NonDē Distribution Tactics: The Virtual Event / IRL Flywheel
Or… Re-targeting your supporters to broaden your audience (Pt 16 of the HFF INVISIBLE NATION distribution case study)
I took a little pause but I’ve been sharing the various NonDē distribution tactics we’ve embraced for INVISIBLE NATION and that have carried us through three years of distribution and into a successful release without relying on the Global Streaming Platforms at all. I think it is a pretty big deal. We could not have predicted how successful it has turned out to be. The real win though is that I do believe it is replicable to some degree for many films. Today we continue with that discussion. And it should continue forward long after too.
You know how we live in the Era Of Surveillance Capitalism now and how you start to get served up ads for whatever subject your phone has listened to you speak about? Or how when you go to one website, they have the ads for the other website you had just been on? When I look at the NYTimes online, it shows me what sort of things other people on our system have recently looked at. All of that is called “ReTargeting” and there is a less creepy version of it that a cinema-maker can use to broaden her audience and grow their fanbase and community.
New opportunities develop when we embrace the tactics of slow and dynamic distribution for our films. When you are planning a long run, you have room to contemplate your options. You can gather information and feedback and adapt. As opportunities develop you can hit pause no matter what it is you doing, and chase after them. You can work at developing a proof of principle before you begin another stage. You can do multiple stages simultaneously, toggling and throttling as you see fit. Long is super flexy.
As with any enterprise, you can often apply learnings you gather in one area to other realms. One of the real benefits of staying flexyflexy as you start is to be able to lean into the behaviors of a diverse set of people. Perhaps the most immediate differential in cinema lovers are those that show up versus those that like to just sit back. This dichotomy is why theatrical rarely will cannibalize streaming -- they are different audiences. The challenge though is one of expectations and wallets. Even some of the show up types will wait if they think a cheaper version is around the corner and they are already overwhelmed with leisure time options. The Slow Distro approach diminishes this as those that engage in this practice push the low-cost easy access option towards the three-year mark. But that doesn’t mean that the Sit Backs have to wait that long. You just have to encourage them to act.
Back in the old ‘n golden days when we still ‘Set Up” films instead of just “dropping” them, our marketing advisors recommended we plan on needing to hit each potential customer with at least twelve impressions if we wanted to convert them to actual audience member. The NonDē Cinema-Makers recognize that if the corporate players plan to flood the zone with their practice of saturation marketing drops, we NonDēs are going to have to take the opposite approach. The long slow road returns to that era of multiple impressions. If we are planning a three-year excursion, we have the time needed to hit up each potential twelve or more times. EZPZ.
Before I get into the real benefit we gain from the aforementioned ReTargeting Flywheel Effect, I want us to ponder some of the behavioral tuning and modification that is inherent in all ecosystem engagement. As we have entered the second decade of Global Streaming Domination, we need to recognize that although they have altered both human consciousness and behavior, it need not be either permanent nor singular, but yes, it is still very much dominant. Netflix and Amazon have tuned the cinema-curious to suspect that whatever they desire will eventually be added to the abundant free lunchtime buffet in the immediate to near future.
Consequently we of the other order just have to remind everyone, albeit loudly and repeatedly, that what we’ve got cookin’ won’t ever be part of that offering any time soon. This will not be served… at least not there, on that hodge podge buffet that THEY want you continually to be snacking on.
Three years, baby. That’s how long they are going to have to wait. State it. And do not compromise.
Okay, that may not be really true. So why did I just say it?
Well… when you say “streaming:, people think it will always be there. They will get to it when they get to it. There is no expiration date. And thus there is no urgency to get it, eat it, and tell other folks about it. Fortunately for all of us, there is also another kind of streaming. Still virtual. Still clickable. Still easy. Still the sort of thing all the Sit Backs can dig and groove with. But people don’t think of it. They have yet to be tuned to this frequency.
I got very excited when I recognized the inherent power in the Virtual Event. In some ways, we see it now most often applied in the Awards Race where organizing entities pull together star-studded panels. Unfortunately such panels are generally untethered from the film event itself, and thus IMO diminish significantly in value. Relinking these two events unlocks the three most powerful utilities inherent to cinema itself, and then facilitates one of the best business tactics of our current era… but we have to prepare for it. And we don’t.
I’m going to tell you about that business tactic, but… before that I am going to make sure you recognize those three powerful utilities of cinema. But first I want you also to take another digression with me for when I contemplate these elements together, I see another inevitability, or rather series of inevitabilities. We all need to see these for they really define the path of our shared futures.
Yeah, it is a lot. But I know you can handle it. And will. Why? Because you want your film to work. And it can. Ours did. And we what we learned is replicable and repeatable, over and over and over again.
It once was all one cinema, just like you could say it was all one culture. Maybe it was a bit like those Russian dolls, with one nestled into the other, one after another, but Indie was a lot like Hollywood, Arthouse was like the Chophouse, Exploitation resembled Activist. They all played in theaters and went to Pay1, be it cable, streaming, or broadcast. They hit Home Ent one way or the other but always in the same stop in the chain. The days are now over.
At first blush it seems like the demarcation comes in the form of capital. Those that have it are generally in the corporate pocket and get rewarded for aligning with the TechBroCo’s agendas. But this is just a temporary stop in the station. And it is going to start changing fast. We are in the midst of Disintermediation Of All The Culture Industries. Cinema is going to be the last to fall, or really RISE. Due to the expense of manufacturing mainstream products, artists and entrepreneurs have had to rely on the corporate cash flow for execution. In other industries the evolution has been more rapid and more conducive for the change because their products were less expensive to make. Or consume..
