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6 1 Creative Strategy Prepared for the first almost-free parliamentary elections in Poland in 1989, the [election] poster shows Gary Cooper as the lonely sheriff in the American Western High Noon. . . . It was a simple but effective gimmick that, at the time, was misunderstood by the Communists. . . . Cowboys in Western clothes had become a powerful symbol for Poles. Cowboys fight for justice, fight against evil, and fight for freedom, both physical and spiritual. Solidarity trounced the Communists in that election. —Lech Walesa, president of Poland, 1990–95 Conceiving creative messages for movie ads comes down to conveying simple tales well told. For a Spider-Man film, don’t be boringly earnest or too literal, because moviegoers are already familiar with the property. Other times, simply serving up what is expected works great, such as the animated Bee Movie conveying that it’s a silly comedy with the tagline “Hold on to Your Honey.” Superman kicked off the era of movies about comic book heroes in 1978 with “You will believe a man can fly,” which evokes images of soaring in the heavens. When marketing the creation of the Facebook colossus in The Social Network, don’t get stuck in the weeds of lifeless computer technology. Instead, emphasize the human story of friendship and betrayal with the memorable line “You don’t get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies”— which plays off Facebook’s “friends” concept. For star vehicles, the ads need to satisfy the core fan base of the star, which no marketer would want to turn off, while injecting a new wrinkle to rope in Creative Strategy 7 other audience segments. Because most movies are based on original concepts, the ad messages need to position the film in its appropriate genre so aficionados of that genre can easily find the movie. The ad message should also serve up notions about what makes a film special to attempt to broaden audience appeal . To make a film seem like a cultural bandwagon that moviegoers should jump on, highlight quotes from film critics such as “hilarious,” “gripping,” “magical,” “laugh out loud funny,” and “see it twice.” Perhaps the most daunting challenge is selling movies that audiences really don’t want to see. That may seem a contradiction, but it is a curious fact of life in Hollywood’s filmmaking creative process. Screenwriters, film-company development executives, stars, and directors sometimes take a turn for artistry or misjudge popular tastes, which results in films that have little audience appeal. A case in point is the series of Iraq- and Afghanistan-related war films that flopped in quick succession during late 2007. They were serious and hardly “feel good” films that audiences seek for entertainment. These include Redacted , Rendition, Lions for Lambs, In the Valley of Elah, The Kingdom, Grace Is Gone, A Mighty Heart, and Taxi to the Dark Side. In its year-end box-office report, a USA Today article stated, “Look at the lowest-grossing movies of the year, and they are littered with stories with something political to say.” In the case of Lions for Lambs, the star wattage of Tom Cruise and Robert Redford illuminated a meager $15 million in U.S./Canada box office in what was said to be a $35 million production released by MGM. In advertising these films, Hollywood marketing executives decided to hide the hot-button war themes and, instead, vainly repositioned the films as thrillers, engrossing character dramas, or as star vehicles (for Cruise in Lions for Lambs and Tommy Lee Jones in Elah). As a sort of closing punctuation for the trend, Universal Pictures’ Green Zone—said to be a $100 million production—flopped with a disappointing $35 million domestically in 2010. Marketing positioned the movie as Matt Damon thriller and generic action movie, downplaying its central political-intrigue and Iraq-war themes. Not even Harry Potter could conjure a magical spell on the audience to make these movies come alive in the mass market, even though some were well-crafted filmmaking. One aspect of the topical Iraq-war–film fiasco is instructive about creating movie ads in general. The ads that are straightforward descriptions of the movies themselves often fall flat in the marketplace, as was the case for Walt Disney’s animated box-office bust Mars Needs Moms in 2011. The tagline “Mom needs a little space” simply repeats the Mars/outer-space-travel theme that’s already obvious in the title, with very little addition...

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