Considered one of the most powerful industries today, the entertainment industry has begun to demonstrate its potential with generational changes, economic, social and technological course.
It’s hard to think of an entertainment product without a short-term profit, think about the return of investment that creates instant fame, think of the satisfaction of the audience at the expense of marketing strategies and especially the question that seems to fall outside of this game.
Ethics?, Business?, Does it just marketing strategies?.
Far from following ethical paradigms and human values, the entertainment industry seeks to exploit the needs of the audience given a place in the scale of needs of Maslow. Therefore, the struggle of disposable income by the time the consumer is becoming more aggressive in the industry analysis proposed by Porter, competitors seem to become stronger substitutes due to the variety of sectors that comprise it.
Competition for growing consumer interest reaches higher levels and that is when traditional marketing channels ATL are considered saturated and nontraditional media characterized by creativity, but leave aside the economic effectiveness. As always, the need to create it so that when it seemed that there were new opportunities to spread the message, new media come to the surface, but the message should be more consistent than ever.
According to Lieberman (2007, p27) “The entertainment industry is in second place in most U.S. exports and generates nearly 500 billion dollars globally.” Seconded by Jack Valentia data, chairman of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), is the only U.S. industry that owns surplus and deficit, therefore the content distribution channels are growing stronger despite the restrictions and conflict that exists between producers, distributors and exhibitors given the global economic interests that lie behind each product.
Given the conditions of competition within the film industry, which has increased dramatically since the beginning of 2001, are released each week for four to five films vying for first place, yet the audience is unforgivable when choosing your choice. There are films that are first choice and the other run in the top ten with very little choice but to eventually become the first place.
The marketing of entertainment
There are considerations for marketing to differentiate from other types of entertainment marketing, placing the most important considerations, according to Albert Lieberman:
• Since speed is consumed, no time to do an extensive market test.
• The audience reaction is subjective in relation to the impact on box office results.
• Although there are tools to predict consumer habits based on trends, references in social networks, economic indicators and exploratory research, there is a tool that ensures the success or failure, rather than engage the audience based on the message posted on the advertising.
• With film, every move that indicates a possible failure, it must immediately strike back as the regular life cycle is 3 to 4 weeks effective for exhibition.
• While the marketing of entertainment genre shares the right search with traditional marketing, the production of entertainment content is based on creation, which is why we have the possibility of human failure. Launching a product to market, it is often a balance between creativity and chance.
• It centralizes in selling an experience rather than a product. So you can be the income, the audience must first live the experience to become a blockbuster.
• Like fashion, entertainment and trends based on the industry as the seasons are stable but not the models presented, so to make assumptions about genres that have proven successful in hopes of repeating that success is unlikely and risky.
• Technology plays an important factor in the category of content distribution.
• New generations have shown they have the power to define success and failure of new film products, as well as once thought forgotten genres, such as musical and terror.
As mentioned above, it is necessary to consider each of these factors impact on every entertainment product. Above and beyond all this, is the biggest challenge facing every pitch and every promotion: competition with all other types of entertainment.
Fantastic Four: the four C’s of entertainment
Now, to define an analysis of entertainment product should be taken into account that a product of entertainment:
“Has some attributes in common with other products and services in other industries, particularly in terms of brands. Licensing, merchandising, sponsorship, all, all these activities occur in other industries. However, entertainment has some distinctive properties that affect the use and distribution of a brand “(Lieberman, 2007).
Given this parameter, it states that there are four rules that define the structure that defines the entertainment industry: content, channel, consumption, and convergence.
1 .- Content
It is the soul of the entertainment product that truly define a formula that could result in success or failure. Although the original content is thinking of a specific target (Latino community, adolescents, children, etc.) does not mean that the target will accept it. The content must create a connection that translates into an experience through the development of a creative idea that results in an experience, the talent to create, develop and operate an idea, the support and use of technology to help complete production and perish ability of the product.
If the content is not original, it is common to come from: a license that must be regionalized or a remake that should be adapted to a new generation. Often, the first shows reality lives that seek to be adapted to new markets, for example for Latin American Idol television industry, and the second seeks to be adapted to new targets, as might be the remake of “Fame” in the industry filmmaking. But, again, the brand will mean little if the content is not adapted to the experience for the audience.
2 .- Channel
Refers to the distribution of entertainment product, and given the diversity of technology that surrounds the target, there are two elements that are part of the delivery process: where and how. For example, the digital transmission of a TV show like “CSI” 5 via the website of the CBS6, the channel is CBS while the “CSI” is the consumable.
The 2010 consumers have at their disposal a vast array of choices and mean by which to access content, with the band ancha7 the main transmitter of the signal, after television and film. Likewise, satellite, cable, DVR and video on demand continue to grow by leaps and bounds seeking insight into Latin American markets.
3 .- Consumption
The finished product as such, at this stage comes the process of marketing and advertising content viewed from a different perspective to the distribution (channel). Experts in the two areas mentioned above managed to breathe life into licensing and merchandising models if the content allows. Consumption can range from buying a ticket to see “Iron Man 2″ to the acquisition of a magazine with Robert Downey Jr. on the cover or an action figure obtained in the Happy Meal from Mc Donald. That is, consumption involves the action to exploit all tangible and intangible characteristics of the product. However, strategies to consume the content must be moderated to avoid falling into saturation.
4 .- Convergence
It is the point where the content and consumption converge in a digital format. Complementing the channel, the convergence not only seeks to distribute content via online or through mobile platforms, but is intended to distribute content to be consumed through the formats mentioned above. A clear example of this is iTunes or downloading services for mobile content of a specific entertainment product.
Clearly we live in a time of attempted solutions. The crisis is omnipresent and seemingly omnipotent. Everyone tries to put an end to highly problematic situations, some successful, others less so, and some seem to possess special skills continuously threshing failure paths.
