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MARKETING OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES
New Digital Advertising,
Media and Distribution Opportunities
The Film Industry now getting their online marketing act together. Superstitials,
Interstitials, extramercials and all forms of interactivity. These get
their online audience to interact with their brand through a game, a
trivia quiz, interactive poll, sweepstake or contest. They can then
track these sales or conversions on the back-end.
 Interstitial Pop-Up, Quiz and an Ad as Film Company's Affiliate website page. |
When the utilizing brand surveys, the Film company can even capture relevant marketing data from specific audiences. It can build sustainable awareness for a product with sweepstakes or contests. Tracking offline sales and conversions with online coupons can now be easily done.
And, as we have said, technology advancements in Media Players are enabling new promotion and distribution opportunities for the film industry including online.
Growing Options for Viewing
Films
The PC as an entertainment hub is fast becoming a reality with increased
processing power combined with a fast broadband connection, connectivity
to a variety of displays, and increases in the compression/decompression
of high-end audio and video.
These new capabilities open
up an opportunity and a challenge to film distributors: how to target
this new digital entertainment gateway with digital movies and video
but not lose control of the content in the process. Already today some
estimates say there are as many as 500,000 digital movies being exchanged
illegally over the web. How can technology help to bridge the gap between
what consumers want (find, acquire, playback and share movies online)
and what the film industry wants (secure content, business models that
work, a great consumer experience)?
So,
In order to take advantage of these new opportunities the film industry
will have to seize the ability to secure these valuable assets, deliver
them to customers and ensure a high quality playback experience on par
with other playback options such as watching a DVD in a home theater
or a pay-per-view movie on cable.
Media
Players
Technology such as Windows
Media 9 Series is being developed to meet those requirements and open
up new distribution options.
Internet Distribution - Streaming
 Windows 9 Media Player and streaming CinemaNow. |
Drop Ship
Drop ship Video and DVD's
and rentals are now delivered from online sites like Netflix.
 Subscription based Netflix movie rental, Free Drop Ship service forward and back. |
Downloads
CinemaNow, an online
movie rental company, is testing new waters by launching a service that
lets people buy permanent downloads of Hollywood films for a PC.
As part of a Web site overhaul,
the company added on Thursday several features to its digital movie
service for PCs.
It introduced a download-to-own feature, or what's called "digital
sell-through," which lets people buy and download a permanent
copy of a film for unlimited playback.
"Allowing users to download and own DVD-quality versions of video content is the next great frontier in digital promotion and distribution," CinemaNow CEO Curt Marvis said in a statement.
Customers can also choose to subscribe to a monthly service or watch movies on a pay-per-view basis.
The challenge. CinemaNow and rival Movielink, a Hollywood-backed venture, face hurdles when it comes to drawing customers. One is that people are accustomed to watching feature films on a big screen--not on a PC display. Broadband adoption and advances in technology have improved prospects for the online movie business, but it is still at a disadvantage.
 Real One Player and Movielink. |