6 Reasons to Think of Your Film as a Brand

Branding is vital if you want to create greatness, if you can brand something you can succeed in something. A brand helps you establish and define something with ease and potency. Branding creates connotation, it has a voice, a feel, vibe, it has character.

By creating a brand of your film or yourself as a filmmaker, you bring certain qualities to the table;

Benefits of branding:

Influencer of choice
Consumers will no longer dither over alternatives and compare options, they choose your brand, your film – because they know what it stands for.

Loyalty and Advocacy
When people buy into a brand, they buy into the atmosphere, they are in its ‘house’. Everything that goes on in this ‘house’, the way people are treated, respected, talked to and engaged, creates an emotional bond. People become loyal, stand up for your brand and become evangelise on your behalf. How many times have you argued over how good a certain film is over another? It might not be the better film, but you loved this film, you got this films back!

Command a price premium
Competing on price is a race to the bottom, I never understand why people do it… Well I do, it’s laziness. Too lazy to try, too lazy to fight too lazy to compete! Everyone must find a way to differentiate themselves from their competition. Strong branding helps you achieve this and encourages customers to pay for the intangible benefits; appearing cool, trendy, forward thinking or intelligent.

Differentiator
You don’t want to compete on tangible things, these can be copied. As mentioned above those emotional, intangible benefits are what you strive to develop and define. Standing out from your competition is your reward for doing this.

Platform for growth
Like SAW and its franchise status, a well defined brand is the launch pad to bigger opportunities. It’s much easier to transfer these qualities over to new markets than starting from scratch each time.

A framework for integration
As you grow and take bigger opportunities, you stretch your brand out, knowing exactly what the brand is helps you navigate and define yourself in these new territories. Strategies are easy, you just build on the framework you’ve established. Viewer relationships are dealt with in your particular way, and you keep this ‘voice’ consistent, its how you would talk, IM, recommend, interact, post and update in.

Lets boil that down into 3 crystal clear things;

Credibility
A credible brand will align the way a film behaves with the way it is portrayed.

Clarity
A clear brand will ensure its values are adhered to throughout its communications and actions.

Consistency
A consistent brand will have visible manifestation across every ‘touch point’ your consumer experiences.

What sort of brand are you? Tell me 5 keywords about you as a filmmaker or your recent film

If you want to see this post with examples and pretty pictures, have a butcher's over here.
 
That's only four words, Sweets.

  1. Ignorant
  2. Nubile
  3. Ambitious
  4. Really enthusiastic!

;)


P.S. Isn't this pithy post a thinly veiled promotion, and should be in that sub-forum?
 
That's only four words, Sweets.

  1. Ignorant
  2. Nubile
  3. Ambitious
  4. Really enthusiastic!

;)


P.S. Isn't this pithy post a thinly veiled promotion, and should be in that sub-forum?

It is thinly veiled absolutely, i made the plug font size 1, just incase people wanted more, gotta give an option for more! Haha!

But mainly, I just wanted to get peoples words and see what we might be able to make from them. Also thoughts on branding a film, from the Indie side of the pillow. Very easy to brand a big film, but much harder to brand a short film, an indie etc. Looking at the replies, there are some really great adjectives to play with!
 
1) arrogant
2) a wiz
3) stuck in the '80s
4) unimaginative
5)

(help me out here people!)

:lol:

I think stuck in the 80s, arrogance and a wiz are some great traits to have. You can play off those three things so well. Just creating 80s inspired scenes, plots, maybe even as small as 'head nods', the audience you'd slowly build around your films would get it, smile and feel at home in your visions. Arrogance gives you strength to put out these visions and a wiz ensure you create then beautifully!
Theres nothing new under the sun so I wouldn't worry about being unimaginative, just keep churning it out, 'shipping' and having a good time with it.

“Originality Is the Fine Art of Remembering What You Hear but Forgetting Where You Heard It.”
Laurence J. Peter

Thanks for commenting :)!
 
1 educational
2 criminal
3 irresponsible
4 mind blowing

:)

Nice, those 5 paint an interesting picture. No holds barred filmmaking with an educational twinge, albeit education in the mind-blowing criminology niche!

1. Lazy
2. Unorganized
3. Always saying "I dont know"
4. Tryhard
5. Clarity

Thats the life struggles right there. What helped me start getting shit done, was an app called SelfControl (Mac) or (not-tried myself but the Windows 'version') SelfRestraint. It basically blocks the internet for an amount of time so I had nothing to do but DO some work! End of the day you have to just suck it up and get it done, even if its just one small step, every day, Confucius say, thats the start to a million miles! Keep going buddy!

Thanks for commenting!
 
1) arrogant
2) a wiz
3) stuck in the '80s
4) unimaginative
5)

(help me out here people!)

REALLY unimaginitive. There. That'll make five words for ya, GA! :)



1) I like bewbs

2) A lot

3) ....hmmm....


4) More bewbs


5) Beer

cleavage-beer.jpg
 
I'll play, a bit more seriously :)

1. Female
2. Drama
3. Family
4. Relationships
5. Change

Yep you got it! Change is a really powerful one, people rally behind a cause, if you can be the standard bearer for something... And really get crystal clear on what the outcome is, what that change in society, or as small and personal as change in a family dynamic, once you know that goal, you can make steps toward it.

Any idea what sort of change you would like to bring to the world, and what strengths a female POV can bring to the approach?

I'll riff on that;
At risk of slightly stereotyping from my probable innate misogynistic POV, Women can be perceived to be more trustworthy and there for you as the warm caring mum!
Sex appeal can certainly help get attention and a point across, Marie Forleo teaches me many things, and she's also a feisty, sexy gal and thats what got my attention in the first place!
But on the downside, women can be taken less seriously, viewed as inferior (just look at pay-scales for instance)

Worlds an topsy-turvey place, but I love the challenge, here's to everything you achieve *raises a glass*
 
Any idea what sort of change you would like to bring to the world, and what strengths a female POV can bring to the approach?

Change as I use it here refers more to the characters (female leads) taking charge of their lives & making needed changes in themselves, what they're doing, how they relate to their families/significant others.

I'm the writer & producer, working with a female director. But we've gotten good feedback from men as well on my first feature, as it had strong male roles also.

You can see a bit on the first one here: www.survivingfamily.us
It will be out on itunes in the next few weeks.

The 2nd one is in pre-production: www.detoursfeaturefilm.com

This was actually a good question that got me to think about the things that are similar
in the 2 movies, even though in many ways they're quite different.
 
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You can see a bit on the first one here: www.survivingfamily.us
It will be out on itunes in the next few weeks.

The 2nd one is in pre-production: www.detoursfeaturefilm.com

Surviving Family looks excellent, colour, sound, music, lighting, thats brilliant! Glad to hear thats doing well! And all those awards and nominations too!
Hope everything goes well for Detours and you reach even higher heights! above average AI, is there going to be a sort of 'Her' aspect to this one?

C
 
Thanks!

above average AI, is there going to be a sort of 'Her' aspect to this one?

Not in the romantic sense, but "Joe" does have his own personality, so that's a similarity. He functions more as a Greek chorus - commenting on the action and sometimes trying to steer it; that's the role that Paul Sorvino is playing :)
 
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