Marketing Should Not Spoil the Movie

Don’t you just hate when you view a 3-minute trailer and end up feeling like you’ve seen the majority of the money shots, side-splitting one liners, and sometimes even major plot twists?

Especially nowadays, it is not uncommon for a film to have many trailers released, all of which show different scenes and clips, and all of which are 2-3 minutes long. It’s not only trailers, Hollywood marketers also think it’s a good idea to release clips and featurettes, too. In what world does showing a potential customer too much make something more sought after? If a football fan was shown the goals being scored, would that encourage him/her to pay to see the rest of the game? (Even if the game was free to watch, after seeing the goals, is there much point in watching the rest of the game?). This want-it-right-now culture of showing too much is one of the reasons why cinema attendance is struggling (at least in the USA); experiencing a film is no longer exclusive to paying attendees.

In the 1980s, studio blockbusters had a teaser composed of a few shots (sometimes especially filmed for the trailer) and that was shown in cinemas months before release, thus creating huge demand by the time it was released (sure, there were also fewer movies). Then closer to the release, a full theatrical trailer was released. The Internet has somewhat changed that dynamic now, as users can see any trailer whenever they please. But studios are now releasing multiple trailers in the hope that our short-term memories will remember it long enough to impact on the opening weekend, and this is a vicious circle.

Let’s take Avengers: Age of Ultron as an example. Marvel recently released the first teaser trailer, and it’s going down a storm; people love it. It has 40m+ views on YouTube (the most viewed trailer on YouTube ever) and anticipation is high. But the film is not out for 6 whole months. There is no doubt that another 10+ trailers will be cut and released between now and May 1. Does Marvel really believe that if they waited until, let’s say, April 2015, to release the first teaser that Age of Ultron would somehow bomb? It would be almost impossible for the sequel to the highest-grossing film of the last 5 years to bomb, regardless of when the marketing machine kicks into gear. In fact, if it did begin in April, it would probably create such a frenzy that an upcoming blockbuster has not released any footage yet that awareness and intrigue would be at almost uncontrollable levels, and thus doing less (being different works, however risky) would probably result in a greater conversion for Marvel’s marketing department.

Personally, nothing gets me more excited for a film than a 90-second teaser trailer. Most of those 90 seconds are filled with black screens and text, and not the money shots of the film. But that is the whole point. Trailers, by their definition, are supposed to excite you and get you to buy a ticket – NOT to show the entire film. A well-constructed trailer can show me the theme, plot, genre, angle, and stars of a film without spoiling the best parts or showing too much, and all of this can be done in 90-seconds or less.

In terms of movie trailers, less really is more.

This might add some perspective; according to the iHeart study on radio advertising, “audio ads elicit a more powerful brain response among consumers than TV ads”. So hearing a "BWAMMMM" or a "because I'm Batman!" from the forthcoming Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is much more likely to trigger your anticipation to buy a ticket than viewing it on TV, presumably because as a consumer, the event is unspoiled and the full enjoyment can be had while in the theatre auditorium, yet you’ve still been subjected to largely the same marketing message, but the conversion is more profitable.