July 13, 2009

friday the only day that counts?

In the context of Bruno, Transformers, Up and The Hangover, The Wrap has a piece up about how the virulent nature of social media is changing movie marketing. Here’s the relevant gem:

The net effect, some studio executives say, is that a marketing spend that used to take a movie through the weekend now only really takes a studio through Friday evening, east coast time.

I don’t entirely buy the argument that a marketing spend is only good through Friday; I imagine that a spend on launch hype for a flick will carry through to DVD / rental / online income in addition to ticket spend in theaters. But social media has to be having a massive impact on the half life of each marketing dollar.

And one small note – I don’t recall see a single ad for Up the weekend of its release…