prints and Advertising Funds 293

Glossary 301
Index 311
Figures

1.1. Types of in-theater movie signage 8

1.2. Posters from 2001: A Space Odyssey, Ghostbusters, Fahrenheit 9/11,
and Juno 9
1.3. Teaser ad for Fox’s Eragon on a New York City billboard 17
1.4. Poster showing story trajectory of Nowhere in Africa 19
1.5. You, Me and Dupree New York City billboard 24
2.1. Sample invitation confirmation to a test screening 42
2.2. Sample questionnaire for exit survey 53–7
3.1. Media-buying agencies for top film distributors 63
3.2. A building spectacular with Jack Black in Nacho Libre 86
3.3. Types of new-media advertising 87
3.4. A Web banner for Hot Fuzz 93
4.1. Spider-Man 3 on boxes of Cheerios 102
4.2. Six thousand people sing “Christmas Don’t Be Late” 103
4.3. Fox’s promotions for The Simpsons Movie at Burger King
and 7-Eleven 107
5.1. Movie-license categories for consumer merchandising 125–7
5.2. Spider-Man 3 children’s cushion seats at Wal-Mart’s 133
5.3. 1930s Tarzan Ice Cream Cups 143
6.1. Best-ad-campaign winners and nominees, Publicists Guild
awards 147
6.2. Press-kit inventory 149
6.3. The Last Samurai ad on the Chicago Sun-Times front page 152
6.4. Tonight Show with Jay Leno promotion of The Simpsons Movie 156
6.5. Talladega Nights actors John C. Reilly and Will Ferrell on CNN’s
Larry King Live 158
8.1. A two-night cinema run for Star Trek: The Menagerie 224
10.1. A shed ad for Happily N’Ever After in New York City 254
10.2. The independent distributors affiliated with major studios 268
10.3. Poster for The Green Eyed Monster 273
11.1. Nowhere in Africa theatrical roll-out 282
11.2. Promotion for Nowhere in Africa and its Oscar 283
11.3. Films from India showcased in New York’s Mahindra
Indo-American Arts Council Film Festival 286
11.4. El Diario cover to Hispanic Oscar contenders in February 2007 290

vii
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Tables

2.1. Sample test-screening summary 43

2.2. Tracking-survey summary 50
3.1. U.S. movie-advertising spending by media 60
3.2. U.S. major-studio spending on marketing 62
3.3. U.S. major studio–affiliated indies spending on marketing 63
3.4. Comparison of media load speeds 69
3.5. Allocation of advertising spend in media by major studios 70
3.6. Allocation of advertising spend for MPAA-owned indies 71
3.7. U.S. ad spending for diverse films 72–3
3.8. Movie ads in the Super Bowl 79
3.9. On-line-ad spending by Hollywood major studios 88
4.1. Types of consumer-goods companies that use entertainment
for promotion 100
4.2. Entertainment marketers’ use of tactics in media promotions 101
5.1. Retail sales of licensed merchandise by category 124
5.2. Top movie-soundtrack albums 140
6.1. Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences voting membership
by branch 169
6.2. Key organizations and festivals influencing Oscars 170–1
6.3. Best-picture Oscar winners 176–7
7.1. Domestic admission growth 181
7.2. Top-twenty weekend openings of all time 184–5
7.3. Feature-film releases 194
7.4. U.S. film count by audience classification 198
7.5. Average U.S. ticket price 203
8.1. U.S. screen count 209
8.2. Age groups in U.S. admissions 210
8.3. Top exhibitors in North American by screens 215
8.4. Domestic box office 230
9.1. Hollywood’s major studios ranked by revenue 233
9.2. Film economics of major-studio films worldwide by genre 235
10.1. Distributor market share 250–1
10.2. Sample of low-budget $160,000 movie ad campaign 259
10.3. Sample of low-budget $1.4 million movie ad campaign 259
10.4. Top-grossing documentaries 264
11.1. Top-twenty foreign-language films 278–9
12.1. Relationship of box office to wide theater release 296
12.2. Top-five highest- and lowest-grossing films at two thousand–
plus theaters 298
ix
Preface

Painting is easy when you don’t know how but very difficult when you do.
—Edgar Degas

When I was a cub reporter in the early 1980s, I broke into business covering
Hollywood as an epochal shift engulfed movie marketing. The incumbent
film executives had spent their entire careers in publicity with an emphasis
on newspapers for both advertising and publicity efforts. In the late 1970s,
shifts in the core movie business gradually made television advertising the
centerpiece of marketing.
The major studios began importing marketing executives from the pack-
aged-goods business, literally plucking them off Madison Avenue. The very
insular old-timers were suddenly working shoulder-to-shoulder with younger
and worldlier newcomers who alone seemed to hold the key to the magic of
the television medium. Yet, the old-timers were not supplanted and managed
the transition until they retired.
There are two pearls of wisdom I still remember from this previous genera-
tion of movie-marketing executives. The first is to always “sell the sizzle and
not the steak.” If one is marketing a monster movie, the trailer and advertis-
ing should show terrified people but not the monster. Leave the moviegoers
intrigued enough to want to buy a ticket to see that. Interestingly, the opposite
philosophy prevails today, because film marketing has entered an era of the
“tell-all trailer.”
The other pearl, from the early 1980s, is that film marketing is a puppet
show and, as I frequently was told when I tried to extract information for my
film-marketing stories, “Why should we tell you how we pull the strings?” The
old-timers I encountered referred to their careers in entertainment as “work-
ing in the trenches”—which reflected camaraderie—and anybody outside the
movie business was a “civilian.” In another quirk of the era, their job titles
often included the word exploitation, which is a long-lost bit of jargon.
By the early 1990s, sophisticated marketing techniques such as advertis-
ing testing and product placement in films became firmly rooted in the
business but still the inclination to secrecy prevailed. Anita Busch, who was
the first reporter to cover entertainment marketing on a daily basis for the
Hollywood trade papers, recalls the chilly reception when she called one of
the old guard of marketing executives at a major studio, “He said to me, ‘You
cover marketing? Well, we don’t talk about marketing here.’ And with that,
he hung up on me.”

xi
xii Preface

Marketing to Moviegoers: A Handbook/Second Edition draws on my per-

sonal resources of information and contacts from covering the movie and
television business for a quarter century. I knew this book was a great idea
when every fifth person that I talked to in Hollywood while gathering infor-
mation said he or she wanted to write a book like this, too.
I also acknowledge the following film industry executives, journalists, and
supporters: Richard Abramowitz, Brian Ackerman, Rob Aft, Meredith Am-
dur, Christian Anthony, Steve Apkon, Louis Balaguer, Michael Barker, Elinor
Actipis, Tim Baskerville, Henri Bollinger, Martin Brochstein, Brad Brown,
Vincent Bruzzese, Donald Buckley, Anita Busch, Scott Carman, Geoff Cottrill,
Jay Craven, Dave Davis, Anna Marie de la Fuente, Richard del Belso, Carl Di
Orio, Jeff Dowd, Lawrence S. Fried, Mark Gill, Nancy Gerstman, Jeff Godsick,
Kevin Goetz, Karen Gold, Mitch Goldman, Rafi Gordon, Shannon Treusch
Goss, David Hancock, Scott Hettrick, Doug Hirsch, Devery Holmes, Lee Isgur,
Jason Klein, Paul Lenburg, Mitch Levine, Pamela Levine, Burt Levy, Marvin
Levy, Doug Lowell, Marie Silverman Marich, Rick Markovitz, Dan Marks,
Ira Mayer, Vera Mijojlic, Andy Mooney, Susan Nunziata, Steve Ochs, Tom
Ortenberg, Gordon Paddison, Janice Roland, Nikki Ruschell, Emily Russo,
Roger Schaffner, Lynne Segall, Tony Seiniger, Henry Shapiro, Tom Sherak,
David Stern, Howard Welinsky, and Shelley Zalis. A half dozen other film
executives were extremely helpful, but they asked not to be identified.
I’d also like to thank the team at Southern Illinois University Press, es-
pecially editor-in-chief Dr. Karl Kageff. SIU Press showed enthusiasm and
the vision that the movie sector needed a comprehensive book explaining
marketing, which is critical but often is underappreciated.
I’d also like to thank the library of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and
Sciences in Beverly Hills and the New York Public Library for the Performing
Arts (at Lincoln Center). I could spend the rest of my life happily immersing
myself in their books and archives.
And with those thoughts and acknowledgments, I sign off. Now I can catch
up on movies that I missed while updating the second edition of this book.
MARKETING TO MOVIEGOERS
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