Movie Advertising

Here’s a much shorter essay, rant Whatever on movie marketing. I said this over numberous tweets the other day but I want to compile it into one post. 

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I find it insulting when a company markets a movie by saying “If you liked X then you’ll love Y”. It just seems like a really lazy way to say ‘these movies are kind of similar so you might also like this one.” because it is lazy. It doesn’t explain what makes the movies similar or why I might like the new movie with a similar set of ideas, humor or what have you. 

i was thinking this because of seeing Noel Clarke promoting the movie The Knot that opened recently in the UK. Some of what he was tweeting said ‘It’s the Hangover meets Bridesmaids’ and i’m like “okay, a wedding comedy, which is what both of those previous movies were so what now?” it doesn’t give me any other information about why i might be interested in this new movie. Actually, none of what he  said told me anything about the movie other than it was a wedding comedy (which is a boring genre. Give me a wedding-action movie. i almost don’t care what happens, but it’d be breaking the mold on the wedding picture.) 

My point is it’s just a really closed minded approach to marketing to say that. I’d said on twitter, I’d market a movie by saying “If you liked Ed Wood then you might like The Departed, because you’re a wonderfully complex human being who has varied interests.” There is no because to the statement that the If/Then form of marketing usually makes, I want to know why I’d like this new thing if it’s like the first two things.