Instead of spending tons of cash on providing substantial assistance to federal investigations of torrent trackers, maybe the MPAA should use those funds to educate its member studios about the mad, mad, mad, mad world of Internet advertising.
Considering all the money Hollywood expends on promoting its latest star vehicle, one would think Internet advertising options would be picking up plenty of cash from the studios. Especially since people like Terry Semel and Steve Jobs have pretty good ties to the movie industry.
An eMarketer report said one would be incorrect in making that assumption. Despite the seminal success of The Blair Witch Project, and the incredible online buzz generated during the filming and distribution of Snakes On A Plane, Hollywood spends comparatively little on Web advertising:
“The situation cannot last,” says James Belcher, eMarketer senior analyst and the author the new Hollywood Online report, “because 80% of all movie attendance comes from moviegoers who see one or more movies a month, and this prime target audience is young – and online.”
“Drawing frequent moviegoers to the big screen means spending to reach their computer screens online,” says Mr. Belcher.
Internet players like Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Ask, etc, probably would be more than pleased to help Hollywood spend a greater portion of its advertising budget on a contact point where more of a potential audience may be exposed to those promotions.
The MPAA stats on ages of moviegoers should be a compelling argument for greater online ad spending by the studios. According to the report, people under 30 go to movies more frequently.
Those same age groups that go to movies more often are the ones that are online more, too. Should we say lights, camera, advertise to that market? eMarketer suggests yes:
eMarketer’s projections for Internet use by US teens underline the connection between this frequent moviegoing group and its penchant for the Internet. With 73.7% of 12-to-17-year-olds in the US using the Internet now, and 83.9% projected to do so by 2010, the need for increased online movie ad spending becomes clear.
It will help Hollywood even more if they can do something that has been suggested of webmasters and bloggers for quite a while. Work on creating quality content, and more people will “link” to your work.
A while back, blogger Robert Young responded to Mark Cuban’s challenge on increasing movie attendance. Young’s answer merits repeating:
Whenever anyone goes to a movie theatre, they end up with a ticket stub. I would propose that you create a program/system to make those ticket stubs into currency essentially a coupon that can be passed around, traded, bought/sold, etc.
In other words, the stub becomes more valuable as time passes up to the point where the ticket price post-discount begins to approach the value of DVDs entering the rental release window. Sarah, delighted by my kind gesture, returns the favor by presenting me with a stub of her own a 3-week old stub for The Devil Wears Prada. Although I hadn’t been planning to see Prada, I decide I might as well since Sarah’s stub means I’ll get $3.00 off my ticket price.
Perhaps that could help in August, when studios routinely release movies that are, shall we say, not quite as good as summer blockbusters.
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David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business.
