The Tendo View

Explosions! Aliens! Superheroes! There’s a special type of movie that rolls into multiplexes this time of year—the summer blockbuster.

Whether you love ’em or hate ’em, these cinematic behemoths can teach us a thing or two about building buzz and getting an audience’s attention—even if you’re marketing PCs and wireless instead of pirates and wizards.

Origin of the Blockbuster

In the summer of 1975, a fish named Jaws changed the movie business forever. The shark thriller broke box office records during a traditionally slow time of year and set the tone for summer movies for years to come. Two years later, Star Wars solidified the idea that audiences want big action adventure movies when the weather turns warm. Hollywood studios have been feeding the beast ever since.

In 2006, the summer blockbuster season (Memorial Day to Labor Day) accounted for 40 percent of the year’s total box office receipts. When you earn that much of your annual revenue in one quarter, it becomes VERY important.

Five Marketing Lessons from the Summer Blockbuster

Timing – Before 1975, no studio would have put its big event pictures on the calendar during the summer; that was when everybody went to the beach, not the movies. But the audience was ready for something different and it changed the conventional wisdom.

When is your next customer communication effort scheduled? Are you following conventional wisdom as to when your audience is “ready” to get your information, or are you counter-programming to gain attention in an unexpected way? Both are valid strategies, but it’s important to know which way you’re going and why.

Build Buzz – You probably can’t imagine a summer blockbuster without the barrage of TV advertising, Happy Meal promotions, and online chatter.

Marketing a summer blockbuster is almost as much an event as the film itself, with budgets to match. For example, Spiderman 3 cost $260 million to make and Sony reportedly spent an additional $120-$150 million on marketing.

What about your last marketing initiative? Did you launch a new website or section of your site? Did you develop an e-newsletter or print publication? What did you do to build the buzz before launch? How did you get your target audience excited? How did you drive eyeballs to your efforts?

“Don’t forget that your customers—whether they’re IT professionals, auto dealers, or sales people—are still human beings.”

Grab Your Audience – Pick up any “How to Write a Screenplay” book and they all say the same thing: You’ve got to grab your audience in the first ten pages (which translates into the first ten minutes of screen time.) But blockbusters are movies on steroids—they don’t wait ten minutes, they try to hook the audience with an action sequence right out of the gate.

How fast do your marketing efforts grab the attention of your customers? Does your website deliver the goods right away? Do your print materials stand out from mailbox clutter?

Watch the Box Office Results – The film industry is a business that keeps score in a public way. Weekend box office results are published every Monday morning and studios know right away whether their investment paid off or not. (Sure, some movies build an audience over time—but not summer blockbusters. You either hit it out of the park on opening weekend or you are dubbed a flop.)

You may not have box office receipts to gauge the success or failure of your customer communication effort, but what are your metrics? Do you look at them with a cold, clear eye the weekend after launch? If your metrics for “Web hits leading to sales” were published in the newspaper this Monday, would your effort be branded a flop or a blockbuster?

Entertain – It may be blindingly obvious, but summer blockbusters become blockbusters because they are fun! They provide entertainment and satisfy the audience.

Don’t forget that your customers —whether they’re IT professionals, auto dealers, or sales people—are still human beings. They’re looking for fun, entertainment, and value. You may not have $200 million to reach them, but you can still show them a good time, deliver value, and keep them coming back for more.