So, Will Ferrell's Land of the Lost has opened to very poor Box Office, bad reviews, and lots and lots of twittering about how awful it is.
In the world of Social Media/Social Web, this would be a crisis that required/demanded action. If this were a web services release, or a software release, or even a physical product, there would be, very likely, a Community Manager springing into action. The Social Web is on fire with BAD NEWS for the future of Relativity Media and Universal's new product, Land of the Lost!
What is their strategy to turn this lemon into lemonade? My guess is there is absolutely no plan. Marketing, in Hollywood, is what happens before a product release, you hope it goes well, and then you move onto the next "product release".
Like everything else digital or web related, Hollywood is so woefully behind the curve it is alarming, but not surprising.
Does it make sense for the companies that have invested in these projects to try treat them more like a software release? to maybe try to establish relationships with the customers who actually LOVED the movie? to reach out to those that didn't?
According to Twendz, and checking search.twitter.com periodically, the sentiment about the film is running equally between negative and positive. However, the only thing you'll see in MSM is the negative. Guaranteed.
A Community Manager is, as Dave Allen @pampelmoose points out, not a "salary", but an insurance policy. If Relativity/Universal had a CM working on this, what would they do? Is post-release too late?
I would say the world of media has evolved to a point where post-release CAN'T be too late. You have to adapt, or...uh, die?
A CM would reach out to both supporters and detractors, to try to get supporters to evangelize a bit, or simply to thank them, and detractors, to see if they had feedback that would be helpful, or to try to start a conversation that could be helpful in the future...or to start a relationship that could evolve over time.
In this specific case...a typical tweet today was "Forget what critics are saying; Land of the Lost was fun!"...that's a gift....so doing a quick search on twitter, finding 100 people who really loved the movie, and sending them a tweet, saying...hey, thanks so much for the positive tweet, here's 2 free tix to send to a couple of friends to see it too...
That's quick work. Easily done.
It's also potentially a MSM story...hey, look, a movie is doing post-release follow-up...
And how about those that didn't like it? Could you follow up with them and say, " we are sorry you didn't find it funny...but you know, we think it's funny, of course...what would you think about sending a couple of tix to friends to see it, and by the way, here's lunch on us at Subway?". (Subway is doing a tie-in with Land of the Lost.) Or...sorry you didn't like it...here's two tix to The Ugly Truth, it opens in July, we think you'll like it.
And hey, here's lunch at Subway. Yum.
Or...a lot of the complaints on twitter have to do with the fact that it seems to be marketed as a family friendly movie, so people took their kids, and then were pretty pissed about the level of inappropriate humor.
That doesn't bode well for a DVD release I would think. Maybe they should find some of those tweeters and find out...well, what were those parts that offended? Maybe those are obvious, maybe they are not. But isn't that good info? And wouldn't those people be pretty stoked that they were being listened to? Maybe the DVD release should be re-edited to make it more family friendly. And maybe they should let everyone know that. Maybe that Mom that complained, would love to rent/buy that DVD if some of the inappropriateness was trimmed. It was funny, EXCEPT for the inappropriate parts.
Maybe week 2 of the marketing plan should lean more heavily on the raunchier aspects of the movie...is there a red-band trailer lurking waiting for a release? Or should there be?
Can the twitter/facebook data be parsed to determine who it's playing best with? Nothing wrong with marketing your product to the people who you think might like it best....pre-release of a movie like this is marketing to everyone...
When all releases are digital, we might be seeing a different version in the theaters the week following a soft opening. That will be interesting.
What else would a Community Manager do at this point?
Comments