The point screening is over-standard, the roadshow is overspeeding, is the summer movie announcement "chaotic" or "roll"? 

Author|Weinika

Editor|Li Chunhui

Unexpectedly, the summer file entered the second half, and the intensity of the fight was no less intense than the first half.

I thought that "Hot" and "Megalodon 2" were not as expected, and "Feng Shen" would dominate August, and come to protect 25 and 30. As a result, he hit a "All or Nothing" halfway and caught all the movies off guard.

"All or Nothing" was officially released for three days, and the box office has exceeded 1 billion. With this soaring growth momentum, it is only a matter of time before "Disappearing Her" wins the summer box office championship.

But while "All or Nothing" has been successful in the market, it has also caused a lot of controversy. Even if it puts aside whether its content is curious in the name of anti-fraud, its publicity strategy of "proposing" in the name of screening has attracted a lot of pointers - the reason why the film can break 1 billion box office so quickly is because it has more than 500 million points alone. And its point screening because of fewer restrictions, the proportion of films is more than 15%, which is about equivalent to the promotion.

One school of view believes that this kind of "stealing" nature of the screening is undermining the market order and "seizing" market share by means of dark and stagnant positions. Another group believes that "point screening" is one of the common means of publicity, and now there is a trend of increasing scale.

In this way, the "dot screening strategy" was discussed by the melon-eating masses on Weibo for the first time. Hard Candy Jun also found that the masses are more and more deeply involved in the publicity strategy of summer movies, and one by one going deep into the upstream of the industry is like buying stocks, it can be said that everyone has played the film and television project cultivation game that can be named "Big Entertainer".

For example, on the other side, there are audiences who are anxious about the publicity strategy of "Fengshen ", and have been criticizing the "road show" for being ineffective. But "Fengshen " has always insisted on the roadshow "long-distance running", which lasted for almost a month, and actually changed the attitude of many audiences, and the "roadshow strategy" of "Fengshen " has changed from being questioned to being recognized - if you ignore some small storms that sell corruption or not.

Don't think that the melon-eating masses are laymen to see the excitement, this summer's publicity strategy of "stealing away" and roadshow "long-distance running" has also refreshed the cognition of many insiders. It is generally believed in the circle that "In the Octagon Cage" and "Desperate Bet" redefined "point screening", while "Fengshen " redefined "road show".

Fairness or efficiency? Who found the New World with the old map? This year's summer movie announcement, is it "chaos" or "volume"?

Is "upgrading" screening a compliance competition?

There is a "point screening" master behind the scenes of "All or Nothing" - director Ning Hao.

Although director Zhang Yimou tried the "point screening" method commonly used in Hollywood movies for the first time when "Heroes" was released in 2002. But at that time, the "point screening" was not for publicity at all, but for the film to have the qualification to impact the Oscar. And the scale is almost negligible, only a week-long screening in Shenzhen.

It was director Ning Hao who really made the reputation of "Dian Ying" a hit in the mainland film market. In the 2014 National Day file, "Heart Flower Road" verified the magic of "point screening" for the first time. Because it released word of mouth to the general audience in advance, it produced a strong box office effect in the follow-up. The film eventually won 1.16 billion at the box office, becoming the domestic film box office champion that year. But the large-scale screening at that time was only on the day of September 27, accounting for 15% of the films, and the screening period was 15-19 o'clock.

In the summer of 2018, "I Am Not the God of Medicine", this new director Wen Muye supported by Ning Hao, once again made the "point screening" strategy famous. Through three rounds of "point screening", the film gradually expanded its scale and gradually spread its reputation. Dian Ying helped "Medicine God" find a real publicity breakthrough, which eventually drove 3.1 billion box office. But at that time, the largest scale of "I Am Not the God of Medicine" was less than 10%, and the longest period was only 14-17 o'clock.

This summer, almost every movie is being screened. For example, "Chang'an 30,000 Li" screened 15-19 o'clock on July 2, and "Fengsheng" screened a special field dominated by IMAX and giant screen halls. It can be seen that each film is operated on point under "limited" conditions.

It was "In the Octagon Cage" that broke the "limited rules" for the first time and officially created the "file-up" point screening method. From 18:00 on June 29 to 23:59 on July 5, the national theater line will conduct all-weather "point screening". Seeing that the "file-type" screening of "In the Octagon Cage" achieved a box office of 2.1 billion, Ning Hao, the originator of playing "point screening", of course, could not sit still.

Ning Hao came with another new director he supported, the work "All or Nothing". The distributor of the film, Shangshi Culture, is also a company in which Ning Hao has a stake, in fact, it is also related to the Beijing culture that was released by "I Am Not the God of Medicine". Zhang Yongping, the owner of Beijing Yutuo Xingchen, the major shareholder of Shangshi, partnered with Beijing Culture to form Intuo Xinghan Network Technology Company. And the ticket god ticketing platform made by Yingtuo Xinghan was once the business that Beiwen hoped to compete with Maoyan.

In order not to be as controversial as "In the Octagon", "All or Nothing" converged a little. Choose a week in advance, from August 5, every day from 14-21 o'clock for national screenings, which is equivalent to just excluding morning and night performances. But everyone knows that these performances themselves are not sold, and it does not matter if they are counted in.

However, this kind of "opportunism" still attracted criticism, and "All or Nothing" was simply promoted to be released on August 8.

Roadshow from ineffective to effective?

During the cold season from March to May this year, Hard Candy Jun observed the "road show" situation. At that time, Jackie Chan ran the "Dragon Horse Spirit" roadshow and Feng Xiaogang ran the "Loyal Dog Bagong" roadshow frequently created hot search topics, but they did not play any role in the box office.

Going back to the present, every movie in the summer has a road show. Wu Jing just finished the roadshow of "Megalodon 2" alone, but there was no splash. Even the box-office hit "All or Nothing" roadshow actually failed to create any traffic topics.

The source of the rise of marketing data of "All or Nothing" - short videos, popular roadshow videos are all guided speech stories, one is the story of real fraud victims, and the other is the story of the creator of overseas IP threats. This has little to do with the publicity form of roadshows themselves, mainly because the form of "storytelling" is conducive to the spread of short videos.

The roadshow of "Feng Shen" is very controversial. Initially, tap fans of "Fengshen " were anxious for the "low opening" box office, attacking the roadshow as an ineffective publicity model. But as the "Fengsheng" roadshow advanced in the fourth stage, after "long-distance running" for nearly a month, many audiences began to recognize such a publicity model.

"Fengsheng" has a total of 24 cities, just like this movie publicizing the 24 solar terms poster, Wuershan really loves solar terms. The route of the roadshow is from the southeast, passing through the central cities, all the way north, and the last stop is Hohhot, Wuershan's hometown.

Some people think that the leading actors of "Feng Shen" can "accompany the run" for such a long time on the roadshow, thanks to the fact that they are all newcomers, and the only "old man" Fei Xiang has announced his withdrawal from the circle, has not appeared for a long time, and the cooperation is also very high. If it is a traffic actor, it is unlikely that you will run for a month.

In fact, in the industry's view, roadshows are a cost-effective publicity model: the cost of the movie theater is very low, but it can produce a lot of communication materials. In addition, the roadshow can also effectively increase the enthusiasm of the audience in the local city of the roadshow, increase the regional discussion heat of the film, and thus drive a certain box office.

Roadshows also help in the word of mouth of the movie. Because of the relationship of interacting with stars, roadshow audiences are more likely to be "brainwashed" and add some sentiment to the film, so that they can "word of mouth" pull some audience in the circle of friends.

But with more and more roadshow movies, especially in those provincial capital cities, these cities are no longer surprising for star roadshows, the "freshness" of roadshows is gone, and many audiences are not so easy to be "brainwashed", unlike in the past, which can effectively drive the local box office.

How to point and how to road, so that it is compliant and reasonable?

The reason why the "sneaking" point screening has provoked criticism is mainly because it gives competitors in the same period a sense of "sneak attack". Originally, everyone had divided the schedule, or did not consume each other, or was positive and rigid. You have to raise files to squeeze out other people's living space, either both lose, or one side wins, and you also lose a reputation that hurts others and does not benefit yourself.

In addition, it also exploited a lot of loopholes in publicity: first of all, in the name of "point screening" can win more theater schedules, because "point screening" movies are originally differentiated products for competition between theaters. For theaters, if you don't line up, and others do, you will suffer.

Secondly, the film side can blow the record-breaking box office record as a publicity gimmick. But in fact, compared with the past on-demand films, it is not a scale and standard at all, and there is no comparison at all.

Moreover, the setting of the scoring system of each platform is that the score will not be opened before the screening, and the film party does not have to spend money to control the score and lock the score under the large-scale screening, and it is easier for the audience to blindly follow the trend and enter the theater.

In short, the reason why Dian Ying is called Dian Ying is because it has certain qualifications, and it cannot be opportunistic to make it a stealing method of file promotion. The market still needs to limit the scope and time of screening, so that "screening" can return to a true definition.

Of course, the reason why "In the Octagon Cage" and "Desperate" dare to "steal away" is that they have confidence in their own reputation. Second, both of them exploded on the short video platform in advance, and it is reasonable for the film side to want to harvest the audience in advance and convert traffic data into the box office as soon as possible. Not all films are eligible to "steal away".

Similarly, the "long-distance running" roadshow does not apply to all films. The roadshow of "Fengsheng" is more effective in the later stage because it is a long-term word-of-mouth film. Long-term word-of-mouth films are not a blockbuster type, and its word-of-mouth fermentation is relatively slow. Oriental fantasy genres like "Fengsheng", because there have been too many bad films of the same type before, have been snubbed by the market for a long time, and need to go through a process to reverse the deep-rooted "bad impression" of the public.

The "Fengsheng" roadshow reflects this process from the beginning of the dissatisfaction to the difficulty of finding a vote in the later stage. The interaction between the roadshow and the audience in the later stage of "Fengshen " became better and better, and the audience was also teaching Fengshen the main creator how to produce more effective materials on the spot. For example, let Yu Shi and Chen Muchi increase interaction to capture CP fans, let Fei Xiang and Na Ran show "Hakimi"-style interaction, let the main creator say "business Yin language" and so on.

In contrast, the roadshow of traffic actors is more likely to evolve into a meeting for scalpers to harvest fans at a high price. The materials produced by the roadshow have a limited communication effect on the audience outside the circle. Moreover, ordinary audiences and traffic actors ask questions and exchanges, which is easy to produce scenes of chickens and ducks talking, creating one famous scene after another of "desperate illiteracy" and "empty heads", and it is difficult to produce effective materials.

Wang Yibo said in his "Warm" roadshow that it was too difficult to give up, and Dapeng immediately interrupted him, explaining that he gave up because of injury. Many times, traffic actors speak on the spot, and it is difficult for directors to find it to make up for it. The approach of "All or Nothing" is more clever, and during the entire publicity process, Zhang Yixing was "invisible" in a flow, and the acting school Wang Chuanjun was pushed to the forefront.

The choice of city for the roadshow is also crucial. The value of third- and fourth-tier cities with few roadshows has yet to be tapped, and perhaps there is more opportunity to drive the sinking market. In general, whether the roadshow is ultimately effective depends on the content and strategy of the film itself. "In the Octagon Cage" and "Desperate Bet" point screening "Steal Run" and "Feng Shen" roadshow "long-distance running", which are not suitable for all films to follow.