Marketing disguised in movies or movies dsguising marketing?

So, I already posted on how much marketing influences and uses the film industry as another promoting tool and brand awareness strategy and I left you with the question whether movie plots and production adjust to the needs of the marketing plan of the movie sponsors these days, rather than using movies to explore a certain subject, issue, portray characters and people or describe the way we used to be and the way we are.

Well let's start from the beginning of the whole story; in the early days of television various companies would act as an insurance back up for shows, and so for example ''soap opera's'' got the adjective from their washing powder sponsors; or ''Wings'', the first movie ever to win a best picture Oscar award back in 1927 contained a publicity for Hershey's.

The 1980's saw the explosion of the practice of product placement in blockbusters, such as showcasing futuristic cars in the hit trilogy ''Back to the future'' or featuring trainers from a famous shoe company in the indipendent movie ''She's gotta have it'' by Spike Lee.

By the end of the 80's a new, more subtle and harder to spot approach to advertising through movies was to be used, such as cultivating relationships with prop-masters who eventually use your product when accessorising a movie set, as in the Apple case which is mentioned in the interview that follows; just to give you a quick overview on how this kind of product placement works, I'm posting part of an interview done with a famous US prop master knick named Charlie Props (Charlie Guanci, Jr), working on legendary shows and movies such as'' Miami Vice'', ''Bad Boys'' and currently on air ''Burn notice'', as he explains the way this kind of product placement works:

Does product placement affect you at all and what you choose?

CG: It does, a great deal. In television it’s very difficult to get stuff right away, quickly, because there’s a whole protocol in getting people to respond back to you and how they work. I deal with product placement companies who will send me sunglasses for the actors to wear. There’s not brand recognition on that so we have to be careful the network how we use like a Heineken beer bottle. We gotta go clear that then they have to authorize us to use it and make sure the network doesn’t have any Budweiser advertisements conflicting with that. And that takes time, it could take a week, it could take a month. I know there’s been things that we haven’t still gotten clearance on and there’s stuff we would like to clearance on that you’d think they’d just say “no problem” and we can’t just stick it in there so we use generics.

As a prop guy, why is Apple in every single TV show out there?

CG: It’s funny that you say that because… About four years ago, when I was really trying to go after Apple for a show, they were just, “Well we’ve allocated all of our product out, we don’t have anything to give.” Then the last show that I finished doing, Apple was just throwing stuff. They were just, you know their media relations and advertising have markets they’re going for at certain times in the year and they just push it. Apple iPhones on the last show were just coming out like candy. But to get Apple on here it’s, uh, something we haven’t followed right away. The Apple phone is the technology that we’d like to have but it’s soon becoming passé.

Is Apple product placement easier to deal with than say Dell?

CG: It depends on the situation and the time of year. If it’s big season, in television, when there’s a lot of shows and a lot of features, they only have so much merchandise that they can let go out. They don’t have just warehouses full of stuff. If I call product placement, they may have ten or fifteen laptops or ten or fifteen handsets available that they have to put on all of these shows, so they are limited on their volume of equipment. But, they’d make a great product, I have an Apple computer. [laughter]

*You can read the whole interview by clicking here.

Another type of partnership common these days is the kind we find in Olivier Assayas's ''Summer hours'', a French movie promoting the famous Parisian D'Orsay museum; since the museum didn't have the money to invest in the movie, they came with an alternative idea by letting the crew use some of the pieces exposed in the museum as part of their set design and by letting the crew shoot in the museum at a reduced rate; the result was as efficient as if they invested in the movie, and that is great publicity and promotion throughout the world.

After this brief historical review on product placement and promotion through movies, what is certain is that there is no indication or warning of the heavy influence exercised by the movie sponsors and backers on the movie script, and therefore the new heavily disguised marketing methods used these days should make us be more aware of who is financing the movies as much as who's starring in it and shooting it.

Now I know for sure that the next time I will go to the cinema I will pay a lot more attention on both the beginning and ending movie credits.

Is marketing taking over the movie industry?

Even though we can all laugh at the way films are commercialised today, seems that the tendency of placing strategically logos and brand names in movies is one of the most popular ways of publicity today.

Think again about James Bond, a character I love to mention in this blog, and how every time he's in deadly peril he has the time to check what time it is on his Omega watch while reaching for the keys of his Aston Martin, named the coolest car in Britain this year, and beating for the 2nd year in a row Iphone in terms of popularity brand.

This sort of blatant commercialism isn't new in the movie industry but what is surprising, is the new approaches and to what length brand managing and marketing strategies are taken to, in order to publicise a certain product.

Eurostar, whose old home at Waterloo (London site) was featured in the final ''The Bourne Ultmatum'' sequel last year, announced its move to St. Pancras (London site) by paying for ''Somers Town'', Shane Meadows's new film.

The advantage of financing a movie is having control over how and where place and publicise own brands and products, therefore Eurostar certainly new that it is cheaper and worthwhile to make a low budget film than to pay for product placement in a blockbuster.

Once the film was completed, the cross-channel train company used an agency to approach distributors and make a plan on how to present the film to the public, and Eurostar made it clear that their main objective was to create brand awareness rather than box office returns.
However the movie got good publicity in advance when the Meadows movie was accepted at the Berlin Film Festival receiving favorable reviews.

Nevertheless the numerous plugs for Eurostar are easily spotted in the movie, and to some extent tedious, such as stressing how long it takes from London to Paris with the Eurostar and placing posters for the company in the background of many key scenes.

The key question is: today, does the movie evolve around the idea of promoting a brand or does a brand look for a way of fitting into a movie lot in order to increase brand awareness?I will try to go deeper analising the way the marketing business is influencing the film industry today in the next post, meanwhile I'll leave you with the ''Somers Town'' official trailer.

The fun corner: most famous movie cliche's

''When you enjoy something, you must never let logic get in the way. Like the villains in all the James Bond movies; whenever Bond breaks into the complex: 'Ah Mr. Bond, welcome, come in. Let me show you my entire evil plan and then put you in a death machine that doesn't work.''
Jerry Seinfeld, ''Sein language''

Today I decided I should lighten up the tone of this blog by adding a few new monthly fun bites such as this one: movie cliche's, such as the one Seinfeld mentions in the caption above; apart from making us often laugh and becoming the definers of certain movie genres, movie cliche's or certain plots and gimmicks are often used as part of a PR's strategy to attract the audiences attention by humoring them; just to give you an example think about the newest James Bond movie, ''Quantum of solace'' where the fact that the famous Martini drink which Mr. Bond used to enjoy in was replaced buy a much less glamorous Coca Cola for sponsoring reasons; let's just say that according to my opinion all the bad publicity that was generated due to the change of the cliche' Bond drink, apart for sponsoring issues, was also was used to attract attention both of the media and the audience; and I admit it, I did watch the movie just to see what Mr. Bond looks like while sensually enjoying a glass of Coca Cola.



This type of cliche', a certain brand of drink that a main character always consumes, is part of the product placement cliche's; just to mention a few others of this type such as when a hero is in the presence of a company logo time will stand still; or when a character picks up a glass of whiskey or a pack of cigarettes, you will always be able to see clearly the label.

So, one day some of these cliche's might inspire us to create a great campaign to attract everyone's attention when a movie gets out, so don't skip the fun corner posts..

The PR people in the film industry

After looking at a general overview of the film industry, what I'm interested in is looking at what can a PR practitioner actually do in the field of film production and industry, what PR jobs are out there in the glittering world of the entertainment, movie stars and red carpets?

Press and publicity in general represent a vital role when it comes to marketing a film, getting it out there and making it known to the audiences that it's out and worth to be seen.

There are several job profiles in the film industry which PR practitioners might be interested into, and all of them require dealing with the media in one way or another.

I don't won't to give you just a list of typical PR jobs in movies as I am more interested in profiling the kind of work a PR specialist is called to the when it comes down to marketing a movie, that is the role of the publicist.

A publicist, in general, is a public relation professional who manages a client's image in the eyes of the public, by getting good press (or sometimes even bad press will do as well) for their client in all the media outlets. A good publicist will know all the editors, TV reporters and journalist who have the power to change a person/company image in the public eyes, as well as just being able to draw attention and put the focus on whatever the product is. But what do publicists exactly do, how can they succeed and how do you break into this business? The answer is to follow.

1. Job description

There are many ways of pitching a good story to the media; press releases are one of them and the good thing about it is that you get to reach all the media very fast and potentially, you get them interested right away if you have a good story up your sleeve.

Another very effective way of getting your story out there is by cultivating good working relationships with editors, TV news producers, journalists and so on, therefore networking with the media is essential. What is important is that these same good relations with the media might come very useful in times of crisis, and that is when the image of our client is threatened, and that is the time you will need good publicity and an opportunity of rebuilding a damaged image in the media.

In addition, publicists also handle interviews with the cast when working for a movie production, or with the client if we're talking about actors and celebrities as individuals; they organise press tours, work on marketing strategies such as publicity stunts, and deal with any other aspect that involve the media in general.

2. Required skills for the job

First of all you have to think like a journalist. Publicists need journalists as much as journalists need publicists therefore it is essential to know exactly what a media representative wants and needs to do his job, and the job you want him to do; that means that if we are to set the agenda of what a journalist is to write about, we have to know what he might find interesting and exciting; therefore excellent communication skills are needed.

Another thing that is essential is being a ''people's person'', outgoing, know how to network and know how to menage your relationships to get the best out of it.

Patience and flexibility are essential as well, as being able to deal with crisis and emergencies at any time.

3. Becoming a publicist

As written/oral communication skills are essential, a degree in journalism, PR, communication is very useful.

Getting experience is the first step to work your way up the ranks; internships for marketing/PR agencies are the best way to start to understand how to work and deal with the media as well as learn how to promote and spread the news.

The next step is building up your networks which eventually will get you the job you want, the media coverage you need, and the inside knowledge of the industry you're working for.

By now you should've got the idea of what is a publicist and what is his/her job, but if you need more info, click here and it will get you to a Q&A with a publicist who talks about the job in a more detailed way.

In addition to that, as being a publicist isn't the only PR job in the film industry, here are some websites on PR jobs available, and PR agencies which deal with the film industry, as such info gives you an idea of the PR work needed in this sector:

www.premierpr.com/client/index.php?t=h
www.film-tv.co.uk/
jobs.trovit.co.uk/jobs/film-pr-company
filmindustrybloggers.com/jobs/


Nicole Kidman with her publicist, always in the background, but always present

An overview of the film industry

Trying to write about and describe the concept of today's film industry and how does it work requires writing about the history of it, the way it developed through the decades, the way it functions and it is perceived differently from continent to continent and from country to country, so I do think it's a little bit too ambitious trying to summarize it all in a post in a clear and informing way.

Therefore all I can give you and want to give you are a few facts I find interesting about the industry today, focusing on a few key points of film production which are relevant to this blog.

Today, the major businesses of film making are located in the U.S., India and China but nevertheless, due to production and infrastructure costs, most of the films are shot in countries like the U.K., Canada, Eastern Europe, New Zealand and Australia.

The history of film is about a 100 years old and through the decades, films developed from purely entertaining novelty to an important tool of communication which has a huge impact on arts, technology, politics, economy and almost every other aspect of the society. For an extensive insight and detailed description on when and how the first motion picture was made click here and here I give you the first film ever made in history:



One of the major film centres today is obviously Hollywood. However, very curiously, most of the major film studios are owned by East coast companies. Only the Walt Disney Company and Sony Pictures are headquartered in California. As for the Hollywood movies we all know that from the start, Hollywood and it's system imposed itself as one of the more prolific, active, and influencing industries world-wide.

American films are divided into 2 categories: blockbusters and indipendent films. In order to remain profitable, every year studios rely on a few extremely expensive releases which are based upon factors like star power and massive advertising in order to attract huge audiences and remain profitable. These movies are supplemented by lower budget production usually based on niche targeting, and which success depends on critical praise; these films are more innovative, creative and of higher quality in terms of plot, acting and directing than the blockbusters.

Another significant development was the rise of the home video market in the late 80's which opened a vast new field for exploitation and a new way of reaching the audiences especially for the lower budget productions.

Now, as I already stressed, this was just a little introduction to the history and facts of the film industry, there is so much more to it that it's just impossible for me to fit it all in a post, so I did a little research and came across some really good sites on the movie industry in general, Hollywood, Bollywood, British film industry and other links you might find useful.

On Hollywood:
http://www.hollywoodusa.co.uk/hollywood.htm
http://ezinearticles.com/?About-The-Hollywood-Film-Industry&id=1099434
http://www.articlesbase.com/movies-articles/about-the-hollywood-film-industry-360786.html

On Bollywood (Indian film industry):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bollywood

On U.K. 's film industry:
http://www.prospects.ac.uk/cms/ShowPage/Home_page/Explore_job_sectors/Broadcast__film_and_interactive_media/overview/p!eigLac#97080

Film industry news:
http://www.filmindustry.com/


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First post: What is this blog exactly about?

PR AND THE FILM INDUSTRY, if you google it, I can assure you not much will come up apart from a few articles and news bits published in PR Newswire, talking about the film industry in general; not something I am interested in.

You will discover very soon what this blog is exactly about, as I do intend to post as frequently as possible in order to get your attention on the subject and encourage you to comment on anything you agree or disagree with.
Being foremost a PR student, but also a film buff and cinema lover, the question about the existing relations between the movie industry and the PR industry appealed to me as an interesting topic to blog about, as there are actually not many people or studies addressing this particular issue.

Not to beat around the bush too much, what I'm interested in is to discover how much PR practice affects a certain film production, it's distribution and final earnings at the box offices; can we really say that the public decree the success of a film over another or are the publicity stunts and specific marketing and PR tactics used to promote a certain production to grant millions at the box offices? Most importantly, if certain productions are granted success to some extension due to good PR and marketing strategy, does that mean that we get to choose only among the well publicized films, and if they're well marketed who and why decides to try to focus the audiences attention towards one particular production?

I don't know the answer to any of these question but i will try to comment on facts and figures existent concerning the film industry in order to establish the nature of the relations between PR and film throughout the last few decades.