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Drama sells. That’s it.
Watch the social platforms for five minutes, and you know one thing: Drama pays. Whether it is a Taylor Swift Vs Kanye West moment, a Mango Lang or ab fab moment or some other controversies in the background while promoting an art, it becomes quite queer to determine whether we are watching art or the controversies that surround it.
One example is the rumoured conflict between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni on the set of the drama It Ends with Us; the latter is the movie about domestic violence with Lively as the leading lady. Or simply remember the scandal at the premiere of the thriller movie Don’t Worry Darling; the so-called Spit-Gate. One thing is clear: marketing strategy has also been added to drama. But is this strategy brilliant or plain desperate?
The case of “drama-rketing”
Let’s kick things off with a question: is not it sad that movies have lost their way entirely that one needs to call for drama and for a crisis PR to create a buzz? Food for thought.
Let me explain this by using an example to explain how this works, and that example is Don’t Worry Darling. The idea for the movie was not generated through the plot but rather by a series of gossips, conflicts, and controversies that included the ‘spit incident’, or as called by the fans ‘Spit-Gate’ between Harry Styles and Chris Pine. On social media, fans of the British singer suspected that Styles spat on Pine during the Venice Film Festival premiere, and one video of the event received more than 1. 4 million views. This as a matter of fact remained more or less unaired until Pine of course cleared the air. In actuality, there was no use of spit snare at all.
That non-actual drama kept twitter trending, shows more about us as viewers than it does about the marketing departments. Perhaps, you know, we should take some time for self-reflection…post, guess what, there is a new Sabrina Carpenter’s song.
Further fuel to the fire about Don’t Worry Darling, the lead actress Florence Pugh and the director Olivia Wilde were reported to have fall out. That the two were not seen snogging on the red carpet or even after the screening of the movie was enough to set many gossips moving. All this chaos begs the question: And, may be, it was not planned, but it does occur in practice. Drama drama drama.
Now let’s discuss about It Ends With Us. Some sources said that lead actress Blake Lively cut the film herself with the help of her husband Ryan Reynolds’ editor Shane Reid resulting in rumors of conflict with the director Justin Baldoni. Despite the fact that Baldoni has already hired the crisis PR expert, the insiders claim that multiple cuts are common and there is no animosity at all. Viewers also pointed out the fact that Lively and Reynolds did not share many moments on the movie press tour, and the credit of Lively to Reynolds for the particular scene apparently did not help address the questions on who was doing what in the movie.
Pointless or genius?
The looser campaign for It Ends With Us is something that some have described as resembling nothing so much as a PR team gone into overdrive—careening from one sensationalistic headline to the next in what appeared to be an attempt less related to actually shifting unit copies of the book and more simply soften their author into audience’s palatable figure. Although the controversy did attract a lot of attention, some PR professionals were of the opinion that it was not well thought out to the extent of knowing how it would pan out. What was the message given here? While being visually inventive, the spectacle was mainly perceived by the audience as unrelated to the film’s storyline, and for that reason, it was criticized for being misguided.
There were controversy over the promotional campaign by Lively for the film, with people referring to it as ‘tone-deaf’. She advertised her hair product and flavoural drinks and even encouraged the people to wear flowers alongside her to the screening of a movie about women abuse. For some others, this was deemed as more of a sudden shift, overly monetized and inapposite move.
That is why some people thought that It Ends With Us was striving to emulate the success of Barbie. Yet, what was possible with Barbie, the pink-themed monument in the doll kingdom and the brand that popularized oh-boy chant in the West, was not exactly reproducible. It Ends With Us attempted to start its trends (florals as a fashion phenomenon) and portray the notion of competition (the film against Deadpool 3, starring Lively’s husband, Reynolds, and herself as Lady Deadpool) but was met with rather pale reception at best. Not every movie can or should be rebranded (there is no way I’m saying this).
When drama pays off
But as we all know, these drama-filled marketing approaches are not entirely a mess all the time. Don’t Worry Darling still had decent figures; It grossed US$ 19 million in the United States and US$ 10 in other territories. 8 million supporters around the globe within the initial end of the week. It’s hard to deny that huge stars starring as the movie’s lead, such as Florence Pugh, Harry Styles and Chris Pine, played their part in its success; however, some might argue that controversies and micro-feuds only contributed to the film’s visibility. Thus, the underlying conflict had superseded the very movie for many of the audience members.
Likewise, the Marketing of It Ends With Us has come under a lot of criticism and yet, the movie has grossed over one hundred US dollars million at the box office. It has to be then admitted that controversy indeed has some influence.
This article focuses with the relationship between engagement and running the risk of over engaging.
Drama is inherently irresistible, we find ourselves drawn to drama. But can it be deemed a sustainable marketing strategy? Altogether, drama may be quite useful in generating short-term excitement around a project; it can, however, quickly go wrong if it is not in line with the primary communicative intent of the project. The doom that surrounded Don’t Worry Darling was possibly bigger than the plot of the film itself as some viewers were left clueless about what the movie was all about.
What about It Ends With Us? The effort to make it look like a trend like Barbie was a big no. The key takeaway? It can also be stated that not every motion picture has to turn into an advertising campaign. Infrequently, it comes a scenario where all that a movie maker needs is a film and it does amazingly well without inflow of controversies or over- commercials.
