Viral marketing tool to get exposure for your films

These types of systems do have the potential to be abused, so do many other things in life.
I'm sure you send alot of email to your friends throughout the day, this could be considered unsolicited, but it's to your friends. Viral marketing systems are meant to work the same way. Nobody likes spam and I for one, am looking at ways to prevent our system from being abused in that fashion.

Again, the core concept is a solid marketing strategy that has been proven to work. Of course we all respect your opinion and we all need to work on ways to prevent people from spamming and abusing these systems.
 
Also, this is heyjoe's thread, and he offered a free account, so let's not turn it into a spam discussion.
 
indietalk said:
Also, this is heyjoe's thread, and he offered a free account, so let's not turn it into a spam discussion.
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I agree, I just fear abuse. When the industry catches wind that there's a hot new marketing tool that works, I have no doubt that they'll take advantage of that sometime in the future and run it into the ground...
 
Clive, you're the first person I've ever seen to defend the use of viral marketing. Perhaps you see potential in it that I don't.
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Yes that's true. I do see potential in it.

If you look at the business long enough you realise that for the indie film maker the only obstacle you really have to overcome is finding an audience for your films. Marketing the film is the hardest part of the business and marketing is the thing that makes Hollywood different to the rest of the business. They can afford to throw milion of dollars at buying your attention and ensuring sales.

For a no budget indie film the difference between making no money, bit of money or taking the gold ring comes down to our ability to create a buzz about our films; something we have to achieve with practically no money.

So, imagine then you cut a wicked trailer for your film and you e-mail that trailer to ten of your mates, who love it so much that they each e-mail it to ten of their mates, who all e-mail it on to ten of their mates. Suddenly after a few rounds of that you're looking at hundreds of thousands of people who would like to see your film and all you did was cut a great trailer and send it to ten people.

The great thing about this is it only works if you create a trailer so good that your freinds WANT TO share it with other people. In other words it's a form of advertising that rewards creativity rather than budget. It is by it's nature the opposite of spam.

Personally I hate spam, spam is by it's very definition unwanted advertising that is indescriminate. What we're talking about here is using our creativity to create advertising for our films that is itself entertaining in its own rights.

The truth is that the big companies already try to abuse this, but where they come unstuck is that the idea has to be genuinely entertaining to work and that's hard to do if all you want to do is sell more cars.
 
If you want to discuss the good and bad of this type of advertising please choose the appropriate forum, and not a member's product thread. Thanks
 
The real question is going to be, will people pay to buy a DVD that they might only watch once or twice, when they can download it for free or for a significantly lower price?
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Yes, they will. People want the packaging and the physical feel of the movie on their shelves. It's a collectors format. In fact, those who download movies/music often end up buying more product if they liked it.
 
@ heyjoe

What is your site? Kind of email harvesting system? I did enter 4 different valid email adresses and not one has been accepted because your system said it could not confirm it as a real adress.
 
heyjoe said:
Have you guys been considering the Play Station Portable platform? All the big studios are releasing films on UMD which is the proprietary media format for PSP. 10 million PSP units were sold worldwide in just 10 months and you would be surprised at the demographics, a large majority of the people buying these units are from 25 - 30 so it seems a demographic that indie filmmakers would want to target.

I'm getting licensed by Sony and am in the process of purchasing all the software and hardware so I can produce a UMD, I want to create an all Indie title. I hope to have it on the market by 4qtr this year. It's quite an endeavor.
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I thought I heard recently that UMD will soon be dropped. It's not making the money they thought it would. Turns out people just want to play video games on their Sony units.
 
hello! my two bits: Any kind of advertising will work enormously well, if it has a GREAT IDEA!
http://www.stillfree.com/
these guys created a hoax video of people spraying graffitti on the Air Force One Boeing. it became a hugely talked about video. in return the brand gets noticed. we are so used to received all lkind of advertising messages that we overlook them and seek what we want.
we have to create promotions for our films that people SEEK to see. that requires a great idea. something thats not been done before. and thats the challenge...
 
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