Casablanca’s Contemporary Marketing Campaign

By Karina Longworth posted 11 months ago

At Movie Marketing Madness, Chris Thilk points to a sample marketing presentation made by the ad agency Basement, based on this hypothesis: If all prints of Casablanca had been lost immediately after its initial premiere and had recently been found, how would you market the film today as a wide-release feature?

Chris says the pitch looks “very real,” and he would know better than me, but I have to admit: some of the slides made me laugh out loud. Like the one where Casablanca is pitched as the perfect gap bridger between Sex and the City and an “Iraq War film” (”Casablanca is a romantic option for women; while still having entertainment for men — a shared experience for Valentines day”). And also the “Valentine’s Day Romance Generator” feature on the hypothetical Casablanca website, which allegedly “takes a woman’s idea, and transforms it into a man’s idea.” And also the “contingency plan” of having a Warner Brothers-signed top R&B performer do a cover of “As Time Goes By.”

So…is this supposed to be funny, or practical? Both?

2 Comments

Classics

casablanca, marketing, sex-and-the-city

Add your comments

Chris Thilk said 11 months ago
I get the sense it’s supposed to be funny, but in a way that highlights just how ridiculous current movie marketing practices are. There’s nothing that’s more unimaginable than an R&B remake of “As Time Goes By” but that’s exactly the sort of thing that would get proposed.

I think what this presentation shows the best is the lack of faith marketers have in the intelligence of the audience. Most all of these ideas demean people’s intelligence in some way shape or form.

Basement created it to be tongue-in-cheek, I think, but the fact that so many of them are completely plausible speaks volumes about the state of modern movie marketing (madness).
Doug Schumacher said 11 months ago
Hey Karina,

Thanks for picking up the thread from Chris over at MMM.

I’m the President/CD at Basement, and want to answer your question.

Regarding selling Casablanca relative to ‘Sex and the City’ and ‘Iraq War Film’, all marketing campaigns, and not just movies, should be viewed relative to the competitive environment. People, and especially movie-goers, have options. It’s key to try and figure out why they’ll choose your movie over the others.

That’s all strategic work.

Once we have the strategy down, then creating funny, or intriguing, or compelling marketing messages is how you make sure your message is seen over everyone else’s.

So for marketing campaigns, funny and practical is often an idea combo.

TOP STORY: