Leakage Crisis or Marketing Ploy?

by Carlos Menezes

A couple of weeks ago I alluded to how movie studios and networks are using online channels to stimulate and better target pockets of demand. Now comes news that at least 6 pilots aimed for a US autumn release have been leaked online. Or have they? There's currently a popular opinion that these “leaks” are actually carefully calculated marketing ploys orchestrated by the networks themselves, and I must admit that when you look at it a lot of evidence points in this direction.

To start off take into account that a high proportion of the leaked content is made up of pilot episodes. The leaking of episodes of ongoing series is nowhere near as frequent. Although this may be as a result of the fact that there’s a lot more buzz surrounding a new series, it’s worth bearing in mind the addictive nature of series often results in viewers craving the next episode of an existing show more than the first glimpse of a new program.

Interestingly a large part of the big budget titles that have found their way onto viewers’ screens target the same young people that are likely to be the ones to download leaked pilots in the first place. The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Bionic Woman, Pushing Up Daisies, Chuck and Cavemen all have some sci-fi / supernatural angle that, for the most part, crosses over with the tech-friendly market.

Getting content out on the Net must be a wonderful way of doing market research. A market savvy network could easily use Online Reputation Management to gauge consumer reaction to a product that hasn’t even been released yet. I often wonder if in 1997 The WB Television Network ever imagined the success that Buffy the Vampire Slayer would become. The show lasted for five seasons, spawned Angel, a five-season spin-off, and went on to list among TV Guide’s 50 Greatest Shows of All Time. Who could have seen it coming from the television adaptation of a slapstick parody starring Kristy Swanson, Luke Perry and David Arquette?

Well, the distributing network should have for starters. The initial positioning of the show as a continuation of its comedy parent feels very disjointed when compared with the story that would become soul-nourishment for the pain-centred youth of America.

Very often the first season of a series comes out in two batches of episodes. A mid-season break follows the first batch before the second set is released. The logic behind this seems to be to use the first batch of episodes as a testing ground for the entire series. If viewer reaction is mostly negative then the series is pulled before any more time and money are spent on more episodes.

Unfortunately this typically results in some negative consequences. If the series proves to be highly unpopular the network and all involved end up with egg on their faces. If the series is somewhat popular but unprofitable the network faces incurring the wrath of those who were taken with the program. Even in the best-case scenario of a show being extremely popular the mid-season break often results in a loss of momentum that sees ratings fall towards the end of a season (as was the case with NBC's Heroes).

An online leak to an audience largely made up of the typical target market could easily avoid the above dilemma. Either the product’s weakness will become evident early on and the show will be cancelled before any significant damage is done, or else the network and advertisers can pour all of their efforts into the project confident of the probability of success.

Aside from acting as a case-study for simulated ORM this seemingly inadvertent exposure can generate a massive amount of buzz among opinion leaders. Instead of screening a pilot to a few aristocratic critics in the hopes that their flaunted, egocentrical opinions will favour and promote the show a network can leverage the much more easily pliable (and infinitely more valuable) views of the target market's own opinion leaders.

Maybe I’m wrong and the whole thing is in fact just a big conspiracy theory, but nevertheless the tactic is one worth thinking about…

2007/08/14 | permalink | comments (2) | trackbacks (0)

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