What’s Marketing Doing Here?

Is everybody familiar with what MPAA stands for and the “war” they’re fighting against file sharing websites and users because they share movies? If not, then long story short; MPAA is the Motion Picture Association of America – representing the big studios from Hollywood and they are against online file sharing websites, accusing them of encouraging the online piracy of movies.

So, what has marketing got to do with all this? Well, let’s look at the big picture; the studios produce movies, so we can say that the movies are their products. When compared to other products, movies have quite a few distinctive attributes. Among them is the copyright attribute. With other types of products, staying ahead of the competition is a tough game and it involves continuous creation of added value for the consumers, because competition can either create a better product or at least copy what you have and sell it for less. Price, as part of the decision to buy a product is used by no-name brands and store brands to sell their products. You can actually buy similar if not identical products for less money (i.e. no-name toner cartridges for laser printers sell for half of the branded toner cartridge).

However, this is not the case with the movies. You can not make another movie by hiring the same actors, using the same script and director and only changing the name a little bit. Therefore, there is no official “store brand” competition for the big studios. Once a movie is produced, they don’t have to worry about someone else copying their film and selling it for less. On the other hand, the arrival of peer-to-peer technology changed the movies market. The studios now face competition from torrent trackers and other file-sharing websites that offer a similar/identical product for free.

I believe that changes in the marketing mix for movies can help MPAA staying ahead of the “competition”.

Let’s Add Human Nature into Equation

So what was the response of MPAA? They were of course pissed off and started hunting down these websites. And theoretically they are right to do it! But although MPAA has won several victories shutting down a few major public torrent sites and won some lawsuits against others, piracy is still growing steadily with modern studies showing more and more participants. Why? It’s human nature!

It’s within human nature to resist authority and try to get things for free. I’m not saying that sharing movies is a right thing to do, but face it MPAA; you can not catch everyone and you can not fight human nature.

The Alternative

For the moment the only thing MPAA got from bullying some people around was bad public relations; no effect on reducing the piracy levels. Maybe it’s time to look at the issue from a different angle. So, Hollywood, are you listening? Instead of focusing on “competition” you should focus on your customers; make your products stand out, deliver superior value to people watching and renting the movies so they no longer want the cheaper version of the product. Re-think the way you market your products and educate your customers instead of hunting them. How? Simple! Emphasize the added value, that “something” that your products have and copied movies don’t. Here are a couple of examples:

1. Customer experience. You can not get the same visual and audio experience from enjoying a movie in a theater, with your friends, by watching the same movie in your room. Start advertising that feeling. I can even picture an ad with two teenagers talking about a movie. One of them is terrified and has his hair raised and the other one is calm. The idea is that the terrified dude watched a horror movie in the cinema and the other watched the same movie, but at home. Or another ad showcasing a family laughing and enjoying themselves just after getting out of a theater.
2. Added Value. For the DVD sales, put a small coupon or a code that you can use on the movie website and register for a contest to win something. These kind of added-value incentives will make people by the product instead of geting a pirated copy. By adding value to the product, you are fighting file-sharing.

The money needed for the proposed advertising and extra incentives can be taken from the salaries of all those fat cats lawyers hired to hunt down websites. I believe that the return over investment with this approach will be higher.