The 2010 Lunar New Year marketing secret battle on how to sell blockbusters has just begun in China

In December 2010, three New Year blockbusters,"Orphan of Zhao","Let the Bullets Fly" and "If You Are the One 2", were released one after another. In addition to countless topics in terms of the quality of the film itself, lineup, box office PK, etc., a covert battle for blockbuster marketing also unfolded vigorously. In the early years, the pattern of only one blockbuster movie in one schedule has now evolved into multiple blockbusters competing in the same schedule. As a result, the marketing methods of films have become more diversified and meticulous. The rise of planning and publicity companies in recent years is enough to prove that marketing is being paid more and more attention in the film industry.

Although practitioners and media are measuring domestic blockbusters based on Hollywood film marketing models and standards, due to the huge differences in development time, cultural background and public mentality, domestic film marketers are actively exploring a blockbusters marketing path with China characteristics. The current status quo is that publicity is at the forefront, while hard and broad investment, business implantation, and post-product development are relatively lagging behind. This is also the consensus of the industry: currently, China films only have publicity, and marketing is only a conceptual initial stage.

"Veteran of blockbuster marketing"

"Hero" reporters came out in full force, but there was no release

In 2002, although "Hero" directed by Zhang Yimou was released with mixed praise, the film's contribution to the development of China's film industrialization was indelible. According to Zong Shan, a film reporter at the time and now a film planner, before "Hero", the promotion of the film basically consisted of three steps: media viewing, press conference, and premiere. Most of the event venues were in movie theaters, unlike now, held in five-star hotels and stadiums. However, the luxurious premiere of "Hero" back then was unprecedented. The first global premiere was proposed. 16 creative groups including Jet Li, Tony Leung, Maggie Zhang, Chen Daoming, Zhang Ziyi, and Donnie Yen appeared in the Great Hall of the People. Qin Jun in the film was also moved to the scene. Media reporters who usually fight alone could only bring in colleagues to help, and department reporters sent two-thirds. rdquo; However, there were also many chaotic scenes at the scene. Due to lack of experience, the film company invited people from Qingniao Fitness to maintain order. All reporters were required to store their bags, but there was no place to store their bags, and many things were lost in the end." rdquo; In addition, there was no press release at that time. The invitations to the premiere were all received by the reporters themselves who went to the production company's new pictures.

Although many problems have arisen, Zhang Weiping's concepts in film marketing are constantly innovating. From the grand and luxurious premieres to concerts and charter flights, to the low-key strategy of "Love of the Hawthorn Tree", Zhang Yimou's Every work can satisfy the audience's appetite. Although China audiences recognize the director's brand, the series of publicity methods pioneered by Zhang Weiping were quickly replicated.

Nowadays, every film is facing competition from many competitors in the same schedule. In order to gain attention, not only for blockbusters, but also for some low-and medium-cost films, the promotion period was advanced to the preparatory stage. After that, the cast was announced, the filming process, pre-screening posters, trailers, official websites, theme songs, premieres and other various campaign activities, and continued to be popular after the screening through box office, various event meetings, and online communication.

■ Questions and answers on the same topic

Q: How important can marketing play to the box office and cost recovery of a movie?

Wang Zhonglei (President of Huayi Brothers): Marketing is not a panacea, but without marketing, this disease will definitely not be cured. In our current screening environment, without marketing, we may not even have the opportunity to schedule films.

Yan Yunfei (person in charge of the promotion of "Let the Bullets Fly"): The most basic thing that determines the box office is the quality itself. I don't think publicity can bring the film back to life, but it will definitely have an effect in the short term.

Zong Shan (person in charge of the promotion of "Warring States"): Early marketing has the greatest impact on the box office of the first weekend. The size of the campaign will directly affect the number of screenings in the theater. Although it ultimately depends on word-of-mouth, if there is no campaign, it will be basically zero.

Chen Lizhi (Head of Matt Culture): The current marketing misunderstanding is that good marketing can change everything, but no matter how good marketing is, it cannot turn garbage into gold. A good work coupled with good marketing is what we should admire. The view that marketing is king is putting the cart before the horse.

Zhang Wenbo (Planner of Cinema World): There is a saying that advertising kills bad products. In traditional industries, marketing will inevitably play an important role in product sales. Marketing is sales. However, the life span of a special product such as movies is very short, so the sales method is quite special, but it still conforms to the rules of the traditional commercial market and will inevitably affect the box office. However, there are too few successful cases in China about how much effect it can play and what the proportion of marketing investment should be, so an accurate proportion cannot be obtained. ldquo;

"Classic Marketing Method"

Marketing "Du Lala's Promotion" is implanted in advance to refund the capital

"Du Lala's Promotion" released in 2010 can be said to be a successful case of domestic film marketing. The actual investment of the film was 17 million yuan, but more than two-thirds of the investment cost was recovered before the release relying on advertising placement and promotion by early merchants. In a series of promotional activities, merchant advertisements and movies were also extremely combined, achieving a win-win situation for movies and companies, and ultimately achieving box office exceeding 100 million. Zhang Wenbo, who is in charge of the promotion of the film, believes that Du Lala is not a success in publicity, but a success in marketing, but its replicability is not high. For example, there are limitations on the subject matter, but the trajectory can be found from it, such as the main creative group, The theme of the story must provide a good foundation for business development. rdquo; However, at present, domestic film marketing and the entire market have not yet formed an industrial chain. For example,"Love Outstanding", which wants to copy Du Lala, has a large number of luxury brands with a higher level than Du Lala in the early advertising, and the theme is also the focus of the workplace fashion line, but the box office is only 13 million yuan, which shows that even with classic cases, this theme has not yet figured out a rule.

Theme marketing "Love in the City" focuses on specialization in the same period

At present, people in the industry recognize Huayi Brothers as the one who has done a comprehensive and effective job in marketing. Take Feng Xiaogang's works that are well known to the audience as an example. He is currently the only director among China directors who can extend product placement into a hot topic in society. Even so, Huayi did not miss the opportunity of other marketing resources. For example,"Tangshan Earthquake" cooperated with the sports lottery for the first time, and a poster of the film was printed on every sports lottery. Its publicity was no less powerful than the overwhelming media publicity. In addition, Huayi Brothers '"Wind of the Wind" and "Love in the City" launched in recent years also achieved good results at the box office. Wang Zhonglei, president of Huayi Brothers, said that we must first make an accurate judgment of the value of our own film, which is also the longest time-consuming part of our entire marketing planning. Take "Love in the City" as an example. The distribution department was originally not optimistic about the film. We analyzed the films released during the same period and found that there were no standard romance films for this period, so we adopted the concept of special subject matter. Secondly, our team is relatively meticulous. For example, during a film tour, the three departments of promotion, marketing, and advertising will follow the entire journey, so that there will be no communication break and the cooperation between departments is high." rdquo;

example analysis

One bullet held ten press conferences

Implementation publicity process (part)

Name: Opening ceremony

Event Date: November 10, 2009

Stars present: Jiang Wen, Chow Yun-fat, Ge You

Publicity point: The three giants gathered in a historic gathering, and the heavenly king lineup appeared.

Name: Appearing at the Hong Kong Film Festival

Event Date: March 25, 2010

Star present: Zhou Yun

Publicity point: Sister Hua helped out and exposed the full lineup for the first time.

Name: Cannes Film Festival releases its first trailer

Event Date: May 20, 2010

Star present: Jiang Wen

Publicity point: The trailer was released in Cannes, attracting the attention of film dealers at home and abroad.

Name: Publicity and promotion launch season

Event Date: September 17, 2010

Stars present: Jiang Wen and Liu Jialing

Publicity point: The male version of the final poster for the female version was launched, and Liu Jialing talked about working with Ge You and Bonnie and Clyde.

Name: Pre-show meeting

Event time: November 12, 2010

Stars present: Jiang Wen Ge You

Publicity point: The final piece of the film was exposed, Jiang Wen and Ge You talked about cooperation, and Ge You predicted the box office.

Name: World premiere

Event time: December 7, 2010

Stars present: Jiang Wen, Chow Yun-fat, Ge You and other full lineup

Publicity point: The luxurious red carpet is comparable to a film festival, with 3,000 spectators laughing and applauding and setting off the National Stadium.

Analysis: According to incomplete statistics, nearly ten publicity activities for "Let the Bullets Fly" have been held, and the publicity parties have issued about 60 articles. Each mainstream website has more than three special topics, covering more than one country. Hundreds of media and magazines. This does not include press releases spontaneously collected and written by various media. In fact, domestic first-line blockbusters are basically the same in terms of these data. As the most direct contact level with the audience, the most intuitive effect can be seen.# p# Subtitle # e#

But in fact, publicity is only one component of the entire film marketing. Hard and broad investment in road signs, buildings, television, and the Internet, as well as the implantation of commercial advertisements such as patches and post-product development, are huge potential implicit in marketing. It also contributes to the box office of the film in a tangible and intangible way. For example, Bullet spent tens of millions of dollars on hard and wide launch, and cooperated with Red Bull in commercial activities. Behind the scenes, it also used a lot of word-of-mouth on Weibo to do a relatively comprehensive overall marketing. Regarding this current situation, Wang Zhonglei, president of Huayi Brothers, believes that China's blockbuster marketing is only at the initial stage. rdquo; Chen Lizhi, head of Matt Culture, believes that there are misunderstandings in film marketing in China. It is generally believed that marketing is just publicity. In fact, it should be the mobilization of various resources such as comprehensive publicity, schedule distribution, and advertising. rdquo; Zhang Wenbo, the planner of Cinema World, believes that the potential in China's films, hard publicity, commercial advertising and other aspects has not yet been explored. rdquo;

"Disadvantages of China-style blockbuster marketing"

Word of mouth may not apply to each piece

In 2010, Gao Qunshu directed "West Wind Fierce" is a film worth discussing. The film has achieved the scale of publicity for a commercial blockbuster in terms of press volume, attention, etc., but its hard publicity, commercial investment and overall marketing with post-release do not coordinate well. According to people familiar with the matter, the Wrangler put in advertisements in the film, but there was not even a patch advertisement when it was finally released. Originally,"West Wind Lie" had discussed cooperation with Gome. The film was broadcast on all computer desktops and TVs in Gome stores, but the execution effect was also poor. As a result, the early implantation did not turn into the re-growth of later resources, which directly affected the promoting factors that had a growth effect on the film's box office. Chen Lizhi said that the prerequisite for successful marketing is the quality of the film itself. If it is not good, passing word of mouth will be counterproductive. The contribution of "West Wind Lie" is the exploration value of police and bandit films, a China genre film. However, when its quality does not reach that high, we should avoid some discussions on quality, but provide a lot of guidance and reflection in terms of its significance and value. rdquo;

Weak awareness of post-product development

After "Let the Bullets Fly" was released, the Ma bandit masks in the film sold very well, but all of them were pirated. Why didn't the film company provide market analysis and consumption guidance for the post-product development part in advance? Yan Yunfei, the publicity director of the company, expressed some helplessness: In fact, he had long thought of the hemp bandit props before, but the hemp and silk materials used by Zhang Shuping in the design and the production process were very complicated. The cost of a mask was as high as 300 yuan. Considering that putting it on the market may not be suitable for consumption standards, he had to give up. rdquo; Zong Shan, the planner and promoter of the film "Warring States", also said that she is currently in contact with toy companies to develop derivative products such as character dolls in the film. However, during the process of contact, I found that there are not many creative companies with this awareness, and everyone is not very optimistic about it. It can be said that when it comes to movie derivatives, everyone has this awareness and does not want to make a difference. rdquo; In fact, the same situation once occurred to Qizi in "Yangtze River No. 7". Although domestic films have successful cases of the "Pleasant Goat" series in this regard, SMG's unique platform also determines its non-replicability in terms of marketing. And in Hollywood, there are things like the "Lord of the Rings" series,"Star Wars" series,"Harry. For blockbusters such as the Potter series, related film derivatives fully account for an important part of the movie profit model.

Publicity is only the foundation of marketing

In the past two years, domestic film planning and publicity companies have mushroomed and rapidly established. However, since most of these companies are media practitioners who have switched careers, their news releases have become more and more professional, and the mining of news points and topic creation are extremely topical, which has also led to the forefront of publicity in terms of marketing methods. However, for the overall concept of marketing, publicity alone is too incomplete, and this issue has also caused industry insiders to think about marketing issues. Zhang Wenbo believes that the company's future development direction must achieve the overall integration of publicity and hard publicity, business implantation, distribution and other aspects. Chen Lizhi revealed that in the first week of the box office of a blockbuster, its business partners contributed 50 million yuan. The participation of advertisers shares the pressure on investors, which is actually an improvement. But at the same time, what we need to avoid is to minimize the impact of product placement on movie quality. rdquo; Wang Zhonglei believes that in the past, films were mostly done from the perspective of publicity, but they could not get good feedback in the market. The marketing of China blockbusters is first of all a kind of social topic marketing, because it is in line with China's habit of social participation; the second is event marketing, learning to turn disadvantages into advantages; and the third is the cultivation of professionalism and execution of the marketing team. rdquo;

"Hollywood Marketing"

Inception virus marketing two years ahead

Film marketing is receiving more and more attention, but the current investment in marketing of domestic blockbusters is far from that of Hollywood. For example,"Inception" built a website on virus marketing two years in advance. The proportion of Hollywood blockbusters used for film marketing has also reached 1:1, and the less will account for at least one-third, and it is on the rise. In addition, investment recovery is reflected in TV copyright, audio-visual copyright, and post-product development. In fact, box office revenue only accounts for one-third or one-quarter of all profits. But in China, it is very good to be able to pay 10% of marketing expenses.

Wang Zhonglei said that the several major breakthroughs in the marketing of domestic blockbusters are first based on self-confidence, such as "Hero" and Bullet. In fact, they are not seeking purely box office revenue, but to allow Zhang Yimou to change from the boss of artistic films to the boss of commercial films. The continuation of Jiang Wen's future path is actually gambling in nature, and the input-output ratio has not been strictly calculated at the beginning. rdquo; Chen Lizhi believes that the good thing is that investors in China are now willing to pay a special fee for marketing. Although the amount is small, they already have this awareness. I think the end of 2010 will become a dividing line. Starting from this year, investment and attention in marketing will increase. rdquo;

The Ring, an important prop in the "Lord of the Rings" series, was once worshipped by otaku in the popular American drama "The Big Bang Theory", and the top in "Inception " was also sought after by countless fans. In contrast, in Chinese-language movies, the "Let the Bullets Fly" Ma bandit masks appear on the market are all pirated copies.