Mobile needs its own Snakes on a Plane

Whether you think the movie phenomenon Snakes On A Plane is a work of ironic genius or is a film even worse than anything with Adam Sandler in it, there’s plenty in and around the movie that got me thinking about the mobile entertainment industry.

That doesn’t mean that I think using poisonous snakes would be a great way of thinning out the ranks of no-hope mobile content companies, or a few of the larger egos that float around the industry. Granted, it would certainly liven up some of the pitch meetings I’ve been in. But what the film really does is illustrate how, when and why marketing can prepare the ground for an unknown new product – something which I think the mobile industry still hasn’t got to grips with.

I first heard about Snakes on a Plane (or SoaP, as it’s referred to online) back in May, thanks to a brilliantly vitriolic and totally-miss-the-point article in by Guardian critic Andrew Mueller. In the midst of the rant against such a lowbrow film idea, this nugget caught my eye:

The Snakes On A Plane hype, originated entirely by people with no financial stake in the film, and who know it will be atrocious, may well mark the point at which the internet age's demented love of irony has mutated into active collaboration in the cretinisation of our culture.

The Snakes on a Plane hype? This was the first I had heard of it. But luckily, the article also included links and the backstory of how a young student, Brian Finkelstein, had begun a blog dedicated to getting him invited to the premier of the movie, so great in his mind was the concept of putting some snakes on a plane. Luckily, the site was also to become a fan forum for discussing the snakes, the plane, and everything about the film in general.

It seems that after starting the blog in January, New Line cinema (who were producing the film) sat up and took notice of Brian’s efforts and began to use the huge amount of comments and feedback on the site to actually mould the movie, turning the web discussions about the film into one huge interactive focus group.

This interactive aspect is what makes Snakes On A Plane such a significant cultural moment. Previous internet crazes… have been passively consumed - someone forwards the link, you click on it, laugh, and resume pretending to work. However, something about the audacious, defiant stupidity of the Snakes On A Plane concept has tickled a creative nerve. Much of the online response has been clearly laboured over, and wryly witty, from people photographing themselves screaming at jelly snakes on planes, to the mock movie posters transposing the idea to other titles (Hamlet 2: Snakes On A Dane, is your correspondent's favourite so far), to the lovingly crafted songs. As a film, Snakes On A Plane is unlikely to inspire much more than a wish that one had brought a book. As an idea, it has turned hundreds of people into artists.

Hell, by the time the movie was finished, New Line even went back and added some extra scenes and lines just to keep this online army of fans happy. You want Samuel L Jackson to say m*therf*cker for no real reason? You got it.

Someone even came up with a term for this kind of fan-based evangelism – Citizen Marketers. Suddenly, the hype-bandwagon had shifted away from traditional media, and moved to this new online army of movie activists. Who needs marketing when you can blog?

Except that this is traditional marketing:  it’s just making better use of the new media tools available than perhaps we are used to. New Line have taken a poor product and, by cleverly talking directly to the movie-goers themselves, have bypassed the traditional gatekeepers of what’s hot and what’s not. Maybe Brian Finkelstein did start his blog as a way of getting to that premier, but you can guarantee that soon afterwards it was a tightly controlled plank of New Line’s multi-million dollar marketing campaign.

And judging by the blanket media coverage repeating the fairytale story of how Brian and his blog changed Hollywood, critics and punters have swallowed the story hook, line and sinker.

So what the hell has this got to do with mobile? Simple really. Snakes on a Plane is a brilliant example of how creativity and a real understanding of the consumer can be worth more than a media spend of millions. Mobile is a world of moving goal posts and miniscule budgets, and this movie shows how you can have a hit with a mediocre movie as long as you hit the marketing and PR bullseye. And mobile is itself a delivery platform of immense potential – every mobile owner represents a blank canvas waiting to be diverted and entertained with the right product.

But with Snakes on a Plane, New Line cinema has had the best part of a year to plan and deliver its ‘collaborative’ marketing strategy. With ten movies scheduled for release in 2006 – probably half of which will get a full-on marketing campaign – New Line’s marketers have time to craft their campaign to culminate in a single worldwide launch date. Meanwhile, over in the mobile world, companies are still locked in a cycle of monthly releases and updates as they try and stay on the crest of the revenue wave. Forget a year – in mobile, a month can be a luxury when planning a product release. And right there is the problem.

With release dates that often rely on the changing mood and goodwill of mobile operators marketing any kind of mobile product is far more miss than hit, giving no time at all to create hype and nurture demand for whatever it is being launched. Operator decks are changed weekly, giving consumers no chance to get comfortable with browsing and downloading. Mobile seems to be an industry full of masochists, forever talking about tomorrow’s launch when they should be worrying about today.

Companies that are brave can take a deep breath and buck this trend. Moving to a model of fewer, better products and consolidated launch windows will give marketing teams time to engage consumers and actually create demand and interest that will result in better sales. Product teams will finally have time to use focus groups and market research and all those other tools of the trade that seem conspicuous by their absence in mobile.

After all, as Snakes on a Plane shows, if you ask the public what they want, they’ll usually m*therf*ckin’ tell you.

Comments

[Ben Carter]

How do I subscribe to this blog?

I can't use RDF, haven't got firefox :(

Cheers
B