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    15 Ways Movies Are Using The Internet For Promotion

    A deep look at how movie marketers are using social, mobile and video properties and applications in their digital marketing efforts.

    It's been a great summer for movies. According to Variety, the box office is pacing higher for Summer 2013 than the all time highest from back in 2011, and if you agree with Owen Gleiberman at EW.com, this year's crop of films are just plain better.

    But movie marketers face more challenges than ever before. Consumers are adopting new social technologies with increasing speed. IAB reports

    that 42% of US smartphone users under the age of 35 now check their favorite social media apps before deciding on which movie to see. The marketplace is changing, and while most coverage has explored the best overall digital movie programs, the focus of the following observations relate to new trends in film marketing.

    1. Facebook

    Facebook reaches 142M unique users a month. It is the #1 social site reaching 78% of internet visitors. It is also the anchor of social media strategies for most films. Movie marketing teams launch their Facebook pages sometimes as early as the day they announce a film, using them to promote other programs in different social channels such live chats on Twitter, channels on Spotify, or trailers on Instagram. The key is bringing all this back to a social channel with the broadest reach to get these new programs out to the masses.

    The newest trend with Facebook movie promotions is purchasing targeted ads on mobile. Over 70% of the 18-34 demographic access Facebook via mobile. As moviegoers spend more time on social via their mobile devices, and as most movie viewing decisions are made day of, this is the best way to capture these consumers in market. Moving forward, Bloomberg reported that Facebook will feature 15-second video ads that will play directly in the Newsfeed later this year. The new ad is said to be aimed at broadcast like reach vs. the previous strategies of targeted ads.

    2. Twitter

    Twitter is the #2 social network/micro blogging platform reaching 28M unique users a month. Television rules the Twittersphere, and while many movies maintain a presence on Twitter, very few film pages reach over 1M followers. Entertainment marketers leverage in-tweet media to enable mass distribution of trailers. Brands have also started to include hashtags in their TV spots and other marketing materials to encourage conversations.

    Some of the latest trends include expandable tweets, releasing the first trailer of highly anticipated films, or using hashtags and purchasing hashtags on trending words for emotions or sentiments such as #TGIF, #NSFW, #YOLO and #humpday.

    3. Instagram

    Instagram has become the social photo app of choice, reaching 130M users. It allows consumers to take and edit photos with a wide array of artistic filters and share them easily on various social networks. While instagram is primarily a photo app, the company recently introduced video (fifteen seconds vs. Vine's six seconds), which has been taking off with users.

    The Jobs film released 3 trailer exclusives on Instagram to align itself with Jobs' own persona of being a pioneer in creative technology. The campaign helped introduce new functionality for Instagram using a fantastic creative asset.

    4. Zynga's Draw Something 2

    Zynga is a social game provider with 240M+ monthly active users on various platforms. According to Flurry, more thank half of the time the "mom" demographic spends on apps is spent on social and gaming. Games accounted for a leading 48% of time spent in apps on the iPad, 31% of time in apps on the iPhone, and 53% of time spent in apps on Android devices. Apps like Zynga's Draw Something 2 work to connect families, as kids can play these games with their parents. Whereas coloring books might have worked to promote a family film in the days before social media, today's film campaigns can tie together their target consumers with tightly integrated campaigns.

    When Draw Something 2 launched earlier this year with more social elements, fans engaged with sponsored words by Despicable Me 2. The marketing teams also introduced the 2 Million Minion Challenge, where a free color pack upgrade was unlocked when the game reached 2 million Minion drawings.

    5. Shazam

    Shazam connects more than 92 million unique visitors to music and TV shows consumers love. Shazam helps people engage more deeply with what they're listening to or watching by including on-air prompts to connect viewers with exclusive offers on their favorite products.

    While takeovers are nothing new, minimal clutter on a platform with such a wide reach is undeniably sexy to entertainment advertisers. Shazam is also partnering with the One Direction movie to bring the Shazam "Global Scavenger Hunt". Fans can hunt for clues in various One Direction songs using the popular Shazam app to unlock an exclusive clip from the movie before it's released in theaters.

    6. Tumblr

    Tumblr is a microblogging platform and social networking website recently purchased by Yahoo. With a reach of over 61M unique users a month, the platform allows marketers to launch branded content for consumers to "discover" and play with, creating new messaging without the limitations posed by Facebook, Twitter, and other social apps. It's a great tool for building deeper, more interesting stories and conversations. Studios have the option to either create straightforward movie pages or launch "in world experiences" using the voice of a character from the film.

    With Despicable Me 2, the stars were the Minions. The studio was smart by using Tumblr to distribute animated gifs fans could grab and reuse, helping them reach a broader audience. For The Hangover 3, the marketers took advantage of Alan's quirky character and presented the page "in character," displaying his love of giraffes, self-drawn art, and photos. Other new trends on this platform include featuring fan art submissions in broader marketing collateral, as well as "meet ups" such as the Spiderman event hosted at this year's Comic-Con.

    Studios like to create worlds, and with Tumblr, brands can elevate their collections of digital assets into engaging, living campaigns that expand their reach to a broader audience.

    7. BuzzFeed

    60 million unique visitors come to BuzzFeed each month to find content, with over 50% of the audience being active mobile users between the ages of 18 to 34. It's a highly addictive site with 75% of users specifically seeking content to share across their social networks, which is why it's so attractive to movie marketers.

    Partnering with BuzzFeed on sponsored posts builds buzz by aligning content with film themes and talent that compels users to share. Franchise properties have an opportunity to build off existing brand affinity. Despicable Me 2's 15 Reasons We Wish We Had Minions is a favorite as it's playful, fun, and takes advantage of the breakout stars of the first film. For a film without a built in audience, aligning with talent or theme is more appealing. Elysium sponsored a successful post tied to Matt Damon entitled Reason's Matt Damon Will Save The World.

    8. VEVO

    VEVO is picking up where MTV abandoned the "music" in their moniker. They are a premium music video platform reaching 56M unique users a month. The reason why VEVO matters to movie studios is that it indexes high for 13-24 year olds who are also avid music fans on the go. It offers users official music videos, designs, dance steps, and their favorite artists performing their favorite songs. The platform is also social, making music videos hot again! Their platform and first impression takeover on mobile is gaining popularity with studios.

    9. Spotify

    Spotify is a digital music service that reaches over 24M active monthly users. Music is a big part of the youth demo's identity, and socializing playlists has made Spotify a big part of their user's daily lives.

    For the upcoming One Direction movie , the marketing team created "music identities" for each band member. By uploading the user's favorite playlist, fans were matched up with the band member closets to their tastes. The One Direction movie is also building buzz with Spotify by launching a "Global Listening Party" . For one special hour on August 25th, fans across the globe will come together for a once-in-a-lifetime listening party to celebrate the release of the film. The listening party will be hosted on Spotify and feature exclusive movie content from the band. Both of these spotify programs humanize the boys in the band and makes them more accessible to their fans.

    10. Custom Original Content

    Creating custom viral content is nothing new to film marketers. They were the trendsetters before the masses knew what viral videos were. But creating new custom content can be expensive and time consuming. For every 10 created, only 1-2 really take off.

    Promotional partners of studios have started to take on some of those costs. The top films have promotional partners to create custom video content as well as TV commercials. Some examples are the Audi ads for Star Trek and Gillette ads for Man of Steele . When they do create their own viral videos, they use the tactic judicially. An example from this summer was the Crisis Zero Channel for World War Z. The trend currently is finding a media partner reaching a specific target audience such as Machinima, Break Media, Funny or Die, and Vice.

    11. Vice

    Vice is a magazine focused on international arts, culture, and news topics. Their editorial style is non-conformist, and thus more popular with 18-34 demos. For The Conjuring, the studio partnered with Vice on the 3:07 am project . Four up and coming filmmakers were given the chance to create short films for the project with the one rule being that they all had to take place at 3:07am, a moment of some importance in the narrative. This delivered fresh, unorthodox messaging to a consumer base interested in anti-establishment content.

    12. Vine

    Recently purchased by Twitter, Vine is the first major short-video sharing platform, considered by most to be the Twitter of video. It reaches 13M users. Comprised of short, six-second video clips, or "vines", users are able to capture quirky life moments in action. Five "vines" are tweeted every second according to BuzzFork, and studios are slowly catching on to the trend.

    For Wolverine 2, Director James Mangold posted a six second preview of the unreleased trailer, calling it a "Tweaser" (Twitter teaser). This was an inspired way to engage with the tech savvy fandom, and it built buzz before the launch of the full trailer.

    13. Get Glue

    Get Glue is an entertainment-based social networking app reaching over 6M unique users a month and 4M registered users. It encourages fans to "check in" to let their friends know what they're watching. The goal of the company is to create a deeply personalized, social and connected experience around television, movies and sports; like a four square for the entertainment space, transferring the water cooler effect in real life social interactions to social media. GetGlue is also a filtered social environment just for entertainment. No food, pet or baby photos appear in a user's social feed. Rather, everything a consumer could want from their favorite TV show or movie is available to be unlocked and shared.

    Instead of the virtual badges offered by apps like FourSquare, GetGlue offers real stickers. Once a month, users can request to have physical versions of stickers earned online mailed to them for no cost, creating automatic mini-advertisements on things like skateboards, lockers, refrigerators, binders for school, cubicles, slam walls, and more.

    While it's been predominantly used for TV promotions, film studios are beginning to acknowledge its value. Comic-Con attendees and GetGlue users were rewarded with exclusive stickers for films like Kick-Ass 2, Ender's Game, The Mortal Instruments, and The Amazing Spider-Man 2. For Elysium, the studio promoted a GetGlue campaign on the film's Facebook page, scoring over 28K check-ins.

    14. Quora

    Following the growth of sites like Yahoo! Answers, Wiki answers, and reddit, Quora came on the scene as an information network/question and answer site. Quora's reach is small as it only connects with 1.5M unique users a month, but the fanbase is active and hyper-engaged.

    When fans asked how Ashton Kutcher portraying Steve Jobs prepared for the role, the actor-turned-tech investor jumped in the Quora thread to explain why he took the role. This made him accessible to his fans, and helped him combat naysayers on their own turf. This wasn't a paid program to bring some tech fan cred to the film, but the marketing team took advantage of the conversation and reposted it to other social channels. Even better, the Quora interface is smart enough to curate the most popular stories and e-mail them out to potentially interested users. Curated content, in a day of too much UGC, is still a very much needed service.

    15. Republic Project

    Republic Project is a social rich media company. As time spent on mobile and social have increased, studios have increased targeted buys on social channels. Yet their posts are one-dimensional when it comes to engagement. The calls to action primarily consist of engaging with one asset, whether it be a video, image, quiz, link etc. Republic Project's rich media allows for multiple engagements from one post, maximizing the efficiency of media buys on social channels to decrease the cost per engagement. Some average social mobile benchmarks for entertainment include 11% click through rates and 70% interaction rates.

    What’s Next?

    The key to all these partnerships is making sure they're connected. Users should be able to easily discover various programs across digital, mobile, video and social sites. Marketing partnerships that enable a studio to be the first to try a fast growing technology, app or social tool will garner much press coverage and buzz, but these opportunities are far and few between.

    As social continues to mature, it's going to be more important than ever to identify which social channels work best for a specific brand or property. Different communities utilize different tools, and the marketing push is no longer a one-sided conversation. Fans are now involved in being the advocates for the brands they love. Marketers willing to take risks and empower these fans with fluid, "open-source" content in the places they socialize are ultimately going to be most successful.