Over at Movie Marketing, Improved, Clay talks about a piece from Variety that says (in a nutshell) that people don't feel bad about downloading content illegally, because they don't see the value in what the studios are delivering today. Seems like a crappy rationalization to me (it's okay to steal something if the quality isn't good), but that's not really my point.
Clay uses some interesting examples of how perception or expectations often fall short of the final deliverables when it comes to entertainment, such as a CD with only one good song on it, or the movie trailer that gives away all the good jokes. More interesting is his experience with the film The Village, which was marketed one way, but then was actually a very different film than advertised, and he describes how his experience with the film (having heard what it was actually about) was different from his friends, who had just seen the trailers.
These scenarios are fascinating to me. It's as if the marketing executives of a studio can watch a film, understand what it's about, and then say something like, "you know... the kids like the horror porn like Hostel these days. Do you think we can spin the trailer that way?" How can they not expect the consumer to be disappointed? I can think of two other instances in the last calendar year where I walked out of the theater thinking, "well, that wasn't what they told me it was going to be," and it affected how I felt about the film. Does anyone remember how The Break Up was sold? It was almost a Wedding Crashers sequel, or any other wacky Vince Vaughn comedy. Did you actually see The Break Up? Whoa... that was actually some heavy stuff, and probably the worst date movie ever.
The same thing happened to Zodiac, which was clearly sold as a serial killer thriller, when it was really much closer to All the President's Men. Admittedly, this is a less sexy sell, but more accurate nonetheless.
Now I'm not going to cry for truth in advertising. That's crazy talk. And I'm not advocating for a world where there are no surprises left in the films we see (imagine seeing Psycho for the first time, but not knowing that the main star of the film, Janet Leigh, dies in the first 30 minutes.). But when the audience is expecting a certain something based on the expectations that you set for them through your marketing activity, and then you deliver something completely different, you're just pissing them off. It's a word-of-mouth killer, and that's going to hit films' bottom lines after opening weekend has come and gone.
As a completely naive suggestion, maybe the people that made the film (director, screenwriter, editor) should also make the trailers and ads... just a thought that I'll throw out there, knowing that it will never ever be put into practice.
On a personal note, I'll admit that after having this happen to me so many times, and being so disappointed by the potential of film after film, I'm experiencing a new sensation: the anticipation or promise of a film is now more exciting to me than actually watching it.
As an example, try this: are you psyched for the new Spider-Man film? You know, the one with Topher and Venom and the black Spidey suit? Yeah? Cool, go see it next weekend.
Then come back and tell me if the movie watching experience was better or worse than the excitement you had over the last few months thinking about what it could have been.
UPDATE: Now I really want you to do my experiment, especially since David Poland thinks that Spidey 3 just plain stinks...
This is a little older, but the Vulture Blog is reporting on Jim Hill's Media Blog that not only does Disney feel that Pixar's Ratatouille was a flop at the box office, but Pixar feels that Disney did a lame job of marketing the product.
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