What A Tease

I'm a pretty firm believer that the most important moment in any movie's promotion is the airing of the very first teaser trailer. People these days have so many options for entertainment that if you can't hook them with that first look, they will most likely forget about the movie entirely. Best case scenario is that they might wait until the movie is out and first hear some word-of-mouth reviews. But given how disappointing the majority of movies turn out to be and the increase in snarky reviews on the internet, that's a risky proposition. However, if those same people are interested after that initial viewing than there is a better-than-average chance they will be lined up to see your film as soon as it opens. For example, I have long believed that the very first teaser for the film "Pearl Harbor" was the best use of editing in the history of cinema. There was almost no sign of Ben Affleck or any hints that the first hour and a half would be about a sappy love triangle - it was just action. Watching that my friend and I were mesmerized to the point there was zero chance we wouldn't be in line to see that movie as soon as it opened. Even though subsequent trailers should have given us a heads-up we were walking in to a chick-flick trap, we stuck to the belief the first trailer had given us that this was going to be a solid action movie (clearly, we were wrong). As you can tell, there is a lot riding on the trailer.

However, even with the belief that getting people interested as early as possible is the best way to ensure they show up on opening night, the latest practice of premiering trailers for highly-anticipated movies before the showing of other highly-anticipated movies confuses me. For example, this week it was announced that the first few minutes of the next installment of the "Star Trek" reboot was going to be shown on screens across America before the new "Hobbit" movie. Now, I have no doubt that Trekkies are a passionate bunch, but I doubt even they would pay $10-$15 just to see a few minutes of a movie trailer unless they also wanted to see the actual movie which was coming after it. In fact, given how quickly things make it onto the web, I can't think of a single fanbase who would be so impatient to get a glimpse of a movie they won't be able to see more of for half a year that they would buy a ticket to a movie just to watch the trailers. In other words, if the plan here was to use the "Star Trek" trailer a means to sway even more people to see "The Hobbit" (which I honestly don't think needs any more help), I don't think it is going to work.

[Sidebar: Worse yet, I am slightly worried that these movie studios are starting to paint all sci-fi fans with the same broad brush. Just because someone is a fan of the "Lord of the Rings" doesn't automatically mean they also spend nights trying to figure out how to perform a Vulcan neck pinch. I am starting to believe that the people in charge of promotions aren't really sure of who they are selling this movie to. I once worked with a guy whose job was to market sports apparel and he couldn't tell you who half the teams in the NFL were. I wonder if a similar thing is happening here - just a bunch of advertising majors who think Spock flew the Millennium Falcon with the rest of the Avengers on his way to Mordor to fight Megatron. These people need to know that not all nerds are created equally. In fact, often these factions are at odds with one another and their fandom is only equaled by their memories. If you insult them once they will never come back. Seriously, these guys have message boards galore at their fingertips and they know how to use them. All I'm saying is that these marketing professionals shouldn't assume nerds all come from the same big pool of potential customers.]

But, lets say for the sake of argument there was a hobbit-loving Trekkie in the audience. Isn't he pretty much already guaranteed to see the next "Star Trek" movie? Wouldn't the smarter idea be to try and show the movie to people who are on the fence about it? For example, show it in front of the people who are seeing "Lincoln". I'm not saying history and sci-fi are exclusive from one another, I'm just saying that I know people like my parents are planning to see Lincoln, yet I'm pretty sure my mom never got around to watching the latest "Star Trek." Who knows if a well-placed trailer could have changed her mind? For all we know this could lead to an entire new kind of marketing, one where trailers are edited especially for the type of movie it is about to be played in front of. Based on going to the movies with a couple of my nieces I already think trailers should be age-appropriate, so why not genre-appropriate? Some people (read: me), often find the trailers to be the best part of the movie experience, so why not give people a little extra motivation to make it to the theaters early enough to see the special "drama edition" of the "Expendables 3" movie trailer? (I imagine it would focus on Sly's dramatic reading of a ransom note and Jet Li would be in a period costume.) It probably isn't the most honest way to market a movie, but if I learned anything from sitting through an action-less hour of "Pearl Harbor" it was that there is rarely truth in advertising.