Customer Reviews

Marketing to Moviegoers: A Handbook of Strategies Used by Major Studios and Independents

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Marketing is not only a powerful force in the movie business, but a financially formidable one as well. Consider: it cost $98 million ON AVERAGE to make and market and studio film in 2004, with marketing costs accounting for about $35 million. This book examines the entire process in fascinating detail that I can vouch for. I personally have over 30 years experience covering the film business for trade publications Variety, Moving Pictures and The Hollywood Reporter. "Marketing To Moviegoers" covers creative strategies, marketing placements, test screenings, the tortuous process of producing trailers, billing, media buying, the role of "free" publicity, and on and on. It's all here, crystallized in accessible terms with nary a trace of Hollywood insider gobbledygook. "Marketing To Moviegoers" is sorely needed since the press and other books give short shrift to the job of how to lure theater ticket buyers "into the tent."

Frank Segers

Robert Marich's handbook on Movie Marketing is comprehensive, complex and at the same time riveting.

The analysis he presents is tremendously thorough, detailed and informative and clearly reveals the author as both an astute insider and a fan of the movies. Marich provides a unique glimpse into the enormous complexity of movie marketing with tremendous detail at the many layers and levels played by economics, psychology, technology and plain old `dumb luck'. The movie industry, we are reminded, is a tremendous locomotive that pulls a trillion dollar train from television and radio advertising, to merchandising and music, home video and DVD sales.

The book is written for both industry experts, film students, and professionals who can extract the lessons of Hollywood marketing for their own markets and corporate needs. Marich's painstaking research shows in the amount of raw data he provides to introduce the many facets of movie marketing. Marich opens up a fascinating, behind-the-scenes world that not only permeates and creates American culture and Pop culture, but is the leading export of American ideas and trends worldwide.

"Marketing to Moviegoers" is not simply about the movies, but provide insights into the dramatic forces that have changed American culture for the past 30 years. In many ways Marich has provided his own Future Shock by demonstrating demographic shifts, the growing importance of the Internet, the fragmentation of television viewing, the social implications of increased cell phone use, viral marketing patterns via e-mail, and the emergence of electronic cinema. The book is written as a primer and is a useful text book. It only misses a forward looking conclusion, for Marich has told us where the industry has been and demonstrates with tremendous knowledge where it is now, but has only teased of what this means for the future.

As London bureau chief of The Hollywood Reporter, I covered the whole range of movie marketing strategies, from bad to brilliant. Bob Marich gives those who market movies and those with an interest in the film business a great inside look at how it's done, from market research to promotions and publicity to distribution. He covers major studio releases, movies distributed by indies, and foreign-language films. This is a great read for anyone who cares about how movies reach the ticket buying public.

This book is a must-read for any aspiring or practicing film marketer -- even marketers of non-entertainment products can learn a few tricks here. Thoroughly researched and logically presented with a liberal use of tables, "Marketing to Moviegoers" leaves no stone unturned in its elucidation of the whys and hows of selling a movie to the public. It delves into everything from concept testing and surveys to trailers and projection equipment and even the special challenges posed by foreign-language films. Should be required reading at all film schools.

I have written on films for a decade for VARIETY and have subsequently free-lanced for other publications. I found "Marketing for Moviegoers" a highly comprehensive account of marketing in the industry, of films winding their way to hoped for profitability employing multiple strategies through multimedia and ever expanding technologies. Even the most seasoned professionals in marketing will want to compare notes with this book's wealth of information and anecdotal material. It is definitely a must for neophyte filmmakers or those aspiring to that calling so that they will know exactly what they are getting into.

As the book gives a thorough rundown of the fields of marketing research, media advertising, promotional tie-ins, merchandising, publicity and distribution it carefully notes the opportunities and pitfalls of assorted game plans. Chronicles of standard industry practices are interlaced with boom or bust investment tales. It is especially skillful in coping with the constant changes of new technologies. On the subject of the Internet, for example, the various advances and retreats, strategies and counter strategies are duly recorded.

"Marketing for Moviegoers" bolsters its points with numerous charts and examples of recent movies. While this book's primary appeal will be to those in the trade, its inside story of the intense media battle for consumers' dollars should have the attention of some just plain moviegoers.

I have taught film marketing and business at UCLA Extension and Loyola Marymount University for years, and have had to make do with a very short list of books that sort of covered some of the issues that are brought together and fully explained in MARKETING TO MOVIEGOERS. With an obvious insider perspective, the book mixes hard facts and numbers with amusing anecdotes and up-to-the-minute examples in a way that will appeal not only to industry professionals and students, but also to people who have always wondered 1) "how did I get suckered into paying for a movie ticket to that stinker?", and; 2) "what do those box office figures really mean?" Filmmakers should pay especially close attention to the marketing and evaluation process described in the book. It finally makes clear why it is so tough to get a film made and what hurdles a filmmaker has to jump in order to get that precious "greenlight" or distribution deal. I will use this book in my future film business courses and recommend it to my friends and colleagues.

I bought this book because I'm getting involved in the movie making business (my expertise is mainly from a product development background). Even though a film can be viewed as a product I needed to understand the complex market in which I'm getting into.

"Marketing to Moviegoers" is an incredible way to get insight on all aspects of the film marketing process: from creative ad campaigns, test screenings, media buying strategies, product placement, merchandising and getting to know the distribution strategies for both big studios and independents.

Rather than a how-to manual, Robert Marich compiles numerous examples and case studies, in an enticing and easy to read format (using indsutry charts and graphics), that allowed me to understand what to expect when producing, promoting and distributing my film in a few days.

I think this book, with its broad coverage of the movie industry and its practices is a great compliment to "The Complete Independent Movie Marketing Handbook", because the latter focuses more on step-by-step recommendations on how to get your movie packaged and sold.

This obviously is a writer who knows what he's talking about. Book is organized well and would seem particularly useful for anyone in a related business segment or the financial sector who might be looking to gain a deeper grasp of entertainment marketing fundamentals.

As a movie lawyer and writer on the film business, I was highly impressed by Robert Marich's book. There are one or two other titles out there that deal with this subject, but this one is head and shoulders the best. It's truly an indispensable and essential guide to a tricky subject that's very difficult for outsiders to master.

I got to read this book by Robert Marich.

I must confess I have been truly impressed by the result. An easy useful reading full of practical examples, pretty didactic!

I confess qualifying as a marketing expert (I started with ad agencies then became a film distributor, running the biggest company in France for International.

Amazingly the author does not miss one single element, it does not leave one marketing domain uncovered.

He will take you through every detail of the marketing strategy from A to Z.

But never before have the elements of the marketing strategy been so detailed anywhere and listed in a clear way...Of course one single element is missing is: how you get to the vision and extend it to each of these tools, but that is precisely why the Industry pays marketing gurus so expensively: to play the instruments with the proper melody.

These lines are dedicated to all that are not film marketing experts: read the book and find out how and why film marketing experts create such anticipation for products with brief shelf life.

Film marketing is unique; it sets patterns of marketing and communication excellence for other industries.

Let Robert take you for a ride into the dimension of marketing magicians.

Modestly "One of them" Bruno