Comments on: What “Snakes on a Plane” Doesn’t Reveal About Marketing

By: chitragupta sinha

chitragupta sinha — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 15:50:54 +0000

It has no preview screenings for the media resultant probably its may loss snake charms.

By: Mack Collier

Mack Collier — Sat, 19 Aug 2006 19:58:42 +0000

“Here’s my point: Tom is right. Buzz before a product release may create interest but it is buzz after the product is on the shelves that matters most and determines whether the product is a success or a failure.”
Since most reviews of SoaP have been very good so far, this suggests that SoaP will be a success.
“Crap fails and quality succeeds. The Internet does not change that. Please let’s remember that online buzz is just another tool in a marketer’s bag. It isn’t some magical elixir that changes results.”
No but it can change perception. Remember when people paid perfectly good money for a rock so they could call it a pet?
But again, we aren’t talking about ‘internet buzz’, or at least we shouldn’t be. The bigger issue here is, IMO, what happens when you embrace and empower your community. SoaP is enjoying its success now because New Line was smart enough to realize early on, that the bloggers that were making fun of this movie, were also giving it free promotion. When New Line began embracing this activity, that’s when the mindset among bloggers shifted from ‘let’s make fun of this movie’, to ‘let’s tell our friends about this movie!’. That’s when the ‘internet buzz’ really took off.
When New Line empowered its community to market SoaP for them. We can talk about funny titles and Sam Jackson and anything else we want, but THAT is why SoaP is now enjoying the success of that buzz.

By: Lewis Green

Lewis Green — Sat, 19 Aug 2006 14:02:03 +0000

Other than the fact that a Times Square showing last night was 70 percent filled, I know little about this movie because I haven’t seen it. (By the way, 70 percent filled in the heart of pop culture doesn’t impress me.)
Here’s my point: Tom is right. Buzz before a product release may create interest but it is buzz after the product is on the shelves that matters most and determines whether the product is a success or a failure.
Crap fails and quality succeeds. The Internet does not change that. Please let’s remember that online buzz is just another tool in a marketer’s bag. It isn’t some magical elixir that changes results.

By: Mack Collier

Mack Collier — Sat, 19 Aug 2006 02:20:08 +0000

“In my opinion, Snakes got the buzz because the title is so baldly stupid that poking fun at the movie was absolutely irresistible.”
It did, but that’s only half the story. If New Line had done what Paramount did with Transformers, and sent their lawyers after the bloggers that were making fun of the movie, it would have been promotional suicide. Luckily for New Line, they didn’t, and instead told the bloggers to have at it, and that’s when the jokes died, and the promotion began.

By: Rhea

Rhea — Sat, 19 Aug 2006 01:14:01 +0000

Buzz happens — or it doesn’t. The buzz around Snakes was organic. You can hardly fake it. Think of the recent billboards that sprouted on the horizons of several major cities that turned out to be ads for a Court TV program. The billboards were supposed to sound as if they were messages written by an anonymous, pissed off somebody. It was a clear bid to ‘create a buzz’ but it failed because it was inorganic. In my opinion, Snakes got the buzz because the title is so baldly stupid that poking fun at the movie was absolutely irresistible.

By: Ed Lee

Ed Lee — Sat, 19 Aug 2006 00:02:15 +0000

“Nobody knows anything” – i think that goes for blogging and one’s personal brand in particular.
Ed

By: Mack Collier

Mack Collier — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 22:39:56 +0000

“I believe that the success of SoaP has far more to do with the confluence of planes and snakes and Samuel L. Jackson; mixed with the release date of August 2006, combined with 12.5 other factors that shall not be named, than it has to do with the specific Internet marketing tactics unleashed by the filmmakers. Sure, there’s little doubt that having an online community getting hopped up about the hype helped.”
Disagree. The ‘buzz’ was always there. At first the buzz was over making fun of the movie, and how it was going to suck. That’s where all the community-created videos and posters came from. When New Line stepped in and ENCOURAGED this behavior, instead of sending out ‘cease and desist’ papers, that’s when the buzz became promotion.
Until New Line ceded most of the promotion of this film to bloggers and others on the internet, this was just another summer bomb.
“But I defy one person to extrapolate from this film and reproduce the dynamics a second time. Not gonna happen.”
Sure it can. This isn’t a matter of simply generating internet buzz, it’s a matter of a studio being smart enough to identify a film’s community, join them, and empowering them to market for them.
Kevin Smith did the same thing with marketing Clerks 2. He went totally grassroots. He built buzz through his blog for over a year, he went across the country meeting with local news outlets and interviewing with them. He went as close to his community of fans as possible, because he knew that his movie wasn’t aimed at a mainstream audience, and he didn’t have the marketing budget for it anyway.
There’s a lot of talk about whether or not SoaP will cover it’s budget on opening weekend. Clerks 2 more than DOUBLED it’s budget on opening weekend. Smith has said that by the time the movie ends its theatrical run, any money made from DVD sales will be pure profit.
Why SoaP worked so well was because the target audience, males 15-25 or so, was also the demo that was most familar with social media. With YouTube….blogs….Flickr….etc etc. There was a perfect storm of that demo having the proper communication tools, the ability to reach others quickly and easily, and after New Line stepped in (by stepping out), the incentive.
But I will say this: I fear that the lesson that Hollywood will take from this is, ‘internet buzz can make a bad movie great!’.