Publishing Dynamics' VP demonstrates how branded desktop applications can turn entertainment marketing budgets into vehicles that both engage users and provide rich metrics.
Movie marketing in the web space has become a series of "get-reach-quick" plans, wallpapering reliable portals and social networking sites in a sprint to opening weekends. This approach of funneling audiences from portal to niche site to theater (or video) also creates a vacuum: the next movie that comes out needs to start its marketing from scratch; marketers must start advertising on the portals and work their way back down to the people who they knew were most likely to see that movie anyway.
Branded desktop applications, or BDAs, make this cycle far more efficient and effective. When users download a BDA, movie companies can retain that demographic information and market directly back to interested users, movie after movie, right on their desktop. Users are better served by only being alerted to movies within their interest, and in return marketers have rich, real-time metrics with which to sculpt upcoming campaigns.
Seamless versioning
Many articles and whitepapers have trumpeted the success of BDAs: they open a new window of two-way communication with your audience, encourage more frequency and engagement and create a foothold of convenience in a user's perception-- before they ever get to the browser.
The hurdle of BDAs is that they're largely developed as conventional, client-thick applications. Think of this in terms of Microsoft Word or iTunes, where users download a large application that does a little bit of communicating with your server when it needs new information (client-thick, company-thin).
The problem is, if you want to change the interface, you have to get all of your users to stop using the current BDA and download the new one (e.g., "please click here to download version 2. It's way better"). This process in itself leads to higher marketing and development costs, as well as user attrition every time you want to fundamentally change the content. For movies, this brings us back to the original problem of starting from scratch with each new release.
Renewable BDAs remove the versioning issue completely. They are client-thin. The application being downloaded is more like a shell, connecting the movie company and user through an interface that's as easy to change as a website.
Renewable, responsive marketing and commerce
As a hypothetical BDA example, say Sony Pictures' marketing effort for "The Holiday," a romantic comedy, generates 300,000 BDA downloads for that title. The current BDA model tells us that once the buzz of "The Holiday" fades, so will the BDA usage.
In a seamless model, the BDA can change with the audience and the timing. First, the application can alert users to new trailers they can watch from their desktop until opening weekend. With the approach of opening night, the initial screen can change to become a secure checkout interface where users can buy tickets straight from their desktops. If tickets are purchased, the BDA can again be changed to promote a second viewing of the movie (it's even possible to securely store credit card and buying behavior), or to promote the release of the DVD (again with secure payment processing for pre-release).
Where Sony can really cash in is with the assumption that people who are interested in "The Holiday" may be predisposed to the heartwarming Will Smith in "The Pursuit of Happiness," which opened a week later. So the interface can again be changed-this time with a tab for "The Holiday" and new one for "Pursuit" trailers and celebrity interviews. Of course, this isn't forced on the user, as they can use this two-way communication to make real-time preference changes, adding or removing movies as Sony makes them available to the BDA.
Now, with renewable BDAs, you've got a highly specific audience you are building on, opening up a single, direct pipeline for all the movies Sony offers, instead of just one.
Real-time intelligence can make the difference
Today's movie marketing model means one long weekend can make or break the bottom line. Setting the marketing plan in motion for that weekend means pushing all your chips in and betting every exposure in your media plan will work together to drive box office receipts. After the dust has settled, the metrics roll in and you evaluate whether the buys were effective.
BDAs can offer granular (right down to the user) real-time metrics in a web interface. Because BDA downloaders will likely be part of your core demographic for a given film, you've got immediate insight into the messaging and content that will be most appealing to them. For example, you can find out at noon on opening Friday that one key phrase or image is vastly outperforming the others. With this intelligence, you can shift messaging strategies easily, and compel more people to see your movie than a competitor's.
Opening all-new portals, possibilities
Another benefit unrealized by movie marketers is the BDA platform space. Apple, Yahoo! and Google have all created standardized BDA platforms that collect and display BDAs on a user's desktop-- this concept is a major cornerstone of Windows Vista, as well as the Windows Live suite (Messenger, Hotmail, MSN.com/live.com). These platforms were created for speed-of-development for companies and ease-of-use for consumers. By extension, each of these platforms offers users a built-in "find more widgets" collection, which allows companies to expose their additional BDAs to that audience for free. Who knows how long this free marketing will last? But it's important to take advantage of these companies promoting your products for free to already dedicated users.
Wait, social networking too?
In case you forgot, branded desktop applications vaulted to fame with the Instant Messenger and its subsequent ubiquity. While few may download the Eragon Instant Messenger on its own they will appreciate the ability to communicate, in real-time, with other people who like the same movies based on BDA preferences (which can be determined after users have watched the trailer, bought tickets or saw previews for other movies they're interested in), from the convenience and security of their desktop.
This year, call an end to the argument that online movie marketing dollars are too small to be effective. All you really need is for the dollars to start compounding with the stickiness that renewable BDAs can offer.
Michael Leis is vice president, strategic services, for Publishing Dynamics. Read full bio.