Hollywood, The Internet, Kids

American Demographics, May 1, 2001

Want the scoop on Tony Soprano? Wondering whether Big Pussy's really dead? Or just curious what goes on in Meadow Soprano's head? Fuggetaboutit. If you're looking for the untold stories of the Sopranos, investigative reporter Jeffrey Wernick's got the skinny at his eponymous site (www.jeffrey- wernick.com).

At first sight, Wernick's project may seem like just another amateur fan site dedicated to HBO's critically acclaimed The Sopranos. But the details and special content might make you wonder. Wernick delivers daily doses of Sopranos sleuthing, ranging from news about Tony Soprano's latest hits to transcripts of A.J. Soprano's chat sessions with buddies, and even details from the compounding FBI file on Tony and his "family." You'll get video clips and FBI snapshots, sound clips and authentic looking documents. And you'll pick up insights into the complex personalities of every character on the show.

But if Wernick's name doesn't ring a bell, there's a good reason. Wernick is a fictional character seen for a minute in the first season of The Sopranos, now resurrected by HBO to help market the hit show. In Hollywood, where high stakes and high creativity have made movie studios a bastion of marketing innovation, this is cutting edge.

Ads and trailers? Been there, done that. Guerilla marketing and event marketing? Everyone's doing it already. But build the right Web site, get a viral effect going to spread the word, and cultivate a following of people with an affinity for the movie, and you're likely to start filling up seats (or adding subscribers, in HBO's case). At least so the latest thinking goes.

Over the past two years, almost every studio and film distributor has embraced the Web as a critical marketing medium, a means of reaching audiences directly and getting them to talk about its movies with their friends. Far from the impersonal ads and one-off guerilla campaigns studios have pioneered and now rely on, the Net is re-emerging as a strategic channel for cultivating buzz, building a community of avid viewers, and, most importantly, making an emotional connection with moviegoers. It's also an efficient way of reaching the all-important demographic of 12- to 24-year-olds who make up a sizeable portion of moviegoers.

In fact, the biggest secret of marketing movies on the Net isn't viral marketing or the chance for a little one-on-one, it's the chance to get closer to kids. By far the largest single moviegoing demographic, kids also distinguish themselves as one of the hardest audiences to reach. Nearly six months after the Federal Trade Commission released a scathing report that found studios knowingly market violent entertainment to kids, studios are grappling with how best to reach their bread and butter without resorting to marketing that can get them into hot water. According to Jupiter Media Metrix, the number of children under 12 online will grow to 26.9 million by 2005, representing one of the fastest-growing demographics on the Web. Kids between the ages of 12 and 17 represent 12 percent of the total online population, up from 8 percent only a year ago. And while kids don't spend as much money online as adults, they play a significant role in offline purchases - including movie tickets.

Hollywood marketers unabashedly admit the main target for their efforts is teens. According to research by the MPAA, 12- to 24-year-olds accounted for 40 percent of the movie- going market in 1999, and their share is growing. Equally significant, teens go to the movies more frequently: Close to half of those between the ages of 12 and 17 say they are frequent moviegoers, meaning they travel to the cineplex at least once a month. Just 28 percent of adults over the age of 18 say they do the same. And if that's not enough, adults with teenagers continue to be the highest proportion of frequent moviegoing adults. "Kids get a lot more attention because they're a lot harder to find," adds Steven Flynn, executive VP of marketing at USA Films. "It's always the films targeting the youth audience that cost the most to market."

Besides their widely varying demographic and psychographic patterns across the nation, kids' trends and habits change quickly, and they easily tire of the same old thing, marketers note. And more significant, many say, kids can easily tell when they're being marketed to. Compare that to adult moviegoers, whose habits are set and easier to predict, and it's no wonder kids get the majority of marketing dollars.

But marketing on the Net promises another solution, allowing studios to more accurately reach their target audiences, and more significant, build a connection that goes far beyond the shrill or violent ads struggling for kids' attention. With a more direct connection, studios can turn to marketing plans that do without the violence that creeps into trailers and TV ads.

Of course, movie Web sites are far from new. Almost every movie released in the past several years has had a complementary Internet site offering details about the movie and its stars. What's changed is the attention studios are giving those sites and what the sites are trying to accomplish. Ever since Artisan Entertainment used savvy Web marketing to elevate The Blair Witch Project from a campy teenage fright flick into a mega-hit, studios have embraced Web promotion as the fourth pillar in their marketing strategies. What was once an experiment now complements a studio's TV commercials, newspaper ads, and publicity efforts. And movie sites are no longer afterthoughts; in fact, most studios are launching sites months before each movie's release to get the buzz going.