Studios Only Now Starting to Realize That Starless Marketing Impacts Grosses

Here’s an excerpt from a THR piece, titled Starless Publicity Campaigns Start to Impact Grosses, that has had the industry buzzing these last 24 hours:

A top marketing executive at another studio notes that no amount of paid advertising can make up for the kind of awareness a star can ignite if a personal social media post, interview or other promotional bit, goes viral. “Not having stars to do publicity for your movies is a huge detriment to the overall campaign,” says the exec. “You lose the cultural impact of having talent talk about the film. Some movies wouldn’t have worked anyway, but they had more of a shot.”

“The inability of stars to actively participate in the promotion of their films has definitely set the industry on edge,” says box office analyst Paul Dergarabedian of Comscore. “While the box office impact is difficult to quantify with mathematical certainty, there is no question that this time-honored tradition has value

Well, no sh*t. That’s the reason why SAG is refusing to have its actors do any kind of promotion for its movies, they want studios to start bleeding money.

You’re starting to see it with recent releases, like “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem,” not making as much as they should be. The THR report states that TMNT grossed 15% less than it should have due to its lack of promotion.

A month ago, I predicted the studios would compromise with the actors union in November and I stand by that assertion. This can’t really go on for many more months. November, tops!