The Big Picture of Marketing
By Kimberly Grant
Everyone loves a good movie. No matter your race, ethnicity, belief, or gender, going to see a movie is a time to enjoy a good story. These days, it’s a little harder to make it to the theater, so our homes have become genuine home box offices; also known as home theaters. Before the pandemic, though, the movie industry used to employ a scope of marketing to generate interest and get people to flock to the theaters to see their films. This type of marketing scope is called macro marketing.
Macro in A Big Way
Macro marketing is employing multiple, sub-marketing teams with the same goal: get people excited enough about a movie to get in their cars, drive to a movie theater, pay upwards of $15 on a ticket (and $100 on food!), and spend two hours in a dark room with a bright screen. This may sound like a hefty order, but the film industry has gotten their marketing efforts down to a science.
Part of a movie studio’s sub-marketing teams include public relations firms that are interspersed throughout the United States and beyond, who maintain a list of influencers and develop promotional events to advertise the movies. There are also talent management teams that the studios partner with to get the on-screen talent to do a press circuit, which includes interviews on- and off-camera, corporate appearances, and guest starring roles in television series.
There’s also a sub-team of in-house studio marketers who handle product placement and partnership deals, as well as any in-house filming for things like behind the scenes interviews and filming outtakes to place at the end of the film and on social media.
It Takes A Village
Yes, the film industry’s marketing efforts are not micro in the least. It takes, literally, multiple villages to promote an hour and a half (plus 30 minutes for pre-movie trailers) of story that generates billions of dollars in revenue each year. And, why not? The film industry has survived since its beginnings in the late 19th century when they were just silent, moving pictures.
Employing a macro approach may not have been enacted by the film industry, but the film industry has taken it to the next level like a well-oiled machine. Because, when it comes to promotion, the film industry makes a blockbuster of their macro approach. We, the moviegoers, wouldn’t have it any other way.
