Promoting a Movie

I am a manager at a movie theatre, which means that I am responsible for helping to run the theatre and doing various other tasks. About three to four times a year, the company that owns our theater chooses certain films to actively promote; when this happens, management is expected to create various promotional activities and coordinate outreach with the theatre's local community.

This summer, I have started working as co-promotional manager for our current project picture, Disney's "G-Force." The goal is to promote the movie to the theater's local community. There are also several challenges, including an almost non-existent budget, the ability to do limited trades (we are only given a limited amount of complimentary tickets that we can trade with local businesses for helping us with the promotion) and to also stay on top of my other managerial responsibilities. With big blockbuster movies coming out every few weeks, time management has also been a significant challenge.

While working on this promotion, I have gotten a lot of hands-on experience working with various local groups, Regal marketing managers and some of Disney's promotional personnel. This project has also taught me a lot about what makes promotion work for theatres, and a lot of it comes down to having connections in the area. Since I do not live in the same area I work, I had no connections to use as a starting point. Instead, I had to start fresh and start building relationships with various local groups.

The first few phone calls I made for this promotion, I was worried about making sure I was doing everything right and sounding professional and well-informed. Luckily, the more phone calls I made the more confident I became. I realized that the worst that could happen is that someone would say no or not return my call. And for every no I got, I knew there would be several more yeses. Once I got over that hurdle, working on this promotion seemed a lot less daunting.

I have become much more aware of how to plan things with almost no budget, and have also learned that asking the right people can get you a lot farther. The big event is Saturday, so I will continue to spend most of my time decorating the theatre and will continue to call and make contacts with other locations. This way, when the next project picture comes up, I will be able to get things started much quicker.


This guest blog was written by PRowl Public Relations staff member, Mary Bienkowski. Follow her on Twitter @MaryBienkowski.