Five movie marketing lessons to learn from the wedding party

Saying the wedding party is everywhere is an understatement, from TV to outdoor to digital even in our subconscious, for those who have seen the movie we can all recall epic moments that cracked us up. For those who haven’t seen the wedding party, (Still wondering why you haven’t seen this hilarious movie). Let me give you a summary about the much-talked-about the movie.
The story revolves around Dozie (Banky W) who is set to marry his true love, Dunni (Adesua Etomi) and the drama between both families from different tribes.
This movie has proven that the Nigerian movie industry is evolving and is taking critical steps to erase the negative perceptions about the industry. No doubt, some other Nollywood movies like A trip to Jamaica, the CEO, and the likes, came out great but were not able to drive the number of footfalls that The Wedding Party was able to pull.
Dear Nollywood producers/directors, here are some lessons you should learn and implement when marketing your next movie.

CREATE A HUB
Social media is the bedrock for just about everything. If you haven’t gone social, you haven’t gone anywhere. Having full knowledge of this, social media accounts were created for the wedding party to keep the fans engaged, create more awareness, get feedbacks and reviews and connect with fans. A landing page was also created, so one can get all the information needed from the right source. The info varies from the movie info, ticket availability, movie schedule, promo (Win with the wedding party), members of the cast and crew and gallery showing some highlights from the movie. This creates ease, convenience, and engagement.

CONTENT IS ALWAYS KEY

Good content drives everything so does a good content strategy. There are two things, ‘’Awareness and Anticipation” for a movie. A good content strategy works magic in setting your ‘’A”s right. Using the wedding party as a reference, they played with teasers and the trailer to achieve the two ‘’A”s. The Teasers got people talking and interested about what was to come. The bride (Adesua Etomi) and the Groom (Banky W), now that’s a shocker because no one saw that coming from both celebrities and out of the blue they are getting married! Everyone was very interested as to what they were cooking up. Let’s talk about the trailer, the wedding party trailer was released August shortly after the teaser phase and the movie premiered December. Honestly, proved a bit what trailer is really all about as compared to some I have seen –which is a short promotional film showing highlights of a forthcoming movie that get fans excited about the movie (with the emphasis on highlights and not watching the whole movie from the trailer alone) So why won’t anyone want be interested in the movie? And Yes! They achieved their goals. The Wedding Party grossed N36 million in its opening weekend, 66m in the first week in cinemas across Nigeria, 300m after 3 weeks and recently broke the record with over 450 million in the Nigerian Box office…. Still counting.  Now that’s a Nollywood first!

USE THE POWER OF PROMOTION

A friend said she can never see a Nigerian movie in a cinema. I was surprised when she joined in on the conversation about the wedding party (and I looked at her like where’s that coming from). Her perception had changed apart from the content & context, the wedding party was always in her face; indoor, outdoor, online-everywhere! She spends the most time online and visits Linda Ikeji’s Blog & Bella Naija which had their banner ads and background takeover for almost a month, it is quite necessary to drive awareness and anticipation which will finally lead to sales for you.

Being active on social media isn’t enough, there is a need to reach more audience and social media promotion would go a long way. Running ads on social media takes a lot more than clicking the promote button, it is best left in the hands of professionals to get the best result and worth for your spend.

Also even if your audience is having doubts about seeing the movie give them a strong reason to see it; this is where the use of incentive comes in! People like free things and especially as it relates to the wedding party, the bride especially wants the wedding to be a grand one because it’s her day. The wedding party comes with a huge offer that you certainly can’t utter the word ‘’NO”. All you have to do is buy a movie ticket. After seeing the movie, visit www.theweddingpartymovies.com and click on Win with the Wedding Party. Answer a few questions and upload a picture of your movie ticket.  Winners will be selected monthly by raffle draw.  In order to claim your prize, you will be asked to show the same ticket you uploaded on the landing page. Some prizes to be won are; A wedding dress and grooms suit by Mai Atafo, cakes by Tosan, makeup by Zaron, event center by Dorchester, Bottle of champagne from Bollinger and drinks (Bailey and Ciroc) from Diageo. Amazing offers to get your wedding plans started at a low cost, right?

LEVERAGING THE POWER OF THE CAST AND CREW

If you are quiet about something, no one will hear you but if you make the right noise with the right people, you will get the attention you need. The wedding party cast and crew couldn’t keep calm; they also had some influential people raise their voice. Most people take reviews from their favorite celebrities very seriously and in Nigeria whatever appears on Linda Ikeji’s Blog or Bella Naija should be taken seriously. Linda Ikeji saw the movie and made a post for it. Now that’s the publicity you should have as well. Since the wedding party is a star-studded movie it was quite easy to create the initial buzz by leveraging on the celebrity influence of its star-studded crew.

ADAPT. CREATE.

Creativity doesn’t pop up if you are not open to ideas, innovations or new things/experiences. Tapping into trends aid in boosting content and if great, it becomes viral.  The wedding party social media posts are spot on, quite relatable and fit in the context it was created for. Memes were created and seen on not only its social media pages but on the cast & crew as well. Their objective was to adapt to trends, their new digital-savvy audience and create something that would resonate with them.  This level of flexibility has not been seen in the Nigerian movie industry after The CEO premiere and that’s another first from the wedding party.

The wedding party has taken the bull by the horn in changing the perception and the way movie marketing is being done in Nollywood. We would agree that their marketing strategy has paid off; therefore, the aforementioned points and more should be infused into your next marketing strategy. So when you are about to push your movie into the market,

Think Digital!

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