author | mia

editor | akagi pingzi

the summer season is coming to an end, and the drama market is "high opening and low closing", with two hits in june, "rose's story"mo yu yun jian" started from september 2011, and the popularity has been declining since then. in addition to "breaking the thorns 4" which once caused heated discussions, the variety show market also lacks attention.

the movie market is even worse. there are two days left before the end of the period. the box office is less than 12 billion yuan. as we have analyzed before,"we have gone back to ten years ago", almost halved compared to last year.there is no doubt that the biggest hit of this summer season belongs to the gaming industry's "black myth: wukong".

it is undeniable thatthis year's bleak situation is affected by insufficient production capacity after the epidemic.last year, there was a blowout trend due to inventory reduction. there were two films that broke 3 billion yuan, two films with a box office of 2 billion to 3 billion yuan, and one film with a box office of 1.5 billion to 2 billion yuan. the concentration of top films was rare in history. this year, there is a serious shortage of top films, with only one project with a box office of 3 billion yuan or more, and there is no project in the range of 2 billion to 3 billion yuan.

the market performance of many new works by big directors, top picks, and works with good reputation in the circle has been unsatisfactory. their subject selection and content choice have certainly had a great impact, but there have also been certain problems in their publicity and promotion. many films have seriously failed to fully explore their personal relevance and topicality.although a good cook cannot cook without rice, and good publicity and promotion may not be able to change a film's fate, it can, to a certain extent, allow a film to reach its own upper limit as much as possible.

short video marketing cools down, roadshows frequently "close up"

did the olympics divert the audience's attention? looking back at the two olympic years of 2016 and 2021, we can find that the movie box office was not greatly affected in those years.

it is true that this year, as the first olympic games after the epidemic, the attention is unprecedentedly high. the "resource tilt" of multiple platforms such as weibo, douyin, kuaishou, and xiaohongshu has, to a certain extent, affected the exposure of entertainment content, but there is still "catch dollsthe birth of hits such as "the accidental murderer" shows thatthe most fundamental reason for the audience's declining willingness to watch movies is the lack of attractiveness of the content. on the basis of weak content, mediocre publicity and promotion are even more difficult to ignite enthusiasm for watching movies.

the popularity of the film and the popularity of marketing complement each other. last year's record-breaking summer season also saw many phenomenal cases in marketing.

it is also a work of "southeast asian crime universe", "crime spectacle + strong topic",she disappeared》《all or nothing》 both set the short video platform on fire. from "curing love-brain" to "one more person watching the movie means one less person getting cheated", they were simple and crude, directly hitting the public's inner fears and becoming recognized as "tiktok hit movies".

this year, the only film with a similar temperament may be "the silent war", which focuses on large volume and is filled with many controversial topics and large-scale scenes. emotional topics come first, and "violent scenes with glue sealing mouths" and "famous mvp settlement scenes" have become popular on douyin, activating the sinking market and becoming the first dark horse in the first half of the schedule, which is expected.

other films, under the premise of limited topicality themselves, have gradually fallen into "path dependence" and homogeneity in the short video marketing level, and their promotional creativity is limited.previously, reality-themed and tear-jerking themes were proven to have a good fermentation rate on douyin. this year, "reverse life" failed to reproduce the miracle of reality-themed themes, and the love films starring two popular stars failed one after another, starting with yu shi's "welcome to me”, to zhu yilong’s “two negatives equal a positive》，from content to promotion, it did not really hit the audience's emotional pain points.

in addition to the three-piece set of "xx visits the set, xxx sheds tears, xxx is shocked", many summer movies release content on short video platforms with certain similarities: behind-the-scenes footage, highlight plot analysis, actor styling, etc. the era of "fraudulent marketing" has passed, and "activity marketing" is no longer feasible.

in the past two days, the dark horse, sci-fi thriller horror film "alien: taken" has been heading for 800 million yuan, and it even has a chance to become the annual imported film box office champion, but the film's official douyin account has only 47,000 fans, which also shows that the actual box office popularity and douyin popularity are not necessarily directly proportional. it is more important to have a clear genre selling point, and the audience pays more attention to the real word-of-mouth reputation of their relatives and friends.

as online short video marketing gradually cools down, offline promotion and marketing based mainly on roadshows have also fallen into the trap of low conversion rates, useless efforts, homogeneous repetition of assembly lines, and even negative controversies.

during the roadshow of "negatives make positive", the most popular trending search was "zhu yilong said i'm fine twice", as well as zhu yilong's fans' "big up" and "close to the official publicity", directly criticizing the official publicity and promotion for inaction, "i am now breaking zhu yilong's information cocoon... in shenzhen, where every inch of land is valuable, this giant screen, this publicity, is not a promotional advertisement put up by the film company, but a promotion and publicity paid for by zhu yilong's fans, shenzhen longying! let me ask you! scrap publicity and official, do your faces hurt?" these sharp words broke the usual practice of commercial flattery at the roadshow.

chen sicheng in "decryptionin the roadshow of "the legend of the condor heroes", he kept answering the question of "why did i appear in the easter eggs?" in response to the box office not meeting expectations, he said that he would try to step back and appear less in the promotions in the future.retrograde life》 responded to the issue of “consumer suffering” during the roadshow.for films that may be controversial and risky, special attention should be paid to "risk control capabilities" and response plans that can add points.

the original intention of the roadshow is to obtain more favorable film scheduling, promote communication between the main creators and the audience, continuously produce materials, and increase the popularity of the film.conferred gods part 1” is a positive example of how roadshows drove box office growth.

as for these roadshow exchanges this year, although they were on the hot search, some brought negative public opinion, and some have deviated from the film itself and turned to controversy outside the film, and did not bring much actual box office growth.we need to rethink the significance of roadshows, whether they should be more scene-specific and communication-intensive, and whether we need to innovate offline promotion and marketing models and reject the same old routine.

a rush to preview the film, the "wrong focus" of publicity and promotion, and more complicated public opinion

《under the alien"the early promotional focus of "reverse life" showed deviations to varying degrees, and these deviations further aggravated the public opinion crisis.

if "under the aliens" attempts to benchmark marvel and dc's superhero blockbusters in terms of content, then in terms of publicity and promotion, it attempts to benchmark one of last year's hits, "fengshen i". before the screening, a large number of behind-the-scenes footage of the "alien training camp" of traditional martial arts training were released, and the 2.5-dimensional real-life imitation combined with ai was vigorously promoted - however, this is the part that many two-dimensional groups do not like, claiming to restore the original "chinese comics' top ip" - but what the audience saw when they walked into the theater was a comic adaptation blockbuster that had been modified by itself and magnified the dregs of the original male masculinity.

whenthe force is put in the wrong placeto be fair, the film basically reached the level of a popcorn blockbuster, butthe content did not meet expectations, and the publicity and promotion caused a big gap.the double anger of fans of the original novel and passers-by accelerated the spread of negative word of mouth.

before the release, the focus of the promotion of "retrograde life" was on "realism" and "the bottom of society", which revolved around the difficulties of food deliverymen. before the film was released, the internet had already questioned its "bottom of the consumer" content. after the release, the audience found that the film was closer to "the fall of the middle class", and the promotion direction gradually shifted to "the dilemma of middle-aged life", trying to hit the more universal public sentiment. if different promotional points were used at the beginning, perhaps there would be different results?

in addition, if "octagon cage" has become a beneficiary of large-scale previews, this yearmore films are actually "trapped in large-scale previews."

the dark horsesafe evacuation from the 21st century", as a feature film ten years later directed by li yang, the director of the highly acclaimed short film masterpiece "the adventures of li xianji", is quite innovative and surprising in content and is regarded as the "domestic version of "the blink of an eye"". it once won a high reputation among the media, kols, and film critics. in the early days of advance screenings, its attendance rate continued to rise, once reaching over 90%.

at this time, the film "under the alien", which was released at the same time and also had a strong two-dimensional atmosphere, encountered a wave of negative reviews. if "safe escape from the 21st century" was immediately moved up, it might have become a dark horse in the circle with the help of its high reputation on bilibili and douban, as well as the audience's rebellious dissatisfaction with "under the alien". but unfortunately, the film company did not do so. as the scale of the preview continued to expand, labels such as "abstract", "incomprehensible", and "dizzy" spread among the general audience group, and its attendance rate continued to decline. it was finally fixed as a niche work among the fan group and missed the dark horse.

"decryption," which also started large-scale previews a week in advance, had a lower attendance rate than "catch the dolls" on the weekend, and its popularity and reputation were not outstanding. it was not a dark horse in terms of preview performance. the stereotype of "deducting points before watching the film" and negative reviews sparked heated discussions before the film's industrial blockbuster attributes, becoming an off-site interference factor.

in addition, in this year when the public opinion crisis is unprecedented and almost every film is trapped by public opinion, the film producers have to deal with emergencies.the crisis public relations capabilities are not optimistic either.

as mentioned above, there have been many roadshow controversies. during the release of "reverse life", the "hangzhou rider kneeled down after a conflict with the park security guard" incident broke out. the film depicted the scene of "mutual harm between the security guard and the rider", but in reality, the creators remained silent. this "safety first" approach may have missed an opportunity for "positive public relations" to a certain extent.

recently, the director of "a dream of red mansions: a perfect match", which has confusing casting and plot and is flooded with one-star negative reviews, hu mei posted several weibo posts to prove that "daiyu is not ugly", stated her 18 years of creative difficulties, and claimed that "someone used ai virtual data to send 1-point reviews in groups. some accounts were registered several months ago, and it seems that they were specifically designed to discredit or snipe this movie."this move further pushed the film to the opposite side of public sentiment.

of course, box office success is not the only criterion for judging a film.whether it is the concern for reality in "reverse life", the contribution of "under the alien" and "the decoded" to the pioneering of domestic film industrialization, or the authorial temperament of "safe evacuation from the 21st century" and "negatives make positives", the great directors stepping out of their comfort zones, the new directors integrating self-expression, and the diversified content innovation have their own meaning and value.

however, "weak subject matter" means higher requirements for publicity and promotion strategies. in the era of fragmented attention, it is becoming increasingly difficult for audiences to be "attracted into the cinema", and the time has come for film publicity and promotion to be innovative and changeable.

after a month-long off-season in september, can the national day holiday season turn the tide? the pressure is on the second half of the year.