Movie Marketing Meltdown

The much awaited 15 minute trailer for James Cameron’s new movie, Avatar, was finally released last week at all 3D cinemas across the globe; and having turned the movie marketing model upside down by holding back much, if any, communication about the movie’s story line the Avatar ‘hype bubble’ had reached its maximum and was ready to burst. The Big Idea – to seduce their fans into believing this was the only film worth knowing without knowing anything about it.

Avatar has been referred to as the next film that will change the entire film industry (big statement to live up to) and its taken 10 years for anybody to see a snippet of the film or hear anything about the story line. It’s been a tense rollercoaster ride for film fanatics and at stages of the ride the rollercoaster pretty much stopped.

Due to the fact that the film was 3D using all the above the line marketing channels, such as television or standard theatres, just wasn’t good enough for the film makers as the channels didn’t show the true brilliance of the film. So instead they screened the film at select 3D theatres. Of course, this only involves a handful of the population and therefore you would think pushing the word of mouth online would be crucial and only fair.

The trailer was uploaded on to Apple’s trailer hosting site which was the only place you could view it so all online media portals linked straight to it. This then caused the site to crash many, many, many times to everyone’s frustration. But the big shock came when all the sites received letters accusing them of posting content that ‘infringes Fox’s intellectual property rights’ and straight away the links were removed.

So, having waited a ridiculous amount of time for just the trailer launch and then sat back to observed the films marketing tactics fans and reviewers have come away feeling confused, bemused and pretty much unwanted.

Being that the film has been dubbed as Cameron’s big masterpiece the film ‘will go on…’ (Titanic theme tune) and will be a huge success. But, as for their Big Idea tactics implemented, marketers should keep things traditional and simple. Why try and complicate something that was already a winner!

Related links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Cameron
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/aug/21/avatar-3d-film-james-cameron
http://mrcontroversy.blogspot.com/2009/08/last-temptation-of-james-cameron-part-i.html
http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/308375/avatar_the_marketing_plan_thats_backfiring.html
http://www.scifiscoop.com/news/poor-marketing-bursts-the-avatar-hype-bubble/

To google, or not to Google, that is the question

With the launch of Wolfram Alpha, there has been a lot of speculation about it being a Google killer. It is a big idea, but I dont think it has a chance as it is not in the same market as Google. Want to know about Jordan Breaking up with Peter Andre, or what Britney spears got up to with a watermelon? If you do Wolfram Alpha won’t be much help. But if you want to know the cubic volume of said watermelon or how many people are divorced and how this differs by States in the USA, then it is much more useful.
But this is not a problem, as they have not set out to be a Google killer; it has been thrust upon them. I think there is a market for niche search engines that look for specific things: Take Ice Rocket This is a specialist engine that searched blogs, twitter and social media sites. This is totally different and has its place. So Google rests safe on its laurels for another day, the real Google killer will be a big idea, but I think it will be a paradigm shift rather than a better site.

Everything goes somewhere

I thought I had an idea, a really big idea, one that could save mankind. Quite simple, where does all our luggage go when it gets lost in airports, where do the socks in my washing machine go to and what happens to the 99% of paperclips that never get used for clipping paper. If we could find this big black hole, we could sort out all our landfill problems with room for all sorts of other detritus. But now I have seen what happens to your luggage, it gets bought by possible slightly obsessed people, photographed and posted on the web. So if you have lost your luggage, then have a look here and see if you recognise it. In the meantime if you do know what has happened to all my lost socks, then please send answers on a postcard.

Don’t throw away the key

The online world has all sorts of things to make your life easier. I love email and online banking and a host of other things. We are all constantly told to be vigilant with our passwords and to ensure that no one knows them. But with paper statements being run down and a large amount of our affairs protected by a password, what happens when you finally curl your toes up. A company called The Legacy Locker have created a big idea around this which you can see here. The idea is that you have an online vault which contains all your passwords. You can also use it to store letters to loved ones and it is activated on death or incapacitation. As the web is so young and rapidly growing, it is only now that people are starting to think about the newly emerging edges like this. The only problem now is where to put your password for this site…