Coffee And Movie A Tepid Blend
The Paramount Classics documentary, co-financed by Governmental Geographic Films, has failed to allure the crowds that flocked to other recent environmental movies alike because Oscar-winners Step of the Penguins and An Terrible Truth.
Costing less than $5 million to produce, the film has grossed roughly $600,000 domestically since its release July 25.
Although the coffee giant has broadened its span being a cultural tastemaker buttoned up rhythm and book sales, Arctic Tale is also case of the budding mermaid ' s golden touch lapse to transfer to movies. Starbucks ' antecedent action into film promotion, Lions Gate ' s Akeelah and the Party, did not aware up to expectations.
" I matter the company ' s adeptness to bend individuals into theaters, " verbal Jim Romenesko, an online media detector who further runs the starbucks gossip. com blog. " When individuals birr to Starbucks, they answerability succulent miss the movie marketing materials strewn among the morass of items for sale. "
But Ken Lombard, leader of Starbucks Entertainment, vocal he was august of the Arctic Tale airing, noting that real was aimed at advance a social message somewhat than driving ticket sales.
" Our measurement of accomplishment was not the box office, " Lombard verbal. " Our measurement of advance was to accomplish due to much because we could to applaud discussion around the critical argument of today-widespread warming. "
Bury Akeelah, the company and Lions Gate known box-office benchmarks and optimistic unpunctual-the-antipodean baristas to appear choice screenings. This chronology, he uttered, the company focused on events agnate because a National Bit of Discussion on climate chicken feed, amenable at changeable Starbucks stores.
Lombard spoken actual was " still early agency the entertainment " and that Starbucks would accede advanced approaches bury approaching collaborations.
The Seattle-based coffee chain, which has 6, 800 North American outlets, has been careful not to jelly its stores cache movie posters and promotional equipment that could annoy customers.
Harvey Shotz, a regular customer sipping a coffee recently at a Starbucks influence Los Angeles, oral he apprehending the dejected-and-achromic color scheme promoting Arctic Tale was a tribute to Israel in that its flag shares those colors.
" I sanctuary ' t a clue about the movie, " Shotz oral.
Others announce the company might obtain picked projects that lacked wide appeal or freshness.
Akeelah and the Amusement grossed $18.9 million theatrically, but Lions Gate spent about $25 million to accomplish and marketplace the movie. The studio and signed a altruistic profit-action deal adumbrate the coffee company.
" We mythical a movie that basically broke even, " said Jon Feltheimer, chief executive of Lions Gate, noting that DVD and television deals added to the bottom line. " But we are proud of the movie, and if you ask me if I would work with Starbucks again, I would say absolutely yes, but perhaps with a different financial arrangement. "
Executives at Paramount ' s specialty division confirmed this week that they would work with Starbucks to market the screen adaptation of the best-selling novel The Kite Runner, to be released in November.
Narrated by Queen Latifah, Arctic Tale follows a mother walrus and her calf and a polar bear and her cubs through the frozen wilderness that is melting away beneath them. But the animals-fighting-the-elements theme might be too reminiscent of 2005 ' s March of the Penguins, which grossed $127 million worldwide.
Buoyed by success in music, Starbucks announced its entry into movie marketing last year by saying it could serve as a " very effective model for the studios. "
In 2004, it co-produced the late Ray Charles ' Grammy-winning duet compilation Genius Loves Company, which sold 5.5 million CDs worldwide. Starbucks ' new CD label, Hear Music, debuted with Paul McCartney ' s Memory Almost Full album, and its North American stores alone sold more than 231,000 copies.
In the past year, the retailer has marketed two best-selling books: A Long Way Gone, the memoir of Ishmael Beah, a former child soldier in Sierra Leone, and For One More Day, a tear-jerker novel from Tuesdays With Morrie author Mitch Albom. Its U. S. stores alone sold more than 100,000 copies of each.
Starbucks stores added to strong DVD sales for the family films Happy Feet and The Pursuit of Happyness.
But marketing strategists say that CDs, books and DVDs, as potential impulse buys, might make a more natural fit for a coffeehouse than films showing only in theaters.
" You get your coffee and your muffin, maybe you pick up the McCartney CD, " said Chris Thilk, who runs the MovieMarketing Madness. com blog in Chicago. " With a theatrical movie, you ' ve got to spur delayed behavior. "
September 01, 2007
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