I think we can all agree that movies are the most relatable art form. You can’t expect everyone at a family get together to bond over Van Gogh’s ‘The Starry Night’, but you can make a safe bet that everyone, from your baby cousin to your grandma, will be gathered around a screen crying over ‘KabhiKhushiKabhieGham’. Movies come in a variety of shapes that cater to every emotion a person could feel: anger, joy, desperation, fear, and many other complex feelings that can’t be put into words. Movies, however, can put it into their scenes. This makes people feel seen, which is why they feel a sense of attachment towards them. Movies are also a way for people to unwind and relax, to escape their lives for a bit and live vicariously through film characters. And now that digital marketing has found its place in the film industry, people are finding themselves even more connected to movies.

Digital marketing, even though it hasn’t been a big aspect of our culture for as long as movies, has quickly found a strong footing in our society. Almost all the big businesses use it to increase profits, and it’s no different for the film industry. A study by Twitter in 2014 stated that social media users are more likely to watch a new movie in the theater than non-users, presenting the impact of online marketing.

Here I’ll be discussing 3 ways how digital marketing has found its place in the film industry.

Suspenseful Taglines Released On The Internet

Digital marketing has allowed film publicists to raise anticipation and excitement in their audience. With clever captions and carefully crafted video snippets posted to their social media sites, crowds get a taste of what to expect, and they are left wanting more. An example of this occurred when “The People v. OJ Simpson: American Crime Story” was set to air. The entire world is familiar with the infamous trial of OJ Simpson, and millions around the world followed the case closely when it was happening. Therefore, they were skeptical of this show; what can a show capture that hasn’t already been experienced by the masses? How could it possibly do justice to the roller coaster ride that people had been on while they were following the actual case?

That’s when the show’s publicists released a gripping tagline all over the internet, onto all their social media handles, that immediately caught their target audience’s attention. The line went “You don’t know the half of it.” Now who can resist a provocation like that?  It got people curious, and that tagline did wonders for the show.

Creative Freedom

Digital marketing offers film cast and crew with more freedom to post what they want than traditional marketing. Television and newspapers heavily filter what you have to say. With digital marketing, you’re the master of your field. There are little to no rules, and films use this opportunity to reach large populations of people from all age groups.

An example of this can be seen with the movie Deadpool. Deadpool as a whole is an R-rated movie, and R-rated movies deserve R-rated marketing. Traditional media couldn’t allow for that, so Deadpool marketers took it into their own hands to portray Deadpool in online campaigns in a way that did his character justice. This drew the audience in, and people amassed in theatres to watch it.

Intimacy

Every person’s online behavior is recorded and analyzed by marketers to decide on their next move. This goes for a movie’s marketing team as well. They know who the fans of their movies are, and they interact with them to find out what they want. This gives them leverage to advertise their movies in a way that’s appealing to their fans, and also to their target age demographic.

For instance, ‘The Hunger Games’ franchise released an immersive video experience of their universe on Youtube for fans to enjoy, which immediately brought up the hype for the movie. Another instance is when ‘The Secret Life of Pets’ relied entirely on marketing to pet lovers on the Internet, which helped them become an immediate success.

These are just a few of the liberties that digital marketing allows movie firms to take. The influence of digital marketing that has helped it find its place in the film industry is far-reaching and widespread. One small move can go a long way to determine if a movie becomes a hit or a flop.

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