Besides sprawling cinematic universes, one other trend has defined the last decade or so of moviemaking – big budgets. Costs have ballooned significantly in recent years, mainly due to CGI and marketing demands. A lot of this year’s movies are also part of established franchises, justifying a big budget from many studios’ perspectives. It’s starting to eat into profits, so let’s explore some examples of guerilla marketing tactics that moviemakers should learn from.
Marketing & the Internet
The Internet is the single most powerful marketing tool in the world. Studios know this and try to capture lightning in a bottle with digital advertising, to varied results. Elsewhere on the internet, businesses have mastered online marketing techniques to help them grow.
A classic example is the free trial, more viable than ever thanks to today’s digital landscape. In e-commerce, Amazon Prime is a great example of this strategy paying off, but it’s very common in industries like iGaming too. When a casino rewards free spins for new and loyal users, they’re using a timeless marketing strategy that has been updated for the digital entertainment that exists today. In this manner, bonus rounds, jackpots, and other promotions are part of an approach tailored for customers of online gameplay.
Films can similarly pivot their promotional game plan to adapt to a changing world. That’s why studios have begun employing other strategies instead. For movies and other creative mediums, publicity is everything. Gathering eyeballs can get expensive when you go through traditional avenues, but it rarely leads to valuable word-of-mouth buzz. Contrast that to guerilla marketing, which is relatively inexpensive and often goes viral.
What Guerilla Marketing Looks Like
Guerilla marketing can be a lot of things. At its core, it should be surprising and break with conventional marketing practices. This often comes with a spirit of bottom-up action that taps into hype or other sentiments surrounding the movie, instead of lecturing from a commercial or a billboard.
It (2017)
2017’s It was a wildly successful cinematic return for the Stephen King tale, where it made $700 million against its tapered $40 million budget. It surely benefited from being an established story but successfully re-introduced the story to more people than ever before.
The red balloon already featured prominently in traditional marketing, through posters and most advertisements. Then, leading up to the release, red balloons started appearing in Sydney, Australia. The real magic here is that social media helped broadcast the stunt, bringing everybody a chilling message – “it’s closer than you think.” It was the kind of guerilla marketing that would only work today and helped propel an already popular story into the zeitgeist.
Deadpool (2016)
2016’s Deadpool was a passion project for Ryan Reynolds, who had always wanted to play his version of the character. It was also an underdog story, as they had to fight studios to get the film made. The guerilla marketing arguably started before the movie was even released. After leaking their own concept footage, the zany marketing ploys continued. The most memorable were Deadpool accounts created on Tinder, nailing the irreverent and adult tone that superhero movies had shied away from.
The Nun (2018)
Guerilla marketing can also be a chance to provoke debate, in a way you just can’t do with established marketing channels. That happened in 2018 with The Nun, a spinoff from the hugely successful universe created by The Conjuring. They created a six-second ad that leaned into one of the more discussion-worthy elements of horror movies: jump scares.
Love them or hate them, the jump scare was promptly banned from YouTube for violating “shocking content policy”. Framed differently, the ad was banned for being too scary, which is a great accolade to have attached to your horror movie. That fact was widely reported and started a conversation about the movie in circles where it otherwise may have been ignored.
Appreciate you bringing this to our attention! This ad violates our shocking content policy and it’s no longer running as an ad. More info here: https://t.co/dOUocjUevh
— TeamYouTube (@TeamYouTube) August 14, 2018
Conclusion
As the above films have well demonstrated, sometimes, marketing can be as simple as tying a balloon to a drain. If studios get creative and leverage this elusive marketing style, they could find some much-needed breathing room within their budgets. The guerilla approach could be the dawn of a new low-budget marketing era.