Marketers Ride the COVID Accelerator
The future of selling dreams takes centerstage at Entertainment Marketing Summit
The mantra that the pandemic has accelerated existing trends is evident across the entire Hollywood landscape.
Variety’s virtual Entertainment Marketing Summit, presented by Deloitte on April , will analyze some of these trends. The most obvious is that filmgoers have been driven to at-home viewing. Other changes during this period include higher subscriber churn and price sensitivity for video streamers; a migration to virtual consumer engagement when COVID- curbed in-person contact; digital media birthing a new breed of talent that redefines the concept of celebrity; and a spike in video gaming.
Regarding video streaming services, “we are seeing churn rates significantly higher than before COVID,” says Kevin Westcott, vice chairman and U.S. technology, media and telecom leader at consultancy Deloitte.
The Deloitte Technology, Media & Telecommunications practice’s th annual Digital Media Trends survey, which spotted escalating subscriber disconnect rates, also delivered good news. Consumers concurrently subscribe to other services, indicating that they’re moving around and not dropping out completely.
“But this and only this year, cost has become the driving decision factor,” says Westcott. This bodes well for advertiser-supported video streaming with no- or low-cash monthly fee. Given high unemployment amid the pandemic, growing price sensitivity is no surprise, and Deloitte adds that another force is consumers trying to moderate total spending while holding multiple entertainment subscriptions.
The pandemic put the kibosh on the massive fan gatherings that populate Hollywood marketers’ event calendars. That void, says Pamela Lifford, president of global brand and experiences at Warnermedia, “put innovation in the forefront of how you can engage with your fans.” In response, Warnermedia revved up its own DC Fandome virtual events. Going in-house actually offers advantages, adds Lifford, versus events mounted by third parties. That’s because aficionados can be plugged into a broader swath of the company.
Elsewhere, the digital influencer phenomenon has morphed in the pandemic hothouse. Online celebrities that previously cultivated audiences simply to endorse third-party brands increasingly went more conventional, notes Nick Tran, head of global marketing at Tiktok. He cites the arc for “Ratatouille: The Tiktok Musical” that evolved from crowdsourced origins into a full production with Disney’s blessing that raised $ million to benefit the Actors Fund. The production even received a Drama League Awards nomination.
“We not only got traditonal singers and Broadway folks, we brought the Tiktok community of artists into the production who originally started the trend,” Tran notes. Unknowns whose creations make a Tiktok splash are increasingly breaking into mainstream Hollywood, he adds.
New media brands also get birthed in the video streaming revolution, such as the launch of Paramount Plus supplanting CBS All Access. “Starting with our Super Bowl campaign, our goal was to communicate that our brand is confident, down-to-earth and self-aware, with an approachable tone that doesn’t take itself too seriously,” says Domenic Dimeglio, executive vice president, head of operations and chief marketing officer, at Paramount Plus. “Our consumer marketing campaign has taken on a distinct tone: fun and irreverent.”
There’s agreement that a key to marketing success is identifying interests of individual consumers in cyberspace to enable serving content that’s relevant. For the upcoming Tokyo Olympics,