By Jordan Pinto and Regan Reid

Playback hosted its second annual Marketing Summit Tuesday in Toronto at the Bram and Bluma Appel Salon. The event saw delegates from both the Canadian production space and the marketing industry come together to discuss how to better promote upcoming projects. Here are five key takeaways from the day:

 1. Know why your audience watches content

To ensure movie watchers are choosing your project, you have to know why they watch films and for what benefit, said Cynthia Pachovski, VP of consumer insights North America at Nielsen. So who wants to watch Canadian films and why? “Understand and Engage with Audiences,” a report from Telefilm Canada and Nielsen presented at the Summit, found  the Canadian population is broken into five segments of movie watchers. The two segments of the population who are most interested in our national cinema are those dubbed “Curious” Canadians and those in the “Belonging” segment. According to the report, 27% of movie watchers in Canada fall into the “Curious” category. These are people who are interested in movies as a source of both entertainment and inspiration. They watch a lot of movies and films of all types, the report found. On the other hand, those 23% in the “Belonging” category see film as a source of cultural awareness. They choose movies because they want to expand their horizons and connect culturally. You can’t have the same marketing approach with each group, Pachovski said. For the “Curious” group, the challenge is to capture their attention with highly marketed content. Your film has to stand out among all those other films they want to watch. Those in the “Belonging” segment, on the other hand, want to engage on a more intimate level. Marketing to them needs to be highly targeted. (Check back tomorrow for more on this study.)

 2. Pick a horse

As the Telefilm/Nielsen study proved, your marketing efforts can’t be geared to all people. For your project to succeed, you need to focus in on a specific audience – and deliver a specific product. That was the message given to three Canadian producers who pitched the marketing plans for their upcoming projects to a panel of advertising execs during the Amp my Plan event at the Summit. If you’re developing a Hitchcockian horror for a sophisticated audience, don’t plan a flashy marketing stunt geared toward a younger, more thrill-seeking audience, one exec told a producer. It’s easy to spread yourself – and your marketing dollars – too thin by trying to appeal to everyone. The judges – Jay Chaney, chief strategy officer at Cossette Communication; Cory Eisentraut, VP creative director at Havas Worldwide Canada; and Ann Stewart, president of Maxus Canada – told the participants to concentrate their marketing dollars. While your project might appeal to multiple targeted segments, your marketing efforts will be more effective if you choose one segment to target. In other words, choose quality over quantity. Once you’ve targeted your audience, you can work to build a community within that segment around your project.

3. Research your audience to build that audience

One case study presented was that of 20-part web series V Morgan is Dead. The series, which was created as part of RBC’s entry into the world of branded entertainment, was developed, scripted and cast based on research conducted by the bank as it sought to reach a larger base of millennial customers. During its research, RBC’s senior manager, enterprise social media, John Slighte, said the company was surprised to discover that fantasy and sci-fi content was the most popular among millennial consumers. With these findings in hand, the series was also able to leverage the existing audience of the vampire-themed Carmilla, also produced by Shift2, to cross-promote V Morgan.

With 10 episodes of the Shift2-produced series already available on YouTube, RBC went back into research mode. Working with Toronto-based neuromarketing research firm Brainsights, which tested 200 millennial consumers that were hooked up to brain-scanning equipment, the brand identified moments in the series’ trailer when engagement/attention was at its highest and lowest. RBC and Shift2 then used the information it gathered from the scans (such as which characters the audience reacted to best) to inform which characters it focused on with its ancillary content, which included behind-the-scenes video, branded-video extras and a guest blogging section to the series’ website. In all, the project received more than one million views (approximately 50,000 per episode), 99% of which were millennials.

 4. Whatever you’re doing, set some money aside for marketing

One of the fantasies that social media has allowed people to believe over the past decade is that marketing can be done on a shoestring budget, Mark Tomblin, CSO at Juniper Park/TBWA told delegates. And that is not the case, he emphatically argued. Getting a product/project to be noticed simply by marketing it on social media is a losing battle, as the algorithms used by Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and others aren’t geared toward promoting organic reach. “It makes them no money,” said Tomblin, “so don’t kid yourselves into thinking they’re on your side.” Putting dollars behind marketing a certain product is the only way to ensure said product will receive the push that the producer is paying for. The internet should no longer be thought of as an avenue for free advertising, concluded Tomblin. “Don’t ever believe that you can just use the internet – there are no free channels left.”

5. Plan ahead, but be nimble

In 2015, Doritos noticed a curious trend: a lot of commercials coming out around the Super Bowl were about puppies or dads, Susan Irving, director of marketing a Pepsico Foods Canada, told delegates. Doritos wasn’t planning a campaign around either of these subjects, but wanted to be part of the inevitable puppy/dad conversations. So it pivoted its approach and created the “Puppy Dad” commercial. While not every company will have the budget to create a new campaign at the drop of a hat, Irving’s point was companies need to monitor consumer trends and the social conversation and give themselves enough wiggle room to adapt marketing plans so they can be part of that conversation. Part of being nimble, she added, is engaging with and then listening to your audience. If you put out a piece of marketing that’s well-received, build on that; if you get negative feedback, listen to it! She gave the example of the year the company brought back Ketchup chips as a limited offer. PepsiCo planned for 10 weeks of stock, but sold out after a week. Consumers were outraged, she said. So, the following year, it learned from the mistake and brought the chips back again, knowing what the demand would be.

Photo credit: Matt Forsythe