A recurring theme on the show has been the way marketing departments have been strangling creativity in show business (in any business?). If the marketing department believes a particular story will sell, that story gets made into a movie. If the marketing department doesn’t like the demographics of a particular television show, that show gets canceled, regardless of how many total viewers it might have.
This week, Dean and Phil approach the discussion from a different perspective, revealing to you the all-time worst jobs of marketing films. Keep your pen and paper handy because your friends in podcasting might just hit you with some ideas for your Netflix queue … Films that either slipped under your radar because they were marketed so poorly, or films that were made to look like something you wouldn’t like because they were marketed so incorrectly.
We won’t promise it’s our best show, but Dean and Phil are certainly excited, believing it to be their most marketable episode yet of YOUR Chillpak Hollywood Hour.
November 23rd, 2009 at 6:25 pm
Well, I haven’t listened to the podcast yet. But the first movie that crosses my mind is – of course – “I WANT TO BELIEVE”. I don’t know how the marketing has been in the US, but here in Germany there almost was NO marketing for this movie. And that’s really a bad strategy to introduce NEW fans to the show (was it Chris Carter or Frank Spotnitz who mentioned that this was one of the reasons to do a monster of the week movie and not a mythology/alien movie?). Not to mention the bad timing. “I WANT TO BELIVE” is no summer movie and running against “THE DARK KNIGHT” didn’t make it better. And we shouldn’t forget “MAMMA MIA”. I remember myself sitting in a small cinema near Toronto on the first day “I WANT TO BELIEVE” hit the screen in Canada. With 5 other people in the room (well, it was 3pm or so… Really the first screening.). All those Batman Fans down the hallway and hearing “Dancing Queen” from the theater next to us when we were watching Pater Joe scream “It’s here”.
What’s interesting is the German version of “I’m a celebrity, get me out of here”. The TV station that is producing the show has trouble to make commercial deals. Almost no company wants its product to be related to the show. But the TV Station still holds onto that show. Even with the huge costs they have producing it. And it really has good ratings. Well, at least they held onto it ’til this year. The fith season for next year has been canceled. We’ll see how it’s gonna end.
30 Rock is another example. It’s airing on a new digital tv station for about 2 weeks now. With horrible ratings. But – since digital tv is quite new to a lot of viewers – most of them don’t even know that this tv station exists at all. AND they wouldn’t expect that kind of show on this kind of tv station. I’m pretty sure on another tv station with the right marketing campaign the ratings would be way better.
I could continue writing about this topic but i’ll rather download the podcast finally