The cost of marketing a film today is steadily increasing. In 2014, The Hollywood Reporter shared that the cost of marketing a film was $200 million and rising, an increase from $175 million in 2012 and despite the fact that U.S. box office was down 20% over the prior year with many other territories flat.

Now, two years later, film studios are asking themselves if today’s film marketing is producing the box office sales to justify the cost increase. Only four months into 2016, the two-year trend in results remain to be seen, but what we do know is that the single biggest reason for the increase in expenditures is the growing need to cut through the clutter in the deluge of advertising messages coming at the consumer. This has made it tougher than ever to build awareness for films.

While TV ads may still be the best way to reach the masses, are they still the most effective? And do they meet the consumer at the point where they are ready and able to make a purchase? Not likely. But studio execs like the predictability of ad buys and creators like seeing their big screen work promoted on the small screen. As a result, the industry has continued to accept the way things have always been done. Makes perfect sense, right?

If you have deep pockets, maybe you can afford to keep things status quo and stroke egos. But if there are two key things that reams of research have taught us about today’s consumer, it’s that first, moviegoers will talk about and share reviews of movies on social media, creating an influential groundswell of rhetoric around a movie. According to Nielsen, they're so influential that 87 percent of Twitter users over the age of 13 said that tweets influenced their movie choices and 62 percent of moviegoers used the Internet or mobile apps to learn about films. Second, 60% say they post comments often about movies on their social networking sites. That’s right, they’re influenced by what they read online and they’re likely influencing others.

Which leads us to a few pieces of good news:

• The online influencer is powerful and actively sharing with other engaged, filmgoing audiences.
• This dialogue generates a ready made pool of data from which to secure valuable insights, while providing an avenue for building large-scale, direct connections between filmmakers and consumers.
• Filmmakers and studios are perfectly positioned to take advantage of these existing networks of conversation for sharing their message throughout the filmmaking process.

So why aren’t more film marketers tapping into online influencers? There’s a perception that it’s difficult for a film marketing team of any size to tap into this dialogue and engage with online influencers best poised to create conversation around a film, especially given the short promotional timeframes for films. It’s not an unfounded concern, but I would argue that we should view this another way:

1. Think in terms of engaging and building relationships with influencers along the stages of the filmmaking process, not just the promotion phase (more about that in my next post), and
2. consider a technology-enabled service that operates in a surge-like environment -- a virtual special operations team that can discover influencers, help you understand your influencers and engage them at every stage.

The upside of a technology-enabled service is that it complements traditional advertising approaches by integrating online influencer data and directly engaging influencers. Ultimately, this enables filmmakers to be more effective in the film creation, distribution and promotion process, providing a better chance of box office success.

In an environment where marketing costs continue to rise, few film industry execs can argue that effectiveness isn’t a good thing.

To learn more about how VizSense is solving and simplifying the influencer marketing conundrum for today’s most visionary filmmakers, contact us. We invite you to learn more about how to discover, understand and engage influencers at VizSense's Influencer Tradecraft Workshop by registering here. 

Also, download our free film industry eBook, Making Sense of Influencer Engagement: The Essential Elements of a Successful Influencer Outreach Program for Today's Films.