Horse meets girl in "Flicka 2," releasing May 4, 2010
“Ridiculously beautiful.” That’s how one Mom described the scene in Flicka 2 where the starring horse first canters into the frame.
The opening session of today’s Mom 2.0 Summit was a visit from “Flicka 2″ directors Michael and Janeen Damian, an entertainment industry family focusing on family films. As Michael put it, “We need more live-action films the whole family can enjoy without having to use blindfolds or ear muffs during some of the scenes.”
In addition to showing the Flicka 2 promotional trailer, the Damians premiered the first ten minutes of the movie, coming out May 4, 2010. As the lights came back up in the ballroom of the Four Seasons hotel, and the crowd applauded, Michael Damian shared his nervousness — “You are the first people ever to see this,” he confided, “so your opinion really matters to me.”
The opinions of the Mom 2.0 audience really do matter to Damian and the folks at producer Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment. Not only are the mothers in the room the main movie decision-makers in their families, the moms’ blog readers total approximately 10% of the American public.
Flicka 2 is bypassing movie houses and going direct to DVD. Back in the day, “direct to DVD (or VHS)” meant a movie probably had some problems. Today, going direct to DVD is an increasingly successful strategy for scoring well in niche markets.
If the moms in this morning’s audience like the preview, they’ll tweet and blog about it, they’ll remember it, they’ll tell their friends, and the movie’s potential audience will grow exponentially. Flicka 2 won’t just be another “direct to DVD” movie, it will be a successful film with a successful “Mom 2.0″ marketing strategy.
At MMI, we refer to replicating significant audiences as “identifying psychographic twins.” A psychographic twin is someone who shares a value-set that leads them to similar behaviors and purchasing/use habits.
This may have seemed like a post about a horse, or maybe about a movie. Really, it’s a post about marketing strategies. This morning saw the perfect combination of a product and an asymmetrical, influential marketing force.
Twentieth Century and the Damians made a smart decision to debut their film at the Mom 2.0 Summit. If this core audience rents/buys it, their psychographic twins will too.
