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Recently Universal Studios did something incredibly smart. One of their representatives contacted Chris Thilk. Chris runs the blog Movie Marketing Madness, which, as the name suggests, covers all things movie marketing....
Periodically, Chris will publish a 'Movie Marketing Madness' post for a particular upcoming movie, where Chris will meticulously detail every aspect of the movie's promotional plan and pinpoint exactly how effective he feels the entire campaign is in promoting the movie. This week, Miami Vice will open in theaters, and Chris will review the marketing for the movie on MMM.
But his post about Miami Vice will have an interesting twist, as he explains on his blog: "Want to know why my column next week on Miami Vice is going to be so cool? Because someone from Universal Studios took half-an-hour out of his day to call and chat with me about it.".
Brilliant.
Here is Universal, on the eve of the release of a movie which they are hoping will be their summer blockbuster, and they are saavy enough to contact the internet's most influential movie marketing blogger so he can be empowered to help promote their film.
But that's not what makes this such a great move for Universal.
After Chris makes his announcement that Universal has contacted him, bloggers run with the story. Within 48 hours, upwards of 15 other blogs had linked to MMM, Universal, and Miami Vice. Effectively, these bloggers had created a spontaneous marketing campaign for not only Miami Vice, but for Universal Studios. All because one rep from one company was smart enough to take 30 minutes out of his day to empower one of his advocates to market for his company.
But that's not what makes this such a great move for Universal.
What makes this such a great move for Universal is that now they have empowered Chris to market for not only Miami Vice, but every film and property they release from now on. According to Chris, "This guy made himself available to me and you can bet that anytime I have a question about a Universal movie I'm going to ping him. Whether it's for more details on something or to clarify something I don't quite understand. That way Universal will get their information out correctly and I'll get my facts straight before hitting 'Publish.' It's a win-win."
Exactly.
How do you put a price tag on the positive exposure that Universal will get in return for that 30-minute phone call? My guess is that they've already had about 10,000 blog readers exposed to this story on all the blogs that picked up on the story from MMM, just in the first 2 days since Chris posted about the chat he had with Universal on MMM.
How many more posts and columns and articles about Universal and their properties will Chris write just for the rest of this year, as a result of one 30-minute chat? How many people will be exposed to Universal and their properties as a result? 25,000? 50,000? 100,000? Even more?
Not a bad way to spend a half hour, is it?
The bigger, and perhaps more relevant question is, how much will Paramount or New Line, or another studio pay to get the same level of exposure with those tens and maybe even hundreds of thousands of movie fans? Because whatever they pay, remember that it won't cost Universal one penny.
The future belongs to the companies that are smart enough to empower their communities to market for them.
Technorati tags: Universal movie marketing blogging social media community
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Comments
Mack,
Great post and what a great example of advocate marketing and the power of "one".
Such a simple concept and one which I bet many other movie studios wish they'd thought of. But perhaps the key message here is look outside your own sphere and see how others are reacting and how you can collaborate to make something better than you could by yourself.
Really powerful message in that I think.
Bev
Posted by: Beverley Hamilton | 07.24.06
Mack - I agree with Beverly, great post.
Part of the unseen, untold story is that each of the bloggers involved (myself included) now has an investment in the success of the movie.
I don't take enough time to watch many movies - but you can be this will be one I watch.
Posted by: Mike Sansone | 07.24.06
"Part of the unseen, untold story is that each of the bloggers involved (myself included) now has an investment in the success of the movie."
Exactly. Last week I literally didn't give a damned about this movie, this week I am actively telling as many bloggers as I can about Miami Vice, and how Universal reached out to ONE blogger. I now have a vested interest in seeing that Universal's move to empower Chris be rewarded.
And as I told Chris and Ann, if this one rep from Universal wants to make some SERIOUS waves, he'll take a minute to go to every blog that's picked up on this story and just leave a quick 'thank you' comment.
That would seriously give this story even stronger legs than it has now.
Again, this is something that any other studio could have done, but they didn't. Will be interesting to see how much momentum this story gains as we head into Miami Vice's opening weekend.
Posted by: Mack Collier | 07.24.06
Way to go, Mack. It was my pleasure to heed your smart call-to-arms on my blog. As I was telling my friend this weekend:
A. I shall go to see Miami Vice as my show of support (and really don't have any interest in so doing, but support I must).
B. I shall not go see Snakes On A Plane because they didn't allow bloggers to screenings, only critics, and that's just poor form since the blogosphere catapulted them into legend & lore.
That said, I was really stoked to see Snakes On a Plane. But Miami Vice it will be for this marketer.
Posted by: CK | 07.24.06
Great work on the part of both Miami Vice and Chris. Now you've gotten us interested and we'll tell more bloggers about it.
It's because the movie's so special. It's because the people are.
Posted by: Liz Strauss | 07.24.06
I was going to see Miami Vice anyway, but something like this does change your perspective.
Thanks for the link, Mack, and for making me part of something truly big. Kudos to you on rallying the troops and making it happen.
CK, what do we do if bloggers aren't present at the MV premiers??
Posted by: Jordan | 07.25.06
Mack -
I agree. Were Universal to post a thank-you on all the linking blogs, they'd be lionized in our community. Hopefully marketers start picking up on the fact that we're possibly the most easily engaged audience in the world! Not that we're desperate or anything... :]
Posted by: Clay Parker Jones | 07.25.06
Jordan I wouldn't come down too hard on Universal if they didn't have bloggers at the premiere. This late in the game, I would think it would hard to organize this quickly. I think what WE as the blogging community can do is make a point to thank Universal for their reaching out to one of our own by giving this story the attention it deserves.
We trumpet every company mis-step with bloggers,(see the Dell blog), why can't we turn around and devote the same amount of time and attention to a company that reaches out to embrace the blogging community?
I think we owe it to the companies that do reach out to us, and ultimately, we owe it to ourselves. If all companies hear from bloggers are complaints every time they attempt to join our space, we'll eventually scare all of them off. Universal got it right, and we need to make sure that their efforts are rewarded.
Posted by: Mack Collier | 07.25.06
What more can I say than has already been said? And isn't that the point?
Posted by: J.D. | 07.25.06
Thanks for the link(s), Mack, and for the Spartacus-like rallying of your forces in support of this excellent story. I'm a fan of Michael Mann's and was planning to see MV - but I've been galvanized by this effort and hopefully my readers are, too.
And of course I'd welcome the Universal rep to comment on my blog. But of course then I'd have his name and contact info just like Chris does :)
Posted by: Alan | 07.26.06
Fascinating - for me most interesting thing is that this act of outreach has got the movie support even amongst those who perhaps aren't the movie's target audience... I wonder if that is sustainable though, bloggers gratitude to the first movie to embrace them perhaps will diminish once they all do...
Posted by: Arvind Ethan David | 07.27.06
"bloggers gratitude to the first movie to embrace them perhaps will diminish once they all do..."
Exactly Arvind. At this point it is still an innovative approach, hopefully by this time next year it will be commonplace. When I talk to music labels about my '100 CDs for 100 Bloggers' promotion, I stress to them that the FIRST label to execute this promotion is going to make serious waves among bloggers because a label hasn't yet had a mass-targetted promotion aimed at bloggers such as this.
As with any new idea, few businesses are willing to 'chance' trying it out. Then one does, they have great success with it, and everyone jumps on the bandwagon.
Posted by: Mack Collier | 07.27.06