If the economic uncertainty of the past few weeks leads the U.S. into a full-fledged recession, studio and streamer marketing chiefs are confident Hollywood will hang tough against the headwinds.
That was one of the major themes discussed Thursday by a half-dozen senior film and TV marketing chiefs at the Variety Entertainment Marketing Summit, presented by Deloitte. The panelists traded notes on how the post-theatrical management of films has changed — for the better — for some major studios now that they have output deals with sibling streaming platforms such as Hulu, in the case of Disney, and Peacock, for Universal Pictures. The masters of ballyhoo chopped it up on the delicate handling of awards campaigns, the elusiveness of Gen Z consumers and how marketing around blockbusters and franchises is now a year-round obligation to keep fans engaged and interested.
Regarding the economic environment, the film chiefs noted that the biz has historically weathered hard times with a key advantage.
“We all work in a business that we hope is recession-proof. We have the affordable pastime. You may not travel, you may put your big purchases on hold, but what we do is affordable,” said Dwight Caines, president of domestic marketing for Universal Pictures. “We try to give people the easy escape that they can easily opt into, and we want that habit to continue.”
Christian Parkes, chief marketing office for indie distributor Neon, home of Oscar winners “Anora” and “Parasite,” said the gloomy clouds over the box office early in the year have lifted as studios prove adept at reaching specific fan groups and demographics to drive people to the multiplexes.
“Obviously there was a tough first quarter, but the response to ‘Minecraft,’ the response to ‘Sinners,’ has been there,” Parkes said, citing Warner Bros.’ recent theatrical releases. He credited studio marketing chiefs with steering big launch campaigns that worked. “They tapped into audiences,” he said. “It’s about understanding those audiences, defining those audiences and then speaking to them in a way that excites them.”
JP Richards, president of worldwide marketing for Lionsgate Motion Picture Group, said marketers need to be prepared to reach Gen Z consumers in different ways than any other previous generation: “For the most part, this is a generation, 12 to 27, that’s grown up during the most cataclysmic time ever,” Richards said. “They long for real relationships, and they find them in social but they’re not always real relationships, right? So we have to approach with a kind of care.”
Martha Morrison, executive VP of marketing for Walt Disney Studios, said the Mouse House has seen family filmgoing bounce back nicely for strong titles. “People are looking for it. They want something to do with their kids. They are excited to go back to the movies,” she said. “We saw it with ‘Mufasa,’ over Christmas. We saw that play all through that time period with Christmas being one of our biggest days.”
On the flip side of theatrical, the expansion of pay-one windows in streaming has been a boon to specialty labels such as Searchlight Pictures. Rebecca Kearey, Searchlight’s head of international marketing and distribution and business operations, said her studiio has been helped by being part of the Disney+ and Hulu platform.
“It’s given us an additional spoke to our business that we’ve never had before,” Kearey said. “Our old deal was with HBO, which was great. They were also really good partners. But there’s nothing like being able to literally walk over to somebody’s office and go, ‘Hey, what do you think about this date?’ And we have a Searchlight hub on Hulu. It’s been phenomenal.”
Jennifer Storms, chief marketing officer for NBCUniversal Television and Streaming, said Peacock is fulfilling a similar role for Universal Pictures and other content banners within NBCU.
Universal Pictures’ 2024 musical blockbuster “Wicked” has been available for streaming on the paid tier of Peacock since March, along with a host of additional content and extras. “Wicked” was such a gamble for NBCUniversal that the company marshalled its Symphony marketing forces to ensure that the musical film got the biggest possible promotional push at launch last November. The movie helmed by Jon M. Chu and starring Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, has generated 800 million minutes of viewing time on Peacock so far, Storms said.
“We’re going to give back through the infinity loop,” Storms said, noting that ‘Wicked’ has been Peacock’s highest performing movie in the pay-one window since it struck the deal with its sibling studio in 2023. “So we are then providing a bit of that renewed launch pad as ‘Wicked: For Good’ trailer comes along, and then we’re going to continue the flywheel.”
Storms emphasized that the success of Symphony is because NBCU has “built a culture of collaboration. We’ve operationalized it, and this is really hard to do. It’s taken over a decade, but we will stand down as individual businesses in order to elevate another business to elevate because we believe it’s a sum of the parts is greater than the whole-type of thing.”
Caines concurred. Although the musical ‘Wicked’ was a known property after playing for more than 20 years on Broadway, Universal knew that theater lovers alone wouldn’t deliver the bucks the studio needed to make back its considerable investment. That’s where the Comcast-wide support from Symphony came in.
“We knew the rabid fan base wasn’t going to take us to the numbers we needed,” Caines said. We had to expand beyond that. We needed to reach audiences who said, ‘You know what, I don’t go to musicals, but I see myself in that movie.’ I see myself in those characters I’ve been othered, and I see myself in the rise of one girl to power and the discovery of one woman’s heart. … And this is when entertainment works the best, when the country or the world is feeling things and we can offer that escape or that warm hug.”
The stakes for marketers have grown along with the budget — and the break-even targets — for studio tentpoles. Universal rolled the dice in a huge way with “Wicked” by shooting the movie back-to-back with plans to release in two parts over two years. If the first installment had flopped at the box office last November, Universal’s job on this year’s “Wicked: For Good,” would have been near impossible.
“This is a movie that did three-quarters of a billion dollars, and so that allows us to say, ‘Great, we’re set up for the next one,” Caines said. “Imagine if ‘Wicked’ didn’t work.”
Morrison pointed to a similar experience at Disney with 2024’s “Moana 2.” The sequel had been slated for a streaming release. But the success of the 2016 orginal film on Disney+ made studio brass release that “Moana 2” would be a draw in theaters.
“We’ve been very open about ‘Moana’ working really well on our streaming service and being the first movie to have a billion streams,” Morrison said. Once “Moana 2” was released last November, “we saw another massive surge of success with what was happening on the service with ‘Moana’ and all ‘Moana’- related content. And a similar thing happened with ‘Inside out’ and the [‘Planet of the Apes’] movies and the ‘Aliens’ movies on Hulu. So everybody benefits whenever there is a level of success. And having Disney+ and Hulu within our family, means that we can all capitalize on that in a great way.”
Kearey observed that the quality of films and the talent of the filmmakers often push marketers to do their best work as well.
“We’re lucky to be working in a in an artistic medium,” she said. “It’s incredibly inspiring to be able to work in an industry like this. So the focus is always — how can we present something in the most interesting and captivating way? And that is just an incredible challenge that if you’re a marketer. It just drives you from the minute you wake up to the minute you go to bed.”
JP Richards, president of worldwide marketing for Lionsgate Motion Picture Group, reflected on how the responsibility of marketers to help maintain franchises such as Keanu Reeves’ John Wick actioners has grown as digital platforms have proliferated. “Ballerina,” a spinoff movie starring Ana de Armas, is set to debut in June, which provides another wave of opportunity to generate campaigns, social video and content for John Wick fans.
Just five years ago, “our social strategy around fans would exist only around the marketing of the movie itself. But now it’s 24/7. It’s always on,” Richard said. “It’s community management, it’s engagement. And then when you get the opportunity to expand the universe, both in television and also in in the films, it’s even better and greater. Having ‘Ballerina’ come out in six weeks is great for us. We’re very excited. We’re starting to roll out more news about ‘The Hunger Games’ with initial casting for the next movie after the launch of the book. That’s the stuff that fuels us.”
(Pictured: Variety‘s Matt Donnelly, NBCUniversal’s Jennifer Storms, Universal Pictures’ Dwight Caines, Neon’s Christian Parkes, Walt Disney Studios’ Martha Morrison, Searchlight Pictures’ Rebecca Kearey and Lionsgate’s JP Richards)
