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August 21, 2006
Snakes on a Plane: 5 lessons for marketers
"Snakes on a Plane" was the number-one movie this weekend, taking in $15.3 million. Some traditional media outlets that were so quick to trumpet months of unprecedented Internet buzz called the take "disappointing" and a "letdown."
Don't believe the hype. "Snakes on a Plane" was a first in many ways and if anything, proved that giving fans a stake in the outcome made the movie more successful than it would have been otherwise. (I saw it this weekend and it was pretty bad, but in a fun way, like "Rocky Horror" but without the singing.)
I think there are five key lessons to take away from what will always be remembered as the SoaP phenomenon:
1. Memes have never been more important. The simple and straightforward title was so unlike Hollywood films that fans took interest. Like a gene, a meme knows how to replicate itself. All of the instructions to copy it are inherently transmittable. "Snakes on a Plane" had all of the cultural transmitters necessary for it to easily sink into our cultural consciousness, which made it easy for DC Lugi and all of the other creative content creators to have fun with the concept. Social media means memes will spread faster than ever before. A name means everything if spreadability is the goal.
2. When fans embrace your meme, embrace your fans. Kudos to SoaP director David Ellis for acknowledging bloggers and fans. The studio didn't get medieval on them. They reached out to bloggers to thank them, invited them to promotional events, and finally invited many of them to the Hollywood premiere.
3. The culture of participation is here. Driven largely by the 20-something generation of Millennials, participation is what they expect. That's how they grew up and that's what they love. When Millennials and other meme-infected creative people are passionate about a product, idea or cause, they find the means to create and participate. Social media is their collaboration system. SoaP has proven that citizen marketers will help even the most niche-oriented product like "Snakes on a Plane" find an audience.
4. Embracing citizen marketers reduces risk. Launching a new product is betting against huge odds: Over 80 percent of all new products fail. New Line reduced its risk by listening to fans who wanted more snakes, gore and f-bombs. Making $15 million in one weekend is disappointing how? (Silly media.) If New Line hadn't listened to fans and released a PG-13 film called "Pacific Air Flight 121," chances are no one would have talked about it, and it would have been just another low-brow Hollywood movie.
5. The experience is the difference between profit and failure. SoaP was not just a film but a film-going experience. People dressed up, brought rubber snakes, shouted lines at the screen and had fun. All of the fan-created fun (and Sam Jackson's infamous, fan-created line) created an expectation of "we're in this together." (Read through these comments for first-hand reports from movie-goers.) It wasn't "Snakes on the Waterfront," but some people said it was the most fun they'd had at a movie in years. That's welcome news for an industry whose revenues keep declining. Before seeing SoaP on Friday night, I had not been to a movie in five months. The film industry's theater partners insist on ruining the experience by commercializing it to death. After sitting through 40 minutes of commercials for video games, the Army, Sprite, new TV shows and upcoming films, I won't return anytime soon.
Other blogs that reference Snakes on a Plane: 5 lessons for marketers:
» Bitten... from Johnnie Moore's Weblog
Jackie Huba and Jake McKee have interesting takes on the Snakes on a Plane phenomenon. I think Jake's hits the nail on the head when he talks about having fun. I think that folks are have seized on this movie... [Read More]
» Snakes on a Plane: Failure or Success? from Learfield InterAction
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» Snakes on the Plane: The Future of Marketing? Maybe. from Emergence Media
One Example of a SoaP Consumer Generated Ad
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Raking in +$15m opening weekend (#2 spot), Snakes on Plane - a movie soley carried and even re-shot because of the blogosphere - is defining the power of blogs as it pertains to t... [Read More]
» SoaP..missing the point..again from Deborah Schultz
I wasn't going to weigh in on the entire SoaP movie online marketing phenomenon because I think others have done a great job posting on this already. However, over the weekend as the mainstream press started to label the same [Read More]
» Fottuti serpenti from Kurai - A sushi Weblog
In pochi, nella palla italiana, parlano di Snakes on a plane.
Dopo qualche discussione al momento di massima esplosione del buzz relativo al film con Samuel Jackson, la parte di rete nostrana è piombata nel silenzio più assoluto.
Eppure ce ne sarebb... [Read More]
» Snakes on a Plane, the death of citizen marketing from Advertising Ourselves to Death
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Some good posts you may have missed. So check them out... Culture change Ignore the competition Brands need stories experience When the brand is not 'the brand' Interesting things Advice for young planners Buying advertising Have a good ending [Read More]
» SoaP on a Rope – Blog cred hangs by a thread from Indie Prod
Millions of words were blogged about Snakes on a Plane before the first frame ever unspooled. Yes, the Internet hype seemed to be off the charts – and so were some of the predictions for the film's opening weekend. The... [Read More]
» "Snakes on a Plane" - Erfolg oder nicht? from ConnectedMarketing.de
Abgesehen vielleicht von Blair Witch Project ist kaum ein Film im Internet und offline von einem solchen Hype noch vor dem Filmstart begleitet worden wie Snakes on a Plane. In den USA wird der Sommer 2006 sicher vielen noch lange [Read More]
Yep. It's nice whem a movie becomes a larger event that is actually fun, and we all get material to blog about as a side benefit. :)
Aww, the press is just pissy because, as Mack over a the Viral Garden put it, they had to sit at the kiddie table this time. They're mad because they had no control over the fate of this movie - the newspaper critics, reporters, etc. We (the public) took their power away. And now the playing field is level.
Boo-freakin'-hoo.
The title alone was so baldly dumb that it created a sensation. Ingenious.
I loved it, too. Did you notice the heavy Red Bull product placement. That was really funny.
How could you NOT notice that Red Bull product placement? Wow. You're right, though, it was so over the top, that it was comical.
What about the Treo placement, too? "We can send them pictures by email. And THIS does both."
Yeah, at the theatre we yelled out "redbull" on every instance of it showing up on the screen. Best part was a child behind me who joined us and said "Red Bull Gives You Wings!" At that point, I didnt know whether to laugh or crying at the effective brilliance of marketing and branding on children.
"Embracing citizen marketers reduces risk"
While I complete agree with your point, there's also a follow-up: " Embracing citizen marketers increases risk".
Let's not kid ourselves. While citizen marketing can be,and often is a fantastic success, it can also take hold and turn the product into something fairly uninteresting. (Remember the Simpsons episode where Homer designs the car?)
Esquire talks about this here:
http://elfurl.com/0oizs
While I don't agree completely with their point, I can certainly see a studio getting involved with fans only to produce a steaming pile of garabage, simply because they didn't "listen smart"...i.e. they didn't use their collective years of wisdom to see past the initial request into the heart of the issue.
Now, all that said, there's risk either way you go. I'd much prefer to go towards the interaction side of things.
By the way, I liked Tara Hunt's take on the success of SoaP.
Nice post, Jackie. And by the way, Spike...."boo-freakin'-hoo" is just about the funniest comment I've seen on a blog post in a long time. LOL...!
True enough, but the number one lesson I learned from Snakes on a Plane is the importance of a catchy title.
In the UK there is a product called 'Ronseal'. It's a kind of wood varnish. The tin says something like "Hard wearing outdoors wood varnish." The TV ads end with the slogan "It does exactly what it says on the tin." Great. We now talk about the Ronseal moment. Snakes on a Plane is the perfect Ronseal moment. There are snakes. There's a plane. Guess what happens.
I agree with Jake, and that has been my one hesitation towards embracing the SoaP lovestory. Culture by committee, and the reshooting of scenes, is not necessarily the way to a great product and as can be so far shown with SoaP, without a storyline that resonates with a larger/ mass audience (those who aren't reading the blogs) the movie isn't going to be a Blair Witch or MBFGW. It's a stretch at this point to compare it with Rocky Horror, let's give it 20 years and see if it's playing at revival houses at midnight, or is collecting dust at the bottom of the DVD rack at Blockbuster.
That being said I agree with Jackie's points in terms of lessons learned and successes for the film. Absolutely New Line did a lot of good things, but I wish they had focused a bit more on just making a good movie that more than the bloggers would want to go see.
I haven't seen the movie, but I know someone who's seen it talked about how illogical some sequences are. But based on what you've written here, do I take it that audiences prefer to have a "say" in the making/marketing of a movie, rather than enjoy a good movie?
Meikah,
I don't think that this is an "either/or" situation. The audience who saw the movie DOES think it was good. But good is relative here. The fact that they could participate in the making and marketing of the movie means they were more likely to see it. And that they could yell things at the screen, dress up,etc. make the movie-going experience a "good" one.
All that was missing was "Don't tell anyone about the surprise ending"
