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Fighting for a Piece of a 24-Hour Pie

29 Aug, 2014 By: Stephanie Prange

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Traditional entertainment has taken a hit recently. First-half numbers for home entertainment were down slightly. TV ad “upfronts” (prebooked ad buys) were down. The box office take year-to-date is down. About the only thing going up is Netflix’s stock price.

It’s not as if consumers have stopped craving entertainment. It’s that during that 24 hours in a day, in which they must fit work, sleep, etc., there is only so much time for entertainment — and there are ever more and cheaper ways to spend that time, including viewing streaming on Netflix and other sites, as well as the antics of web stars that garner more and more of the younger set’s attention (see my last column). In this kind of competitive environment, marketers must keep on their toes to attract consumers’ attention.

Home entertainment marketers, both at the studios and at retail, are rising to the occasion. One tactic is tying in discs with theatrical marketing. Studios and retailers are increasingly preselling titles on disc around their theatrical bow. And conversely, in a longstanding tactic, discs of previous installments in a series are including discounts on theatrical tickets to the sequels. It’s a way to maximize both theatrical and home entertainment marketing muscle for a bigger punch with the consumer.

One prominent studio marketer noted that these tactics are “tapping into the consumer awareness from the theatrical campaign and converting that awareness into early sales of the Blu-ray, DVD or digital HD.” Conversely, the tie-ins also help the theatrical marketing team build consumer awareness for theatrical releases at retail, she noted.

Anything studio and retail executives can do to build a bigger bullhorn for traditional entertainment is welcome. Exploiting and promoting partnerships with retailers and other studio divisions must grow if content owners want to take a piece of consumers’ limited leisure time. There is an exploding list of hungry competitors looking to take a bite of that 24-hour pie.

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