(Digital Spy, 2013)
We love this time of year. The curtain will rise on the film industry’s biggest night this coming Sunday and that means some excellent reporting and number-crunching hitting the wires, with two key questions for consideration –
What did the studios spend?
Was it worth it?
AdWeek’s Gabriel Beltrone breaks down all the numbers in an excellent article out this week, measuring worldwide grosses, social media interaction, total media spend, and how many nominations all that spend . He even goes so far as to measure revenue generated from product placement!
Think about your role as a consumer. How do you spend your entertainment dollars? Do trailers influence your decisions or do you track more viral statistics of a particular film? Does an award nomination for a film push you to see it?
Studios bank on sharp increases in interest and involvement for their films once Oscar nominations are announced, especially if a particular film garnered significant critical praise, yet was produced and marketed on a low budget.
This opens up all kinds of questions about the “true” cost of making a film, the return on investment, and where dollars and time are best spent. For now, we will leave you with this thought.
Of the 9 films vying for the Best Picture prize, only TWO have earned an ROI of less than 200 percent and none of them lost money. (The Wrap, 2014) Not a bad day at the office.
Marketing Management 