How does the China Film Publishing Company support the two counter-attacks of the May 1st file ＂Above the Cliff＂ and ＂Fighting Against the Black＂？
writing| Lin Lili
edit| Wan Xiaoxian
On May 15th, 15 days after the official release of Above the Cliff, the box office officially broke through 900 million yuan, and won the single-day box office champion for 13 consecutive days. On the same day, the movie "Fighting Against the Black" also broke through 300 million box office after 14 days of release. After two weeks of long-term screening, the two films, which were only ranked third and sixth on the first day of the May 1 ST file, were perfectly countered.
On May 1st this year, 12 films with different themes and styles were released at the same time, which was called "the most crowded May 1st in history". As the main publisher of Above the Cliff and the co-publisher of Fight Against the Black, China Film Publishing Company successfully supported the two counter-attacks of the May 1 ST file with objective and calm market judgment and precise and professional distribution actions.
It’s hard to know what’s going on until it’s gone through. At the box office, the China Film distribution team traced back to the reporter the road of counterattack of "Above the Cliff".
On the Cliff, set in Harbin in 1930s, tells the story of communist party’s secret mission to Harbin, where he fought bravely with the enemy and finally completed his mission without fear of sacrifice. As the first spy war film directed by Zhang Yimou, Above the Cliff continues his distinctive personal style, and the solid and delicate plot design and tense and lively narrative rhythm realize a new exploration of domestic spy war films.
Jiao Hongfen, Party Secretary and Chairman of China Film Group Corporation and Chairman of China Film Co., Ltd., once said that as a film industry chain enterprise, China Film is the primary task to provide high-quality films to the audience. "We must adhere to the people-centered creative orientation, reflect people’s work and life, focus on people’s emotional world, show people’s devotion to truth and goodness, and tell good stories about the Communist Party of China (CPC), Socialism with Chinese characteristics’s good system, China’s excellent traditional culture and red culture."
Fu Ruoqing, deputy secretary and vice-chairman of the Party Committee of China Film Group Corporation, vice-chairman and general manager of China Film Co., Ltd., and the chief producer of the film On the Cliff, mentioned when recalling the creative process that On the Cliff, he wrote the true feelings with a passion, and looked back at history at the time node of the centenary of the founding of the Party. Do not forget your initiative mind made the audience feel the precious spiritual wealth left by these unknown heroes for future generations. "We hope that this work can touch history as much as possible, truly present history, and express sincere true feelings through vivid true stories, real people and real pictures."
At the end of July, 2020, "Above the Cliff" was still in production. As the main investment and master of the film, China Film Distribution began to build a team structure for the announcement. At the film promotion meeting of Beijing International Film Festival held in August of the same year, China Film Distribution grandly promoted Above the Cliff as a key film in 2021.
At that time, it was at the stage of the cinema’s resumption of production after the epidemic. The whole industry was working hard to accelerate the recovery of the film market, and "Above the Cliff" was also accelerating filming. With the completion of the production of the film, I learned more about the film. At the same time, under the strong national epidemic prevention and control policy, the film market has basically recovered after the summer vacation, National Day and New Year’s Day. Combined with the film itself and the current market situation, the publicity team has also established clear plans and goals in terms of work direction, ideas and strategies.
The previous market research shows that this is a film with a relatively mature target audience. How to make the dedication and sacrifice spirit that the mission must be achieved 90 years ago approach the audience of the post-90s and post-00s today, and how to effectively convey the director’s artistic exploration and breakthrough to the mainstream audience, so as to achieve a win-win situation for creation and market … All these are the problems that must be solved in the publicity link.
The initial schedule selection space of Above the Cliff included Spring Festival, May 1st and July 1st. After synthesizing various influencing factors, including the director, the producer, distributor and marketing party decided to release it in May 1st after repeated discussions. At that time, there were only four or five films scheduled in the schedule, and the market space was relatively ample. On March 23, Above the Cliff announced that it was scheduled for April 30.
The market is changing rapidly. With the approach of the May 1st file, many films are scheduled and changed, and the May 1st file suddenly pours into 12 films, so the limited market space is facing a huge diversion challenge. At the same time, the first round of survey data feedback "Above the Cliff" has a mediocre response among the mainstream audience in their twenties and thirties, and the sinking market is not hot, and the data of Cat’s Eye and Taobao Film platforms can’t be broken.
No. 1
Three rounds of screening drive word-of-mouth to "break the circle"
"The movie is good, not afraid to watch it." After repeated communication with the propaganda team and the landing executive company, China Film Distribution decided to promote the release of word-of-mouth through pre-screening scale screening, form social topics and promote the audience to quickly "break the circle".
On April 14th, "Above the Cliff" got the release license, and a series of preparatory work related to screening, such as cinema selection, hard disk production and delivery, and material delivery, was completed in the week of distribution. On April 18th, more than 400 screenings of "Above the Cliff" were launched in the first round, with an average of 53 people, which led to a slight increase in related indexes.
After the first round of screening, China Film Distribution cooperated closely with the joint issuer’s landing executive team, and made an internal re-screening at the first time. The data did not fully meet expectations. Should the screening continue?
"We believe in the quality of the film. As the first film to start the scale screening in May 1st," Above the Cliff "conveyed strong confidence to the market and was also affirmed by the industry. Platform data analysis is a source of market pre-judgment, but we should not ignore the most direct market feedback obtained by distributors after face-to-face communication with theater managers and ticket buyers in each screening city. " China Film Distribution related business personnel told reporters that after the first screening, many first-line cinema managers expressed their confidence in the film, and many young audiences showed their love for the film.
The transmission of confidence has consolidated China Film’s plan to launch the second round of screening quickly. Compared with the first round of more than 400 games, the scale of the second round of screening has expanded to more than 2,500 games. Hard work pays off, and the second round of screening exceeded 7 million in a single day, with an average of 76 people per game. On April 25th, the day after the second screening, the number of people who want to see "Above the Cliff" is increasing to a new high, and the number of people who want to see it on the dual platforms of Cat’s Eye and Taobao Film is more than 30,000, which is higher than that of films in the same period.
On April 29th, the third screening of Above the Cliff was launched, and the screening scale was expanded from more than 400 in 10 cities in the first round to more than 4,000 in 34 cities in three rounds. At the same time, at the request of CINITY, China Giant Screen, IMAX and other big screen publishers, the screening version of the screening was added, which made the high-quality audio-visual effect of the film more perfect. After three rounds of screening, all platforms of Above the Cliff want to see more than 320,000 indexes, successfully ranking among the top three in the schedule, further consolidating market confidence and narrowing the gap with the first two films.
No. 2
Counter-attack of refined issuance and lifting market
Starting from the point screening, the business staff of China Film introduced to the reporter the refined distribution strategy of Above the Cliff, which is represented by regional deep cultivation, reasonable proportion, point-to-surface combination and segmented key. If the three-round screening has inserted the wings for "Above the Cliff", then the refined release after the three-round screening determines the height of the film’s flight and the speed of counterattack.
After determining the announcement strategy of "Above the Cliff" to promote word-of-mouth "breaking the circle", the China Film Distribution and Landing Executive Company confirmed the list of cities that were screened in the first round from the dimensions of previous similar films, urban market volume and film directors themselves.
It is worth mentioning that Xi ‘an, one of the screening cities, is a special screening city for the distribution staff of China Film, based on the extraordinary market share of director Zhang Yimou and his film One Second in Xi ‘an. The three rounds of screening data really verified the judgment of the distribution staff of China Film. The urban data of Xi ‘an in the screening stage and the public release stage are very outstanding, and the urban film arrangement has repeatedly topped the list. To this end, director Zhang Yimou also specially used Shaanxi dialect to send blessings to his hometown audience.
China Film Distribution has also set up a special data analysis team to provide market data support for the distribution business, assist in optimizing cinema film arrangement and continuously increase market increment. Being objective and rational with a professional attitude in the complicated market environment is one of the core essentials of the distribution of Above the Cliff. Business personnel told reporters that being objective and rational in the distribution practice means pursuing the most reasonable proportion of films, not blindly following, not following the trend, and not chasing high. Monitor the trend of data every day, adjust the focus of work, continue to consolidate the results in areas with high output and good film arrangement, pay more attention to areas with low film arrangement and slow heat rise, keep communication, strive to find breakthrough space, and realize long-term projection and efficient output of films by pursuing reasonable film arrangement ratio.
Another embodiment of the refined distribution of Above the Cliff is to ensure the standardization and order of the market through the production and distribution of segmented keys. As a means to maintain market order, segmented keys began to be explored and tried in 2020. In May 1st, 2021, all films of the Spring Festival archives were distributed with segmented keys. Combined with the actual market cycle and space of the archives, the segmented keys of "3-3-4" were used for production and distribution, that is, the keys were produced and distributed according to the rhythm of "three days, three days and four days", so as to standardize market behavior and ensure the order of the archives.
No. 3
Double-line propaganda breaks through all circles
In terms of publicity and marketing, China Film Distribution, together with Bole and China Film Junhe, combined with the film characteristics of Above the Cliff, formulated a three-wheel and two-line word-of-mouth marketing strategy. That is to say, three marketing rounds are defined for the nodes in the pre-marketing, after screening, after premiere and after public release, so as to spread word-of-mouth from two dimensions of emotional line and noumenon line, increase the volume of the film, and achieve word-of-mouth breakthrough and audience "breaking the circle".
In the early stage of publicity and marketing, we should start with excellent production and exquisite art, and strengthen the film’s commercial type attribute and spy war theme cognition; Highlight the film’s "playing bones" lineup, ferment the entertainment topics of actors’ acting skills, and accumulate platform popularity. Combined with the film itself, pay tribute to the unsung hero.
After two rounds of large-scale screening and film premiere, a lot of entertainment materials were produced, and marketing concentrated on breaking through the bottleneck of popularity. For example, materials such as discovering the live disco in Yu Hewei and director Zhang Yimou’s answer to YYDS were released by many media and Tik Tok’s talent on the Tik Tok platform. On the second day of the premiere, Zhang Yimou live broadcast connected six top creators in Tik Tok, which made the total number of non-Spring Festival live broadcasts in 2021 the first, and achieved a wider reach with the help of fans’ diversion.
After the film was released, it released a lot of positive word of mouth, and the audience began to intuitively feel the sacrifice spirit of the movie characters. The marketing link began to release the content of the feature film, interpreting the details of the actors’ performances and the spirit of sacrifice implied in the film. Through the discussion of hidden details and the transmission of deep emotional resonance, the film continues to push up the popularity.
Three rounds of word-of-mouth marketing closely follow the two dimensions of "emotional line" and "ontological line". The former explores the affection and friendship in the film to convey the feelings of home and country, and interprets the national crisis. When ordinary heroes stand up from the roles of parents, husbands, wives and children, they are quite responsible for their determination and courage. At the same time, they hook up with the unknown heroes in reality from the hidden front in the film and arouse the emotional resonance of the audience. The noumenon line focuses on the role and acting skills, and guides the big screen to watch movies from the aspects of neat acting skills and performance textbooks.
Another feature of "Above the Cliff" marketing is to fully mobilize mainstream media and new media. On the one hand, the cumulative exposure of 100 media led by mainstream media broke 10 billion, which triggered a strong fission of government affairs numbers in various fields; On April 19th, the film held an expert observation seminar in Beijing, and experts from Industry-University-Research spoke out, which highly affirmed the film’s ideological and artistic achievements. In the process of film marketing, authoritative film critics and KOL voices are constantly introduced, and the voices of experts and opinion leaders are used to set the tone for film marketing.
On the other hand, Weibo, Tik Tok, Douban, WeChat, bilibili, Today’s Headline, Zhihu, Hupu and other platforms are fully radiated, and the new cross-border gameplay is "broken", breaking through the core circle dominated by fans, entertainment, history and military, and breaking through the incremental circles such as emotional culture and secondary elements.
Three rounds of two-line marketing have achieved the breakdown and strong fission of the circle. As of May 17th, the main topic of the film "Above the Cliff" in Tik Tok has reached 1.99 billion, and the cumulative broadcast volume of movie-related topics has exceeded 3.6 billion. A total of 19 times on the hot list of Tik Tok and 27 times on the entertainment list; Weibo hot search 64 times, headline hot list 42 times, Zhihu hot list 9 times, Douban real-time hot book audio and video continued to "dominate the list" for 18 days.
Different from the three rounds of large-scale screening of Above the Cliff in the past two weeks, The Fight Against the Blackout, which entered the May 1st file at the end of April, has no room for large-scale screening. As a co-distributor, China Film has won limited screening space for the film, and insisted on the same slow and steady distribution strategy as Above the Cliff, pursuing appropriate film ratio, which finally helped the film to achieve long-term screening and counterattack within the schedule.
It is also known that in the May 1st this year, China Film Distribution and Development Corporation participated in Above the Cliff, Fighting Against the Black, Secret Visitors, ONCE UPON A TIME IN HONG KONG, Searching for Han Ji, Sunshine Robber, True Three Kingdoms, GG Bond Movie Dinosaur Diary, etc. by means of main investment, joint distribution, agency distribution and statistical settlement. With a rational and objective attitude and refined professional distribution actions, the two counterattacks of the May 1st file were supported. On the premise of fully understanding the market and the audience, the breakthrough of the existing circle was realized by scale projection and word-of-mouth fission, which provided experience for the market exploration of non-flow films.
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