Three Minds On Digital Marketing @ Organic

Last week’s Entertainment Weekly contained a special supplement entitled “Best of the Web.”  It includes 25 sites for such well-loved franchises as Harry Potter, Indiana Jones, The Office, Lost, U2 and Star Wars.  Only thing is, these are not “official” sites, they are fan sites.  The brands themselves have web presences of varying depths, but here is Entertainment Weekly pointing out how much better the fan-created experiences are.  Why? Fan sites are unencumbered by corporate control.  Fans can find meaning, they can speculate on plotlines and deal out spoilers, they can traffic in rumors, they can even sometimes break news.  They can get emotional about their subjects.  They can criticize or give voice to fears.  They can talk about what else the stars have done that the studios don’t necessarily want to mention, from previous bombs to pending indictments.  Most importantly: they are created by people who genuinely love the properties, not the people with marketing jobs.  That passion is real, it is authentic, it is powerful, and it is infectious.
 
Studios used to try to put these kinds of sites out of business or co-opt and control them.  Not anymore.  Today, the marketers still do their own things, but they also look at these sites as partners, offering them assets and access (when it suits them), and using them as sources for how fans are reacting to trailers, plotlines, and star drama so that their sanctioned marketing programs can be made more effective.  And when they visit, I would bet that they reignite a bit of their own passion for the movies, for TV, for music, that made them choose their careers before the jaded-executive-machine that is the Entertainment Industry got hold of them. 
 
Matt Rosenberg