What makes you choose to go to the cinema and pay for a movie?
Is your favorite star starring in it? What subject matter are you interested in? Is it a vivid poster, an appetizing trailer? Or an interesting event planning, a hearty movie review?
In fact, everything you come into contact with about movies is within the control of marketers.
As one of the "gold medal marketers" in the industry, Guo Dongnan entered the industry in 2014 and has participated in the marketing and promotion of dozens of movies, such as " your wedding ", " as solid as a rock ", " If You Are the One 3", " By Me" He is behind various blockbuster films such as "Lost Your ".
Guo Dongnan
In this issue's "Behind the Scenes" special feature, Nandu Entertainment has an in-depth conversation with Guo Dongnan, the manager of our film studio and the publicity director of Qianguang Light Pictures, to take you to understand the mysterious and ubiquitous film marketing industry.
What does movie marketing do?
takes over the world outside the screen and makes you "want to watch"
What does movie marketing do? Many people may not have a clear concept.
Guo Dongnan gave a pragmatic answer: The current film marketing is mainly divided into four sections - main planning, responsible for controlling the rhythm of publicity, producing main materials including posters and trailers, and large event nodes Planning; new media marketing, responsible for the gameplay and interaction of social media platforms; word-of-mouth marketing, responsible for guiding the audience's post-screening experience; and short video marketing, which emerged with the times, as a separate category different from new media marketing.
To put it simply, everything related to the movie that the audience sees outside the big screen in the screening room can be regarded as a product of movie marketing.
Guo Dongnan first came into contact with film marketing in 2014. At that time, the youth movie " My Deskmate " was released. He was working as a reporter for " China Entertainment Report " and took the opportunity of interviews to invite many artists to sing the theme song of the same name, which was strung together into a star-studded version of "My Deskmate You". 》. This chorus became a small hit that year. In his words, "With the help of our entertainment news program, we helped promote the movie a little bit."
was Guo Dongnan's first invitation to the stars to sing "My Deskmate" First contact with film marketing. Content like
can be collectively referred to as promotional materials, but today in the industry, the value of materials cannot be unanimously affirmed. "In fact, we have been badmouthing materials in this industry, which is whether the film materials are helpful to the movie." Guo Dongnan is the one who affirms the significance of materials. In his opinion, when creating other content for the movie, we must consider this Whether the content itself has communication value, "leaving aside the movie, if the materials used for marketing can become something that I think can be regarded as a work, it is something that I will be very excited about."
said, " Hi" material, the nomination was unexpected, it is " revolutionary " released in 2021. This is a movie with a main theme, not a commercial film, and it's not easy to do marketing. The movie's theme song was adapted from Li Dazhao's "Youth". Guo Dongnan proposed two linkage ideas during a meeting with the film's crew, Seven Impressions. One was the underwater dance that appeared in Henan Satellite TV's " Dragon Boat Festival Wonderful Tour ", and the other was The hit drama "Age of Awakening" also tells the story of revolutionary martyrs. Among the two different versions of theme song interpretations, the underwater dance version invited Guo Jiyong, the director of the Luo Shen water dance "Prayer", while the "Awakening Age" linkage version invited five young actors including Zhang Wanyi and Ma Qiyue to sing, The venue for the first release of the mv was specially chosen at Peking University, with two different versions of interpretations. "In the end, these two things were completed very well, and they both helped our movie break through the circle on a large scale." Guo Dongnan said that although the result of this project was not his best result from a box office perspective, it could still be a great success. He is proud that this type of film has produced critically acclaimed new content.
Of course, the ultimate purpose of disseminating content is to get the audience to enter the theater and willingly pay for a movie ticket.
For the current film industry, it is not easy to do this. "Now we completely rely on marketing to drive demand for movie viewing." Guo Dongnan told Nandu Entertainment that with the increase in entertainment methods, movie marketing is much more difficult than in previous years, because more and more audiences no longer do what they used to. I habitually walk into the cinema first and then choose the movie I want to watch. Instead, I go into the cinema for a specific movie. "This is very difficult for our marketing. You just want the audience to watch this movie on this day."
So, how to determine whether the marketing is effective? The dissemination effect of publicity content is certainly important, but in the film industry where real money goes to the box office, there are more intuitive standards for the assessment of marketing KPIs - "want to see" data on the interfaces of ticket purchase platforms such as Maoyan and Taopiaopiao. The
ticket purchasing platform has a very strong ability to "remove water", so it is difficult to upload "want to see" data through other means. "For example, if a fan clicks "Want to Watch" on a regular basis and is not a viewer who clicks "Want to Watch" all year round, this "Want to Watch" will be invalid. If this person just downloads the app and clicks "Want to Watch", then this "Want to Watch" will be invalid. 'Maybe it doesn't count." Guo Dongnan said that there are also some methods that can guide data growth, such as fans setting up stalls offline and giving small gifts to passers-by in exchange for their clicks, but for the stickiness, appeal and execution of the starring fans The threshold for strength is very high. "It needs to be really driven. Fans can't solve this problem by relying on fans. It may be effective for fans to pull passers-by."
Guo Dongnan explained that the key to "want to see" data is not the cumulative value displayed on the interface, but the accumulated value displayed on the interface. Daily increments and daily highs. "In the month before a movie is released, if the daily increase is at least 3,000 yuan per day, the movie's box office can safely exceed 100 million. If the daily increase does not reach 3,000 yuan, unless there is strong word-of-mouth support or post-screening topics, Otherwise, it will be difficult for the box office to exceed 100 million." Guo Dongnan added that for love movies, it is not ideal if the daily growth is hovering around 3,000 to 5,000, and it needs to reach a daily growth of over 10,000. "The number of people who want to watch a movie exceeds 10,000 in a single day, which means that the movie may become a commercial movie that sells money."
Using this data standard to measure, if a marketing action makes the number of people who "want to watch" a movie exceed 1 million, it can be judged as "very effective".
The secret of precision marketing?
Audience perspective, there is always a point that can touch you
After his career path officially turned to movies, the first project that Guo Dongnan took over was " Dear " directed by Chen Kexin. It was a time when campus road shows were popular. He brought the machine and followed the director to ten cities and ten universities in ten days.
At the end of every campus activity, he would stay onsite to interview classmates and receive feedback from the audience.
"I entered the film industry from the perspective of the audience. Many times the audience brings me many ideas. His views on the movie are actually different from the creators' views on the movie, or they may have different views on some plots than the creators. A deeper feeling.”
Guo Dongnan’s record of the “Dear” road show.
Unlike creators like directors and screenwriters who have been sharpening their skills for several years, film marketers interact with audiences more frequently. The cultivation and formation of the audience's perspective also makes Guo Dongnan's marketing work more comfortable.
"No matter what type of movie, after watching it, I will consciously put myself into the audience and think about what the audience likes to watch?" This is his experience formed through long-term observation of the audience, "You already know that the audience is interested in this thing, and they will Put marketing in this perspective."
He used "Sturdy as a Rock" released last year as an example. In addition to the attraction of the plot of "Black and White", the cast of "Uncle Tiancai" is also a marketing effort. One of the points."We give each uncle his own charm, whether it is in the plot of the movie or outside the plot." For example, during filming, Zhang Guoli had a scene where he got angry at the dinner table. A fly accidentally entered the camera frame, and he improvised a line. : "Where did the fly come from!" This footage of the old drama's excellent on-the-spot performance has become a hit on the Douyin platform with 4.58 million likes.
Another example is the currently being screened " I wish you happiness!" "", Bai Hui, played by Song Jia, showed off her stretch marks and cesarean section scars. This highlight was brought out by Guo Dongnan during the marketing stage, and it also triggered a wave of discussion on the Internet. "Fertility issues, marriage issues, whether we should get married, whether we should have children, I think it is something that many young people want to discuss." Guo Dongnan said that this is content that he feels can really connect with the audience's emotions, "There are even some in the industry The actress also came to tell me that the stretch mark scene in your movie was so shocking. Many people in the comment area were showing off their stretch marks. In fact, they were out of the circle. "
In Guo Dongnan's career, there is another story. A representative work that cannot be ignored is "Your Wedding", the box office champion of mainland love movies in 2021. In February 2020, before the filming of the movie started, the official announcement poster of a set of couple photos starring Xu Guanghan and Zhang Ruonan created the first wave of popularity for the movie because of its full sense of CP.
"What's particularly good about this film is that we gave up a lot of film marketing routines." Guo Dongnan recalled that during the preparation period, the team wanted to do something different. One of the rare pre-shooting official announcements in the industry, Xu Guanghan also I flew to Beijing from Taiwan, China specifically for that set of materials. After
was scheduled to be released on May 20, 2021, the team chose to market around the "2021520" date, packaging its meaning as a homophone of "love you, love you, I love you". "It sounds quite crude now, but at that time it did bring a very high data point to our marketing, and Maoyan's desire to see it reached its peak that day." Guo Dongnan said, "It was a very new thing at the time. Because I think movie marketing is supposed to solve the problem of when you should ask whom to watch a movie. In love movies, it is very obvious who you want to ask. In fact, it is to tell the audience through marketing: why you should ask to see this movie on 520. This is the sense of ritual often mentioned in love movie marketing. "
Marketing around the "2021520" schedule brought very high data points at the time.
In this movie, songs such as the theme song "No Regrets" composed by Li Ronghao and the interlude "After Leaving You" sung by Zhou Xingzhe also became the highlight. Music marketing is Guo Dongnan's specialty. He is also a lyricist himself. The lyrics of "After Leaving You" were written by him.
"Music is bundled with film production. The reason why I was successful in making songs before was because of my direct communication with the director, so that the song could be placed in a position in the film, whether it could help The movie, or the movie, helps the song, and everyone helps each other." Guo Dongnan said that successful music marketing is not just about making a song, but also needs to be closely integrated with the content. He also revealed that nearly 200 songs were eliminated from "Your Wedding". The last few selected not only promoted the movie, but the songs themselves were also loved by the audience, bringing high copyright income to the company. "Music planning should also find something that has universal resonance that is higher than the movie. Because most people listen to songs just for the lyrics. Many songs are popular because of those two lines that are particularly powerful and can poke people."
Regarding marketing, there is A question that is of great concern to the public is: Is it a challenge to market a "bad movie"? When asked this question, Guo Dongnan answered seriously: "People who do marketing cannot think about this problem. Thinking about this problem will cause a lot of internal friction."
starts from the current situation of the industry. He feels that the logic of marketing should be before the screening. Post-screening word-of-mouth marketing is difficult to succeed. "Because marketing really only needs to consider pre-release. You can't blame the quality of a movie, because some movies may not be a good work, but it must be a good product."Guo Dongnan said, "I have always felt that marketing is a new creation on par with film creation. If you have the mentality of ‘what can you do with a bad movie’, I think you will lose the value of the marketing work itself, and you will become an accessory. "
To a certain extent, movie marketing is also a way of selling goods. Finding marketing tips from the content of the movie is a skill that a "gold medal salesman" must master. But the difference is that movie marketing does not focus on the goods. Responsible for quality.
Guo Dongnan believes that there is no logic in marketing to "cheat" audiences into going to the movies. "At this stage of marketing, I also have something that impresses you. You are attracted by that moment to buy a ticket. This is marketing. A job that the person should do. "
He emphasized that the essential work of marketing is to package a movie into a movie product or commodity, and the quality of the movie is determined by the creator's own intention and ability. "This thing should be separated from marketers. ”
How to break the circle?
Effective content, popular channels, build trust
As a filmmaker with over one million fans on Weibo, Guo Dongnan is now well-known in the industry. From a fledgling graduate to a publicity director and producer As the director of a film studio today, he has also experienced a period of pain and growth while upgrading and fighting monsters.
In 2017, Guo Dongnan encountered a career bottleneck. At that time, short videos were quietly emerging and harvesting the sinking market, but he did not. Able to realize the importance of emerging channels. The movie "Secret Fruit" released that year was the first movie to cooperate with Douyin for marketing. Ouyang Nana was also the first artist to enter Douyin for a movie, but the final result was not ideal. "(At that time), in this process, we were only doing it to meet the needs of the channel. We did not have the depth to produce some particularly effective content, and we did not pay attention to this platform. "Guo Dongnan summed up the failure experience, "A large part of it is that the grasp of channels is not so accurate. "With comprehensive planning and sufficient materials, Weibo was only used as the main battlefield. Although the marketing actions touched fans, they were not sinking enough and failed to get a good box office conversion.
When promoting the release of "Cohabitation in Time and Space" in 2018 , they made short videos the focus of their marketing.
They learned their lesson and made short videos one of their marketing focuses in "Cohabitation in Time and Space" released in 2018. "Sister Yaya and Brother Lei Zi were forced to record. There were a lot of earthy love stories, which we put at the end of the film as Easter eggs. "The collection of earthy love words in the easter eggs was released on Lei Jiayin's personal account on Douyin, and received more than three million likes. The film crew also launched a time-space love words challenge on Douyin, inviting artists and amateurs to participate, led by Lei Jiayin, Guo Jingfei, and Li Guangjie The "tf old boys" interaction formed by Lei Jiayin, Guo Jingfei, and Li Guangjie has also achieved good dissemination, allowing the movie to truly achieve effective interaction on the channel. Effect.
"That was the first movie that played Douyin in depth. "Guo Dongnan and Enlight Pictures also felt the impact of short video marketing on box office from this movie, and gradually shifted their marketing efforts to short videos. "I didn't think channels were very important before. I think content is the most important, but I later discovered that when all content is expressed on channels, you have to follow the times. "
In the later stages of his work at Lighting, Guo Dongnan began to transition into production work, and his understanding and grasp of the film industry became deeper. "My advantage comes from my work at Lighting. Because Guangguang does its own production, marketing, and distribution, we have a relatively comprehensive perspective. "Guo Dongnan does not deny that part of his glorious resume comes from the addition of large platforms. Enlight Media's compatible industrial chain has cultivated his full coverage of production, promotion, and distribution perspectives. On the other hand, his past work experience has also allowed him to accumulate contacts , reducing the cost of communication and trust.
At the end of last year, Guo Dongnan left Enlight Media, where he had been for nearly ten years, to found Wuwei Film Studio."Guangguang is a company where the boss likes to keep his employees safe. You can't feel your own fault in this company." The reason for leaving to start a business comes more from his inner drive. He hopes to learn more about it while he is still young. Different senior filmmakers absorb and learn from each other, "For many of the movies you see now, I approach marketing with a learning mentality. My first entrepreneurial project was "If You Are the One 3", and in the process of cooperating with director Feng Xiaogang I also learned a lot about the abilities of front-line directors and their views on movies, which may be more valuable than me simply doing a movie marketing.”
also had the experience of becoming a producer and starting a business, which made him feel more trustworthy. Importance of Film Marketing.
The word "trust" appeared frequently in conversations with him. From the set of breakout posters for "Your Wedding", to the two versions of the promotional song for "Revolutionary", to the uncles gathering to sing "The Stone Decides to Bloom" in "Solid as a Rock", these are impressive marketing materials There are high production costs behind them, and their smooth launch cannot be separated from the trust of the film's creative team. What
needs to reach a higher level of trust is to embed marketing content in the production process. Guo Dongnan has a deep understanding of this when he was making love movies at Guangguang. "I think there are many lines in movies that must be disseminated and used in the marketing stage. Even in the early script stage, I will discuss with the director whether we can leave any lines and put them in the marketing stage for dissemination. These things will be verified in the final All are effective. "What is the significance of
pre-marketing? He gave a simple example. In many of the film projects he handled, the highlight scenes did not even have side shots. "Maybe because the shooting environment was very narrow at the time, maybe the film's director of photography or the film's actors would also clear the scene and drive out the side shots, but there are many precious moments in this scene that can be used in short videos, but in fact This is something that audiences love to see.”
But in the industry environment, such pre-marketing is not common and easy. Guo Dongnan said frankly: "I may boldly say that there is a bit of contempt in the industry, and it is difficult for marketers (personnel) to have the right to talk (with producers)." Another manifestation of
's lack of trust lies in the artist team's attitude towards the film There is too much interference in publicity, making it difficult for marketing to break through the circle. "They always reject many ideas and want artists to be 'safe', but 'safety' itself is not marketable."
cultivates a sense of trust with creators, which is something he has been actively working on since he started his business. "As long as you can make creators trust you during the promotion process, they will also hope that you can enter early in every future project and enter production from a marketing perspective." Guo Dongnan said, "I think this is the relationship between creators and marketing The best interactive mode for people.”
On the other hand, Guo Dongnan, who has set up his own business, also plans to devote more energy to production in the future. His film studio has launched projects this year for films such as "The End of the World", "The End of the World Is My Love", "The Last Face" and "I Can't Hide Secretly". In his own project, he expects pre-marketing to be easier to achieve. He considers "marketability" when determining the title of the film, trying to arouse the audience's interest.
What makes you choose to go to the cinema and pay for a movie?
Is your favorite star starring in it? What subject matter are you interested in? Is it a vivid poster, an appetizing trailer? Or an interesting event planning, a hearty movie review?
In fact, everything you come into contact with about movies is within the control of marketers.
As one of the "gold medal marketers" in the industry, Guo Dongnan entered the industry in 2014 and has participated in the marketing and promotion of dozens of movies, such as " your wedding ", " as solid as a rock ", " If You Are the One 3", " By Me" He is behind various blockbuster films such as "Lost Your ".
Guo Dongnan
In this issue's "Behind the Scenes" special feature, Nandu Entertainment has an in-depth conversation with Guo Dongnan, the manager of our film studio and the publicity director of Qianguang Light Pictures, to take you to understand the mysterious and ubiquitous film marketing industry.
What does movie marketing do?
takes over the world outside the screen and makes you "want to watch"
What does movie marketing do? Many people may not have a clear concept.
Guo Dongnan gave a pragmatic answer: The current film marketing is mainly divided into four sections - main planning, responsible for controlling the rhythm of publicity, producing main materials including posters and trailers, and large event nodes Planning; new media marketing, responsible for the gameplay and interaction of social media platforms; word-of-mouth marketing, responsible for guiding the audience's post-screening experience; and short video marketing, which emerged with the times, as a separate category different from new media marketing.
To put it simply, everything related to the movie that the audience sees outside the big screen in the screening room can be regarded as a product of movie marketing.
Guo Dongnan first came into contact with film marketing in 2014. At that time, the youth movie " My Deskmate " was released. He was working as a reporter for " China Entertainment Report " and took the opportunity of interviews to invite many artists to sing the theme song of the same name, which was strung together into a star-studded version of "My Deskmate You". 》. This chorus became a small hit that year. In his words, "With the help of our entertainment news program, we helped promote the movie a little bit."
was Guo Dongnan's first invitation to the stars to sing "My Deskmate" First contact with film marketing. Content like
can be collectively referred to as promotional materials, but today in the industry, the value of materials cannot be unanimously affirmed. "In fact, we have been badmouthing materials in this industry, which is whether the film materials are helpful to the movie." Guo Dongnan is the one who affirms the significance of materials. In his opinion, when creating other content for the movie, we must consider this Whether the content itself has communication value, "leaving aside the movie, if the materials used for marketing can become something that I think can be regarded as a work, it is something that I will be very excited about."
said, " Hi" material, the nomination was unexpected, it is " revolutionary " released in 2021. This is a movie with a main theme, not a commercial film, and it's not easy to do marketing. The movie's theme song was adapted from Li Dazhao's "Youth". Guo Dongnan proposed two linkage ideas during a meeting with the film's crew, Seven Impressions. One was the underwater dance that appeared in Henan Satellite TV's " Dragon Boat Festival Wonderful Tour ", and the other was The hit drama "Age of Awakening" also tells the story of revolutionary martyrs. Among the two different versions of theme song interpretations, the underwater dance version invited Guo Jiyong, the director of the Luo Shen water dance "Prayer", while the "Awakening Age" linkage version invited five young actors including Zhang Wanyi and Ma Qiyue to sing, The venue for the first release of the mv was specially chosen at Peking University, with two different versions of interpretations. "In the end, these two things were completed very well, and they both helped our movie break through the circle on a large scale." Guo Dongnan said that although the result of this project was not his best result from a box office perspective, it could still be a great success. He is proud that this type of film has produced critically acclaimed new content.
Of course, the ultimate purpose of disseminating content is to get the audience to enter the theater and willingly pay for a movie ticket.
For the current film industry, it is not easy to do this. "Now we completely rely on marketing to drive demand for movie viewing." Guo Dongnan told Nandu Entertainment that with the increase in entertainment methods, movie marketing is much more difficult than in previous years, because more and more audiences no longer do what they used to. I habitually walk into the cinema first and then choose the movie I want to watch. Instead, I go into the cinema for a specific movie. "This is very difficult for our marketing. You just want the audience to watch this movie on this day."
So, how to determine whether the marketing is effective? The dissemination effect of publicity content is certainly important, but in the film industry where real money goes to the box office, there are more intuitive standards for the assessment of marketing KPIs - "want to see" data on the interfaces of ticket purchase platforms such as Maoyan and Taopiaopiao. The
ticket purchasing platform has a very strong ability to "remove water", so it is difficult to upload "want to see" data through other means. "For example, if a fan clicks "Want to Watch" on a regular basis and is not a viewer who clicks "Want to Watch" all year round, this "Want to Watch" will be invalid. If this person just downloads the app and clicks "Want to Watch", then this "Want to Watch" will be invalid. 'Maybe it doesn't count." Guo Dongnan said that there are also some methods that can guide data growth, such as fans setting up stalls offline and giving small gifts to passers-by in exchange for their clicks, but for the stickiness, appeal and execution of the starring fans The threshold for strength is very high. "It needs to be really driven. Fans can't solve this problem by relying on fans. It may be effective for fans to pull passers-by."
Guo Dongnan explained that the key to "want to see" data is not the cumulative value displayed on the interface, but the accumulated value displayed on the interface. Daily increments and daily highs. "In the month before a movie is released, if the daily increase is at least 3,000 yuan per day, the movie's box office can safely exceed 100 million. If the daily increase does not reach 3,000 yuan, unless there is strong word-of-mouth support or post-screening topics, Otherwise, it will be difficult for the box office to exceed 100 million." Guo Dongnan added that for love movies, it is not ideal if the daily growth is hovering around 3,000 to 5,000, and it needs to reach a daily growth of over 10,000. "The number of people who want to watch a movie exceeds 10,000 in a single day, which means that the movie may become a commercial movie that sells money."
Using this data standard to measure, if a marketing action makes the number of people who "want to watch" a movie exceed 1 million, it can be judged as "very effective".
The secret of precision marketing?
Audience perspective, there is always a point that can touch you
After his career path officially turned to movies, the first project that Guo Dongnan took over was " Dear " directed by Chen Kexin. It was a time when campus road shows were popular. He brought the machine and followed the director to ten cities and ten universities in ten days.
At the end of every campus activity, he would stay onsite to interview classmates and receive feedback from the audience.
"I entered the film industry from the perspective of the audience. Many times the audience brings me many ideas. His views on the movie are actually different from the creators' views on the movie, or they may have different views on some plots than the creators. A deeper feeling.”
Guo Dongnan’s record of the “Dear” road show.
Unlike creators like directors and screenwriters who have been sharpening their skills for several years, film marketers interact with audiences more frequently. The cultivation and formation of the audience's perspective also makes Guo Dongnan's marketing work more comfortable.
"No matter what type of movie, after watching it, I will consciously put myself into the audience and think about what the audience likes to watch?" This is his experience formed through long-term observation of the audience, "You already know that the audience is interested in this thing, and they will Put marketing in this perspective."
He used "Sturdy as a Rock" released last year as an example. In addition to the attraction of the plot of "Black and White", the cast of "Uncle Tiancai" is also a marketing effort. One of the points."We give each uncle his own charm, whether it is in the plot of the movie or outside the plot." For example, during filming, Zhang Guoli had a scene where he got angry at the dinner table. A fly accidentally entered the camera frame, and he improvised a line. : "Where did the fly come from!" This footage of the old drama's excellent on-the-spot performance has become a hit on the Douyin platform with 4.58 million likes.
Another example is the currently being screened " I wish you happiness!" "", Bai Hui, played by Song Jia, showed off her stretch marks and cesarean section scars. This highlight was brought out by Guo Dongnan during the marketing stage, and it also triggered a wave of discussion on the Internet. "Fertility issues, marriage issues, whether we should get married, whether we should have children, I think it is something that many young people want to discuss." Guo Dongnan said that this is content that he feels can really connect with the audience's emotions, "There are even some in the industry The actress also came to tell me that the stretch mark scene in your movie was so shocking. Many people in the comment area were showing off their stretch marks. In fact, they were out of the circle. "
In Guo Dongnan's career, there is another story. A representative work that cannot be ignored is "Your Wedding", the box office champion of mainland love movies in 2021. In February 2020, before the filming of the movie started, the official announcement poster of a set of couple photos starring Xu Guanghan and Zhang Ruonan created the first wave of popularity for the movie because of its full sense of CP.
"What's particularly good about this film is that we gave up a lot of film marketing routines." Guo Dongnan recalled that during the preparation period, the team wanted to do something different. One of the rare pre-shooting official announcements in the industry, Xu Guanghan also I flew to Beijing from Taiwan, China specifically for that set of materials. After
was scheduled to be released on May 20, 2021, the team chose to market around the "2021520" date, packaging its meaning as a homophone of "love you, love you, I love you". "It sounds quite crude now, but at that time it did bring a very high data point to our marketing, and Maoyan's desire to see it reached its peak that day." Guo Dongnan said, "It was a very new thing at the time. Because I think movie marketing is supposed to solve the problem of when you should ask whom to watch a movie. In love movies, it is very obvious who you want to ask. In fact, it is to tell the audience through marketing: why you should ask to see this movie on 520. This is the sense of ritual often mentioned in love movie marketing. "
Marketing around the "2021520" schedule brought very high data points at the time.
In this movie, songs such as the theme song "No Regrets" composed by Li Ronghao and the interlude "After Leaving You" sung by Zhou Xingzhe also became the highlight. Music marketing is Guo Dongnan's specialty. He is also a lyricist himself. The lyrics of "After Leaving You" were written by him.
"Music is bundled with film production. The reason why I was successful in making songs before was because of my direct communication with the director, so that the song could be placed in a position in the film, whether it could help The movie, or the movie, helps the song, and everyone helps each other." Guo Dongnan said that successful music marketing is not just about making a song, but also needs to be closely integrated with the content. He also revealed that nearly 200 songs were eliminated from "Your Wedding". The last few selected not only promoted the movie, but the songs themselves were also loved by the audience, bringing high copyright income to the company. "Music planning should also find something that has universal resonance that is higher than the movie. Because most people listen to songs just for the lyrics. Many songs are popular because of those two lines that are particularly powerful and can poke people."
Regarding marketing, there is A question that is of great concern to the public is: Is it a challenge to market a "bad movie"? When asked this question, Guo Dongnan answered seriously: "People who do marketing cannot think about this problem. Thinking about this problem will cause a lot of internal friction."
starts from the current situation of the industry. He feels that the logic of marketing should be before the screening. Post-screening word-of-mouth marketing is difficult to succeed. "Because marketing really only needs to consider pre-release. You can't blame the quality of a movie, because some movies may not be a good work, but it must be a good product."Guo Dongnan said, "I have always felt that marketing is a new creation on par with film creation. If you have the mentality of ‘what can you do with a bad movie’, I think you will lose the value of the marketing work itself, and you will become an accessory. "
To a certain extent, movie marketing is also a way of selling goods. Finding marketing tips from the content of the movie is a skill that a "gold medal salesman" must master. But the difference is that movie marketing does not focus on the goods. Responsible for quality.
Guo Dongnan believes that there is no logic in marketing to "cheat" audiences into going to the movies. "At this stage of marketing, I also have something that impresses you. You are attracted by that moment to buy a ticket. This is marketing. A job that the person should do. "
He emphasized that the essential work of marketing is to package a movie into a movie product or commodity, and the quality of the movie is determined by the creator's own intention and ability. "This thing should be separated from marketers. ”
How to break the circle?
Effective content, popular channels, build trust
As a filmmaker with over one million fans on Weibo, Guo Dongnan is now well-known in the industry. From a fledgling graduate to a publicity director and producer As the director of a film studio today, he has also experienced a period of pain and growth while upgrading and fighting monsters.
In 2017, Guo Dongnan encountered a career bottleneck. At that time, short videos were quietly emerging and harvesting the sinking market, but he did not. Able to realize the importance of emerging channels. The movie "Secret Fruit" released that year was the first movie to cooperate with Douyin for marketing. Ouyang Nana was also the first artist to enter Douyin for a movie, but the final result was not ideal. "(At that time), in this process, we were only doing it to meet the needs of the channel. We did not have the depth to produce some particularly effective content, and we did not pay attention to this platform. "Guo Dongnan summed up the failure experience, "A large part of it is that the grasp of channels is not so accurate. "With comprehensive planning and sufficient materials, Weibo was only used as the main battlefield. Although the marketing actions touched fans, they were not sinking enough and failed to get a good box office conversion.
When promoting the release of "Cohabitation in Time and Space" in 2018 , they made short videos the focus of their marketing.
They learned their lesson and made short videos one of their marketing focuses in "Cohabitation in Time and Space" released in 2018. "Sister Yaya and Brother Lei Zi were forced to record. There were a lot of earthy love stories, which we put at the end of the film as Easter eggs. "The collection of earthy love words in the easter eggs was released on Lei Jiayin's personal account on Douyin, and received more than three million likes. The film crew also launched a time-space love words challenge on Douyin, inviting artists and amateurs to participate, led by Lei Jiayin, Guo Jingfei, and Li Guangjie The "tf old boys" interaction formed by Lei Jiayin, Guo Jingfei, and Li Guangjie has also achieved good dissemination, allowing the movie to truly achieve effective interaction on the channel. Effect.
"That was the first movie that played Douyin in depth. "Guo Dongnan and Enlight Pictures also felt the impact of short video marketing on box office from this movie, and gradually shifted their marketing efforts to short videos. "I didn't think channels were very important before. I think content is the most important, but I later discovered that when all content is expressed on channels, you have to follow the times. "
In the later stages of his work at Lighting, Guo Dongnan began to transition into production work, and his understanding and grasp of the film industry became deeper. "My advantage comes from my work at Lighting. Because Guangguang does its own production, marketing, and distribution, we have a relatively comprehensive perspective. "Guo Dongnan does not deny that part of his glorious resume comes from the addition of large platforms. Enlight Media's compatible industrial chain has cultivated his full coverage of production, promotion, and distribution perspectives. On the other hand, his past work experience has also allowed him to accumulate contacts , reducing the cost of communication and trust.
At the end of last year, Guo Dongnan left Enlight Media, where he had been for nearly ten years, to found Wuwei Film Studio."Guangguang is a company where the boss likes to keep his employees safe. You can't feel your own fault in this company." The reason for leaving to start a business comes more from his inner drive. He hopes to learn more about it while he is still young. Different senior filmmakers absorb and learn from each other, "For many of the movies you see now, I approach marketing with a learning mentality. My first entrepreneurial project was "If You Are the One 3", and in the process of cooperating with director Feng Xiaogang I also learned a lot about the abilities of front-line directors and their views on movies, which may be more valuable than me simply doing a movie marketing.”
also had the experience of becoming a producer and starting a business, which made him feel more trustworthy. Importance of Film Marketing.
The word "trust" appeared frequently in conversations with him. From the set of breakout posters for "Your Wedding", to the two versions of the promotional song for "Revolutionary", to the uncles gathering to sing "The Stone Decides to Bloom" in "Solid as a Rock", these are impressive marketing materials There are high production costs behind them, and their smooth launch cannot be separated from the trust of the film's creative team. What
needs to reach a higher level of trust is to embed marketing content in the production process. Guo Dongnan has a deep understanding of this when he was making love movies at Guangguang. "I think there are many lines in movies that must be disseminated and used in the marketing stage. Even in the early script stage, I will discuss with the director whether we can leave any lines and put them in the marketing stage for dissemination. These things will be verified in the final All are effective. "What is the significance of
pre-marketing? He gave a simple example. In many of the film projects he handled, the highlight scenes did not even have side shots. "Maybe because the shooting environment was very narrow at the time, maybe the film's director of photography or the film's actors would also clear the scene and drive out the side shots, but there are many precious moments in this scene that can be used in short videos, but in fact This is something that audiences love to see.”
But in the industry environment, such pre-marketing is not common and easy. Guo Dongnan said frankly: "I may boldly say that there is a bit of contempt in the industry, and it is difficult for marketers (personnel) to have the right to talk (with producers)." Another manifestation of
's lack of trust lies in the artist team's attitude towards the film There is too much interference in publicity, making it difficult for marketing to break through the circle. "They always reject many ideas and want artists to be 'safe', but 'safety' itself is not marketable."
cultivates a sense of trust with creators, which is something he has been actively working on since he started his business. "As long as you can make creators trust you during the promotion process, they will also hope that you can enter early in every future project and enter production from a marketing perspective." Guo Dongnan said, "I think this is the relationship between creators and marketing The best interactive mode for people.”
On the other hand, Guo Dongnan, who has set up his own business, also plans to devote more energy to production in the future. His film studio has launched projects this year for films such as "The End of the World", "The End of the World Is My Love", "The Last Face" and "I Can't Hide Secretly". In his own project, he expects pre-marketing to be easier to achieve. He considers "marketability" when determining the title of the film, trying to arouse the audience's interest.
Interview and writing: Nandu reporter Yu Xiaoyu, intern Song Zhuoxin
Pictures: provided by the interviewee
