How do you reach and build an audience in the early stages of a film production? How do you draw and execute the appropriate marketing strategies for a film promotion? In an effort to answer these and many other questions, the EDN Docs In Thessaloniki Masterclass entitled “How to find and approach your audience” took place on Tuesday March 6 2018 in “Pavlos Zannas” Theater, as part of the 20th anniversary edition of the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival. 

This masterclass forms part of Docs in Thessaloniki Pitching Forum 2018, co-organized by EDN - European Documentary Network and the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival, and supported by the MEDIA Creative Europe program. EDN, the leading European organization for professionals working with documentary films and TV from around the world, supports and builds networks for the production of documentaries in Europe and has a long and vigorous presence in the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival, in close collaboration with the festival’s Doc Market. For yet another time in the 20^th TDF, EDN attracts film professionals, as well as some of the most renowned TV networks worldwide, such as Al Jazeera, ARTE, HBO Europe, SBS Australia and Films Transit, who participate in its events this year.  

The masterclass presenter was Ben Johnson, CEO at Gruvi, a technology media company that helps entertainment businesses reach and engage online audiences. Mr Johnson shared valuable insights that can help film professionals with digital film marketing, and spoke about the ability to reach and communicate with the audience, as well as the new marketing tools and practices.

A valuable guide in Q&A:

What is not taken into consideration by the modern film industry?

• Above all, the fact that the audience willing to watch movies in theaters is experiencing the attention deficit and the lack of free time that are typical of our times.
• The overabundance of available options, since a very large number of films are being released each week, which means that some films are pulled from theaters before people can really make the decision to go and watch them.
• The fact that we witness a large deviation between the decreasing number of tickets and the non-decreasing prices.
• The extremely complex and long chain intervening between the filmmaker and the audience, with many interim phases and many intermediaries who, though aiming to satisfy the audience, are unaware of its likes and dislikes.

Which are the facts that we should examine thoroughly in order to get a clearer view of the modern scenery as to which films make it to the theaters, but also to home entertainment industry?

• We have to study properly and assisted by scientific tools the psychology of the consumer, who has nothing to do with the traditional cinema regulars of past decades.
• Piracy remains a plague, though downloading has receded worldwide thanks to the rapid rise of live streaming. Piracy counts on the fact that there are long intervals between the first announcement of an upcoming film and its release in theaters. The numbers are so discouraging that even if a mere 10% of those who resort to piracy came back, the landscape would change radically.
• The excellent ratings given to well-made TV series, in comparison to the very low ones that Hollywood blockbusters receive by Internet users, show that, even in our times, a solid plot and a satisfactory dramaturgy can attract mass audience.
• Hollywood seems to have run out of script ideas, since the percentage of sequels and remakes remains impressively high during the last decade.
• New powerful players prevail since, besides Netflix’s blistering rise in the last three years, Amazon, Hulu and Apple are set to seize a growing market share.
• Big studios are confused as to the traditional distribution procedure and the profit potential it offers. A typical example is Alex Garland’s recent film Annihilation, which Paramount basically got rid of, conceding its distribution to Netflix, though its strong cast and high budget.

What do filmmakers have to focus on to differentiate themselves from distribution companies?

• They have to move away from the mentality of a two-week marketing campaign, which is more or less the time of films release, and keep in mind that they have to start the whole procedure, or at least make some trial tests on where and how they need to focus, a lot sooner.
• It is useful to remember that, while the decision to go to the movies is more or less spontaneous, the selection of the film to watch is a product of preparation and “scanning” among various potential films.
• It is necessary to keep in mind that the main attraction for a platform to accept buying a film is not what exactly they have made, but why they chose to make it in a specific way; the rationale behind the work itself, which consists its “charter”.
• Their film, as well as its promotion, has to prompt an immediate emotional and intellectual involvement on behalf or the viewer, focusing on five axes: The sense of availability and accessibility in a tangible and subconscious level, the sense of permanence that the first positive impressions must prompt, the underlining of all assets the work possesses, the sense of coherence between the film and its promotion, and finally the careful and thorough “framing” of the target audience.
• The abandonment of the false stereotype that successful films are “films for all”, since rather the opposite is true: they have to be very well aware whom their film is aimed at, at least in the initial phase.
• The necessity to move away from the target group of avid moviegoers and their trained audience and approach the much more crowded groups of people who interact with the trained audience and those who affect mass and popular culture.
• The detailed and systematic defining of the target group, the use of specialized demographic filters, as well as methods for analyzing and calculating this target group. Example: The audience calculator method used by Gruvi company.
• The simultaneous trial of some basic assumptions, based on which the respective strategy will be drawn. The less successful assumptions must be abandoned immediately, while the most successful ones must become the keystone for the film’s promotion. Case Study: Promotion of the film Iron Lady in Scandinavia. Initial assumptions as to the main target group: Female emancipation / comparisons to great female politicians in Scandinavia / audience who admire the leading character, Meryl Streep (which was proved the most successful assumption).

What is the role of the creative part in the whole promotion procedure?

• It is equally important as the successful audience targeting. As to the initial visual stimulus, we must remember that: a) the first impression of a site must be created within 90 seconds, b) each image has to have a positive effect to the eye in less than 2 seconds (1.8, to be precise), c) it is necessary to provide in advance a big volume of available accompanying pictures, so that the promotion campaign switches “covers” constantly, invigorating the audience’s interest, d) the pictures with positive effect in a country may have zero effect in another part of the world, e) there must be an analogy between the means selected (image, picture, video), the source audience and the platform through which the film is promoted.
• The main picture for promoting the film must include bright faces in high resolution.
• The duration of each accompanying video must not be particularly long, since it is proven that the audience is nowadays rejecting anything they consider time-consuming and wordy.