There was a time when a well-constructed “coming soon” trailer – i.e., establish genre, show the stars, have an explosion– would be all that was needed to guarantee the success of a film. Nowadays, you need teasers hitting screens six months beforehand, interactive websites to get a buzz going, a campaign with the potential to go viral, TV interviews, joint-promotion with fast-food outlets, social media messages and ideally a juicy scandal too. A decent film is also a bonus.
The personalised, experiential element of marketing is becoming more and more important in the making of memorable word-of-mouth. Therefore pop-up environments and installations are increasingly commonplace on the high street. To promote the DVD release of Danny Boyle’s 127 Hours (2010), a guy lived in a Perspex cubicle in a DVD shop window for (you guessed it) 127 hours. To make these gimmicks possible, promotional staff are needed to work on such events. However, the smarter amongst them may cast an eye on the movies they are promoting if they want to learn how to make their product work for them.
This is Spinal Tap (1984): Does for Rock ‘n’ Roll what “The Sound of Music” did for Hills
One of the most memorable – if not successful – appearances of promotional staff on film occurs in the cult comedy classic Spinal Tap. In New York to promote their new album (“Smell the Glove”), the hard rocking British trio are forced to attend a record company soiree; the event staff for the evening are all mimes. Much of the dialogue is improvised and even though Billy Crystal in an early break-through role is playing a silent mime he still manages to get in the classic line: “mime is money”. Off the back of this stand-out cameo, Crystal was made a cast regular on the iconic TV show Saturday Night Live and went on to star in hit movies with Spinal Tap’s director – such as, The Princess Bride (1987) and When Harry Met Sally (1989).
Hannah and Her Sisters (1986): It’s About Hannah…and Her Sisters
This mature multi-Oscar winning comedy-drama from Woody Allen tells a story of the intertwining love lives of three Manhattan sisters – Diane Wiest, Mia Farrow and Barbara Hershey. At one point, one of the sisters sets up a catering company with an actress friend – The Stanislavsky Catering Company. They try to focus on becoming promotional staff at show business events in order to network effectively for their acting careers. Unfortunately, the actresses become rivals when auditioning for the same parts and so dissolve the business. The idea was based on a real-lie enterprise by actresses Janet Margolin and Jennifer Salt.
Lara Croft – Tomb Raider (2001): Born into Wealth – Trained for Combat
Lara Croft is a popular character from the video game series Tomb Raider. Over the years no fewer than eight official promotional models have played Croft and in 2008 the Guinness Book of World recognised Croft as having had “the most real-life stand-ins”. Nell McAndrew, who only portrayed the character for one year, remains perhaps most widely recognised of the promotional models. So much so, that there was even a campaign for her to play the lead role in the original film version. Ultimately, it was decided that Angelina Jolie had more pulling power in terms of selling tickets. Nonetheless, McAndrew went on to establish a successful career as a model, trainer and all-purpose celebrity. Arguably her promotional work for the character had a longer-lasting legacy than the films themselves.
Movie Marketing Events and Promotional Campaigns
However, promotionaland marketing events are not just the domain of movie content. The movies themselves often need promoting and sometimes take extraordinary measures to make themselves stand out in a crowded marketplace.
For instance, in 1950 the host of the popular TV quiz show Truth or Consequences promised to visit whichever town in the USA that officially changed its name to “Truth or Consequences”. One town in New Mexico did so and the host continued to visit the town annually for the subsequent 50 years. Also in the ‘50s, local film exhibitors hired promotional staff to dress up as B-movie horror characters and enter cinemas to further shock the audience into believing the monsters had escaped from the celluloid. These tactics were called off when heroic spectators began beating up the imposters. In 1999, Blair Witch Project promoters claimed that it was all found-footage and was in fact real. This was the first movie promotional campaign to go “viral” – the dream goal of all modern marketers.
Indeed, the goal of any good publicity stunt is to grab attention and get people talking. In 2006, Sasha Baron Cohen managed to get the Secret Service talking into their radio microphones when he visited Washington DC as Borat to deliver an invitation for “George Walter Bush” to attend a screening of his movie. Bush declined, missing a great promotional opportunity for his unpopular White House.
Pipa Rose is a blogger who is astonished at the things that promotional staff do to promote movies. Interestingly, a lot can be learnt from these techniques and from the movies themselves to help you to promote your business.
