November 15, 2006Borat - King of New Marketing |
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Sascha Baron Cohen, of the High Priest Cohens, is confusing the crap out of every conventional thinker or marketer right now. His movie, Borat, is a hit (to say the least) with (as of 11/15), $69million in box office receipts after just 2 x #1 weekends. With a production budget of $18 million, it's pretty safe to say that Will Ferrell has some competition on his hands.
Just after the (over)hype of Snakes on a Plane died down, this movie comes along and thankfully proves that word-of-mouth really does rock.
The Lefsetz Letter posts a great piece on Borat and relates it to the music business as well. What I love about it was that it was posted on the day of the release and it accurately predicts the movie being a hit!
Here are some (there are many) highlights:
If you want success today, create something good. Seed the early adopters. And then cease, or at least slow down, your marketing. Because the more you beat people over the head, the less attention they’re going to pay. THEY want to feel in control, THEY don’t want to feel tools of the system. THEY want to embrace the project...
This frightens the purveyors. Because they can nail marketing, but QUALITY? Look at the flicks, they truly suck. Ask the man on the street, he thinks music sucks TOO! To the point where most people have tuned out, and the only people who can bring them back are their buds, who have a RELATIONSHIP with them. Believe me, the marketers at Fox don’t have a relationship with their audience. They THINK they do, but they don’t.
Hearing the movie’s good, I’m gonna give it a chance. Then again, if Fox keeps trumpeting the story, they’re gonna kill MY word of mouth, I don’t want to work for the man. And neither does the Net generation. WE make the stars, not you. Give us reasonable choices, WE’LL do the work. It won’t happen instantly. First week grosses, first week SoundScan numbers, are no longer important. It’s about longevity. It won’t take forever, because word of mouth happens so quickly on the Net, and we’re all in touch with SO many more people on a regular basis. But it’s now our game, not yours, don’t ever forget it.
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Comments
There's that plus:
- Kazakhstan 4-Page Ad in NYT
- faux press conferences
- Cohen's appearance at the Kazakh Embassy and the White House gates
Those things got the movie some nice marketing.
They also had:
- pre-released to college students
- released movie's first 4 minutes on YouTube
Posted by: Ed
Just another illustration of a great product/experience sparking buzz organically. Yes, Ads and marketing efforts help push momentum, but it's difficult to create momentum around something that sucks. Even if the marketing works, eventually people will say "yknow? that really sucked". And momentum slowly loses steam.
I didn't write about SoaP because it felt like old markekting to me even though the Social Network was tapped. Yeah the "snaked thing" was cute for about 5 minutes, then it all got old real fast.
New marketing is about sustainability. About the length and depth of the conversation as much as it is about the intensity. Maybe even more so.
Nice post Joseph. It gave me great honors to read it. High fiiive!
Posted by: David Armano
There is no question that Cohen's new marketing strategy was a success, but they did pummel the social networking sites with banner ads that I thought was bit overkill.
They started off great, but as the release date neared, Cohen seemed to be everywhere. I'll be curious to see how they approach his next movie about Bruno.
On another note, I completely agree with the slow rolling new marketing technique. Any rock that picks up too much steam has to crash some where.
I loved the release of the first four mintues on YouTube. I believe it was FX's "Rescue Me" that did the same thing with their new episodes. However, television executives need to take this concept further. I am waiting for more character blogs that don't reference the past or upcoming episode and focus on the development of the character. Let us deeper into the mind of the character. "Nip Tuck" tried this with The Carver, but the content was poor.
If Comcast can do it with The Slowsky's, Fox should be able to do it with Vic Mackey.
http://www.theslowskys.com/blog/
Posted by: Kevin G
