Niche Movie Marketing: One Message Does Not Fit All

Oren Aviv, new domestic theatrical marketing president and chief marketing officer for Twentieth Century Fox, is quoted in a January 12th front-page Daily Variety article as saying:

"I think the main thing is dealing with a shifting marketplace, dealing with new consumer habits. When you're marketing to consumers that have a variety of lifestyles and a variety of needs … one needs to come up with messages that are able to address all of those things."

According to the article, he will be involved in the "evolving landscape of digital platforms and devices."

Did Aviv mean messages that would "address all of those things" or "address each of those things"? This is an important distinction because the concept of niche marketing definitely applies to movie audiences, especially audiences being targeted on digital platforms and devices.

If you look at movie marketing campaigns in the past, there was usually one billboard ad redesigned to fit bus stop signs, magazine and newspapers ads, and all other print sizes coupled with one television ad and one in-theater trailer.

Often, if the initial campaign didn't appear to be working well – the billboard/print ad, TV ad and film trailer were all changed to another approach.

Today, with the multitude of ways to reach movie audiences online, one-size-fits-all movie campaigns would be a waste of the power of the Internet and social media.

Now a targeted film campaign – targeted at different online demographics – would offer several messages instead of one message.

Imagine message A being used for QR codes for smartphones, message B being developed into a game app, message C targeted at Facebook members of a certain age, message D targeted at Facebook members of a different age, and so on and so on.

Each message would be targeted to the specific interests of that online demographic. And whenever a specific demographic didn't seem to be responding to the message directed at it, that demographic's message could be easily changed without impacting the messages to the other demographics.

This would truly be niche marketing at its best – giving targeted audiences the call-to-action messages that are most likely to resonate with them.

Oh what a brave new world we live in. And it just gets braver.

P.S. Check out our new website page "Miller Mosaic and the Magic Beans" about Miller Mosaic's ideal client niche.

© 2011 Miller Mosaic, LLC

Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller on Twitter) is the co-founder of Miller Mosaic Social Media Marketing. Download now the company's free report "5 Tips for Staying Top of Mind With Your Prospective Target Markets" at www.millermosaicllc.com/los-angeles-s...