Saturday, September 22, 2012

Digital Marketing Pushes Film to "Resident" #1 Box Office Spot

Resident Evil is the most successful movie franchise for Sony's Screen Gems label. The latest installment, "Resident Evil: Retribution," was released on Sept. 14th and topped the U.S. box office for  the weekend with $21M in ticket sales. This is partly due to an intricate digital marketing campaign that engaged moviegoers in new ways.

The movie studio hired full-service digital agency AvatarLabs to create digital platforms that appealed to the franchise's fan base. These tactics included:

  • 3D & exclusive content on the film's online and mobile websites so that fans felt like they were actually in the scene
  • Exclusive online games related to the film
  • A mock website for the "Umbrella Corporation" (True fans of the film will understand this reference)
  • Exclusive & interactive content on YouTube
The box office win for this film suggests that these tactics helped to engage this fan base in ways that translated into actual box office sales. Of course, it's unfair to say that this was the "tipping point" in the viability of the marketing campaign, but it's hard to argue that it didn't help. Now just how significant of a role this played is something that requires further exploration. Additionally, I think it's particularly important to see if this strategy effectively captured new fans. If so, then this could be a useful tool for all of the big studios and their behemoth franchises. 



2 comments:

Unknown said...

It would also be very interesting to see what demographics, beyond gamers, they targeted with these different strategies.

Helen said...

The marketing campaign was very tactful especially the mock websites that truly engage the fans. There's a YouTube mimic page that you should check out!

http://www.youtube.com/residentevilmovie

It makes you feel like you're actually playing the game on a console, but it's on YouTube instead. You can take control of Alex and fire shots at the helicopter on your PC through YouTube. A very smart way to drive traffic and get fans excited about the movie. It also increases traffic on YouTube's website.