Fan Me!: A Look at Entertainment Advertising on the Web

As a film production major at the University of Southern California I have learned that a producer's work doesn't begin or end with the making of a film. A producer must also oversee the advertising, marketing, distribution, and promotion of a film. For that reason I decided this week to return to the blogosphere to research details on the process of marketing television shows and movies. Since I am working, with this blog, within the confines of the world wide web, I have chosen to seek out and comment on blogs that address how entertainment is being advertised on the web. I looked at both the broad subject, with a post from Variety entitled "Entertainment Brands Get Equal Footing with People on Facebook" that analyzed how television shows and films will now use Facebook user profiles as advertising, as well as the specific, with the post "Who Will Watch The Watchmen?" that dissects Watchmen's viral campaign. "Entertainment Brands Get Equal Footing with People on Facebook" was written by Ben Fritz for his "Technotainment" blog on Variety.com where he writes about digital media, technology and gadgets from the Hollywood perspective. Fritz is the videogame reviews editor for Variety, the editor of the satirical website Dateline Hollywood and co-author of the New York Times best seller "All the President's Spin". "Who Will Watch The Watchmen?" was written by Gillian Reagan, a writer for the New York Observer, a weekly printed newspaper in New York that is updated daily on the web. Both writers contribute to respectable publications that are both in print and on-line. Although Variety is the more popular of the two in the entertainment industry, both posts address the subject intellectually, make comparisons to the past, and incorporate links to models and outside sources. Reagan specifically includes many hyperlinks to the Watchmen campaign. I have posted my comments directly on these blogs but for convenience I am also including them and links to where they can be found, below.

"Entertainment Brands Get Equal Footing with People on Facebook"
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As a college age student I have had experience with Facebook and have joined and participated in some of these old "fan" pages in anticipation of a film release or a television series debut. I found it very interesting to learn that these entertainment brands switched their Facebook interface. While I agree that the older fan pages limited the amount of information consumers received about the product I believe that these pages were beneficial because they were interactive and spearheaded by a community of fans. Even before fan pages were officially added to Facebook, users formed groups that honored their favorite films like Garden State(fan group pictured above) or Igby Goes Down (group names include Igby Goes Down=God and Igby Goes Down > Garden State). Not all of the information on these pages was official nor was it even comprehensive but they were user driven, fan created and therefore conveyed the attitudes of and feedback from those praising or critiquing the films and shows. Taking these fan pages out of the hands of users and putting them into the hands of big companies as you cited with the South Park example, is expressly counter to the idea of user driven social networking. I think you are right to lament that "letting brands own their pages is, of course one step further away from Facebook's original mission to let Harvard students post individual profiles". I wish you had included in your post information regarding whether these companies pay for these pages. However either way I disagree with Facebook allowing these fan sites to be taken over by the brands at the expense of user control. I think the monetary issue is an important one that should have been addressed in this post. Do you think they are paying for these pages? If they are, do you think this is appropriate for a social networking site?

Additionally, you claim that "for entertainment brands like movies, TV shows, and bands, engaging with fans on one of the two biggest social networks just got a lot more powerful." Do you think that fans really want to join a fan site that is monitored by the brand when they could speak more freely and openly on their own site or form their own group? Additionally, how many users are actually using a site like facebook to look up information on a film when they can access more accurate and detailed information from Imdb.com, or any other movie specific site? What is the benefit of having a page like this on a social networking site which most people use to keep in touch with friends and meet new people? Even if they join a fan page, do most of these users actually interact on a regular basis or contribute to these pages? If not what's the point? It is very easy to click, add and forget.

"Who Will Watch the Watchmen?"
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I am glad someone else in the blogosphere was perplexed and disappointed by Watchmen's viral campaign. As a film student and an avid comic book movie fan I was excited and enthralled by the initial Watchmen trailer. Even though I am not a huge fan of viral marketing nor am I an expert on the subject, I was curious about what Warner Brothers would roll out for the Watchmen campaign after the hugely successful "Why So Serious?" campaign accompanied The Dark Night's release last year. Having never read the Watchmen graphic novel I expected to get introduced to the comic book from the online campaign anticipating that it would reveal even more about the movie. However, like you, I felt the campaign fell short. I found I had to seek out and search for the campaign which had failed to become part of mainstream "must watch" pop-culture. Additionally, I agree with your assessment that "most of the material is too complicated, self-referential and obscure to attract a mainstream audience-and that may also be what is wrong with the Watchmen movie itself." Like you, I found that the campaign preached to the choir in that it did more to appeal to existing devotees rather than attract new fans, a complaint that I have read elsewhere about the film itself. Having since seen the film, I do agree.

As you touch on in your article, the online community was more excited by the casting and production news about the film than the actual viral campaign(one web site is pictured above) advertising its content. Do you think this says something about the effectiveness of viral campaigns in general or do you think it is specific to the shortcomings and mistakes of this particular campaign? If you do think it is specific to this campaign, as you seem to indicate in your article, what would you have done differently to improve the campaign? Do you think the timing of the campaign impeded its success? The Dark Knight campaign, which you praise in your article, was implemented at least eight months prior to the film's release whereas the Watchmen campaign began in mid-January approximately seven weeks before the film's debut, thereby limiting its promotional value to entice future movie goers. Despite this possible misstep the question remains, given the complicated nature of the film's content could Watchmen have ever really succeeded in becoming part of mainstream culture?