Remember the phenomenal success of the Mandarin-language film, “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon“?
It not only set a US box office record for being the highest-grossing foreign film ever (US$128 million), but also went on to garner an unheard-of (for a foreign film) 10 Oscar nominations (including Best Director & Best Foreign Language Film) for the 2001 Academy Awards, winning 4 of them in the process.
Part of the success of the film can be attributed to a sleek and carefully-planned marketing campaign by Sony Pictures Classics, the distributor for the movie.
Although the movie had all the ingredients for success with talented stars and good action scenes that were mixed with a heart-breaking love story, and it had received very favorable reviews at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival, it was still a foreign language movie.
And Americans hate to read subtitles.
Or do they?
In addition, it was also an art-house movie, which meant that it would not normally appeal to a mainstream audience.
However, because of its success at the Cannes film festival and elsewhere, its producers knew this film stood a very good chance of crossing the art-house crowd to making it big in mainstream America.
To ensure that the movie was able to live up to its promise as much as possible, Sony Pictures knew it couldn’t rely too much on an initial wide release on over 3,000 screens simultaneously like most studios do with American blockbusters.
In addition, the marketing budget for the movie in the U.S. was a paltry 12 million dollars or so – which wouldn’t be able to help the movie too much.
Here indeed was a challenge that Sony was faced with – and its marketing campaign turned out to be a stroke of genius that relied a great deal on low-cost and no-cost marketing.
Their marketing thrust was dependent on the movie’s appeal to the various market segments.
It had fast, breathtaking, action scenes – and thus would appeal to action audiences. In addition, those action scenes were filmed in ways rarely seen by cinema audiences anywhere in the world because they were mostly accomplished in one shot without quick edits.
I have been fed on a diet of Chinese action movies from young but I have yet to see (by then) anybody spinning upwards from a standing position like the feminine Zhang Ziyi (one of the villains in 2001’s “Rush Hour 2″) did, imitating a top, spinning from the ground floor of an inn to the first floor, then landing solidly and in the same motion, swinging her sword masterfully with rogues attacking her from all sides – with her reciting poetry at the same time!
All of that in just one long shot. Action fans would certainly appreciate that scene, one of many memorable ones in the movie.
It had drama intertwined with the history of China, and thus would appeal to those looking for a good story, and historians.
It had romance that would appeal to the female gender.
Three of the five main characters were strong female characters – and thus would appeal to feminists.
It had comedy – and people looking for a good laugh would find themselves laughing along with it.
It had well-known and quality actors in the form of Chow Yuen Fatt (soon to be seen in “Pirates Of The Carribean 3“) and Michelle Yeoh (just seen in “Sunshine“) for those who were looking for more than action.
It had beautiful cinematography and screen shots of various locations in China and thus would attract those looking at the technical aspects of a film.
It had haunting music composed by world-renowed composer Tan Dun and played by cellist Yo-Yo Ma that significantly heightened the 19th-century setting of the film.
And it had Ang Lee as the Director who would appeal to those looking for deep and meaningful human interaction (Ang Lee eventually won the Best Director Oscar for “Brokeback Mountain“).
(Incidentally, go beg, buy, borrow or steal a video of Ang Lee’s comedy family [Mandarin] drama, “Eat Drink Man Woman” for a hilarious time – with a twist at the end that rivals the “Sixth Sense” in terms of impact. Read the subtitles – it’s well worth it.)
However, the wide appeal of “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” was both a blessing and a curse to its producers.
It was a blessing because its varied target market provided the movie with a potentially large audience.
It was a curse because whatever marketing budget Sony Pictures Classics had, which wasn’t much, had to be divided between marketing to the various segments of the market – which would dilute the advertising impact on each market considerably.
Nevertheless, 30-second spots ads were bought on selected TV programs to be shown to the action fan, the romance fan, the drama fan, and the history fan.
Different trailers from the movie would be shown that corresponded to the target audience they’re trying to attract.
With so many segments to appeal to, it wouldn’t take too long before the money ran out.
Sony Pictures knew from the beginning that they had to rely on one powerful tool that had been in use since humans started communicating.
And that one powerful tool, combined with timing and other concepts and strategies that complemented it, took “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” way past the previous top foreign-language film, “Life Is Beautiful“, starring Roberto Benigni (which grossed US$60 million during its run in the U.S.).
That one powerful tool is called, “Word of Mouth“.
Disappointed? Don’t be. Sony certainly weren’t, and laughed all the way to the bank.
Here indeed was a great lesson in marketing. Listen up.
You see, with a small marketing budget for a good but risky movie to promote to an English-speaking audience, Sony simply had no choice.
However, there was more to it than simple word of mouth. Things must be planned so as to facilitate that positive word of mouth from one moviegoer to another. It must be carefully nurtured so that it could take on a life of its own.
Here’s how Sony did it:
One of Sony’s tactics is to limit the distribution of the film to only a handful of cinemas to start with – to generate intense interest that would spread by word of mouth.
Helping the movie was the fact that over 95% of the U.S.’s top critics loved it despite it being a subtitled film.
This resulted in more people wanting to see it than there were screens showing it – with lines of queues stretching down the block from where the cinemas were – which in turn generated a lot of buzz of its own.
As the buzz got around, Sony increased the number of screens showing it.
It was on 20 screens, then 75 screens, then 120 screens, then 160 screens, then 200 screens, then 300 screens, then 600, then up to 1,200 screens, and then over 2,000 screens at its peak.
Note that Sony’s tactic is a complete reversal of traditional marketing tactics of releasing a traditional movie as wide as possible to make the most money from the beginning.
Thus the interest in the movie built up quickly over a short period of time that was sustained due to the scarcity of screens showing it.
People who loved it told others about it, who couldn’t get a ticket because the cinemas were sold out, which heightened the desire, which fuelled more word of mouth, which created more excited cinema patrons who couldn’t get a ticket, and so on.
This resulted in the movie staying put in the top 10 box-office chart for months - relying mainly on word of mouth!
Of course, timing had everything to do with it.
The movie was also intentionally released in the U.S. during December 2000 which led to the run-up to the Oscars in the early part of 2001. The additional free TV exposure prior to the night of the Oscars, media coverage in newspapers, magazines and a great web site also contributed to its phenomenal success.
But the operative tool was just plain old “Word of Mouth”. The media ignited the fuse, and word of mouth carried the fire along – which was a long, long way.
Word of mouth marketing is simply marketing through creating a desire on the part of your audience/visitor to freely recommend something they like about you or your site to their friends, relatives and colleagues.
But of course, Sony needed to have a quality movie to begin with. No word-of-mouth marketing campaign will succeed on an awful movie. In fact, nothing kills a movie faster than negative word of mouth!
With that in mind, as an Internet Entrepreneur, you should always incorporate some positive word-of-mouth elements within your Internet Business.
One good way to do this is to provide a quality site with valuable information to your visitors, and they’ll be more than glad to help you spread the word for you as a token of their appreciation.
Blogging is one of the simplest ways for anybody to do this. When you put down your thoughts in your blog on a theme of your choice like I do, and you do it regularly, with quality content – you’ll get loyal readers coming back again and again.
They will also tell their friends about you, or link directly to your posts.
This is “word of mouth” done on the Internet for one aspect of your online existence (your Blog posts).
Well and good.
But how about marketing to various niches at the same time just like the movie?
You can do that with the same Blog post too.
And for free.
Meaning you’ll just need to put up one Blog post – and you’ll be able to target various markets with just an extra few seconds of “work” with it.
As many different markets as you wish.
Part of the answer is staring right at you.
Can you see it? 
Sen Ze
P.S. There are other business concepts found in the above post that I’ve not drawn your attention to. Read it again and those concepts may just pop out to you.
P.P..S. You can link to this post with the following URL:
http://www.SenZe.com/business-blog/blog/overlapping-niche-marketing.htm
Technorati Tags: blogs, blogging, niche marketing, word of mouth, word of mouth marketing, viral marketing, internet marketing, internet business, Internet Entrepreneur, Cannes Film Festival, Oscars, Academy Awards, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Best Director, Best Foreign Language Film, Sony, Sony Pictures, Ang Lee, Chow Yuen Fatt, Michelle Yeoh, Zhang Ziyi, martial arts, China
