Case Analysis Write-up: The Passion of the Christ Essay Sample

Case Analysis Write-up: The Passion of the Christ
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Institution
Case Analysis Write-up: The Passion of the Christ
Issue Identification
Marketing decisions and strategies play a significant role in the success and demand of a product. Marketing the movie “The Passion of the Christ” was instrumental to its financial success, especially at a time when religious movies had not been doing very well in the film industry (Quelch, Elberse, & Harrington, 2010). The movie was produced by a prolific individual in the industry, but little was known about the actors. This, coupled with the fact that there were very few religious movies in the industry, successful or not, made it even more necessary to have the right marketing strategy to attract enough publicity. A few problematic issues were evident in the marketing of this movie. One, the marketing company, Newmarket, had to decide on which promotion/marketing strategy to employ in the promotion campaign while still keeping in mind the cost involved and the projected returns. Two, the company had to decide on the most effective release strategy for the movie to ensure it reaches a wide audience. Three, the company had to decide on the timing of the release as well to ensure a wide viewership and enhance the first-week performance of the movie. These three issues were pertinent to the movie because they could either fuel it to great success or make it another mediocre-performing religious movie in the industry.
Problem Analysis
In the film industry, as revealed by Quelch, Elberse, and Harrington (2010), marketers could either use grassroots marketing or mainstream media marketing in movie promotion. Already, the movie was being advertised using grassroots marketing and specifically, pre-screening with specific religious groups to enhance word of mouth among the target audience. The decision to either maintain grassroots marketing or switch to mainstream media marketing was problematic because of several reasons. One, mainstream media disapproved of the movie because of the violence, and other reports in the mainstream media portrayed the movie as anti-semitic and inaccurate. As such, using mainstream media for the promotion campaign would be challenging given that the media had already disapproving comments about the movie. Two, most attendees of the pre-screening had mostly positive comments about the movie. The attendees included religious leaders and since they approved of the movie, they were already promoting the movie to other potential audiences. Three, initial reports indicated that the movie would not be as financially successful. It was predicted that the movie would only cover the costs of production because it had an estimated revenue of $20 million within the first four weeks after its release. As such, based on the estimations, the movie would not cater to the marketing costs. Marketing using grassroots approaches such as pre-screening was considered cheaper than using mainstream media (Quelch, Elberse, & Harrington, 2010). The marketing company had to decide by considering the above factors.
Two strategies are also used in the distribution and release of movies to the audience. Distributors could either use a wide release stra...