Movies

    The film Precious is about a 16 year old girl named Precious and her struggles in life. Precious is a junior high school student suffering from immense poverty, coupled with her illiteracy and obesity. Set in 1985, this film tackles the hardships being endured by this girl from her abusive parents and from the society as a whole. Her failing grades is the least of her concerns, because she also has to deal with the abuses from both her parents. She already has a daughter who is suffering from Down Syndrome, and another child on the way. Both her pregnancies are the result of her fathers sexual abuse. This film is talks about hard-hitting issues that African Americans suffered back in the 80s, and the truthfulness and the harsh realities depicted in this film makes it a very compelling movie to watch.

    The biggest challenge of the marketing campaign of this movie is its theme. According to Duayne Byrge of the website, HollywoodReporter.com, Precious is a hard-forged film with a story line so grim and abhorrent  a 16-year-old black girl has been impregnated twice by her father  that marketing will be tough. With this kind of theme, it immediately eliminates minors as a possible viewer, so the marketing would have to be focused to adults. It also means that its hard to employ mainstream marketing since it is not for a general audience. It is really a marketing challenge because it is hard to get people interested in it.

    Given that the film is indeed a marketing challenge, the distributors used various tools and strategies to develop audience awareness and generate interest for the film. One strategy employed by the distributors is to have advance screenings for the film. It was entered in the 25th Sundance Film Festival of 2009 and was screened from January 15 to 25 in Park City, Utah. Likewise, it was also entered in the 62nd Cannes Film Festival later in May. It was well received in both film festivals and the screenings were enough to generate interest through word of mouth passed down by satisfied viewers who were able to watch it in advance.

    Another strategy used to generate interest for the film is the endorsement of talk show host Oprah Winfrey. Winfrey was a producer of Precious and through her celebrity status she was able to give the film a much needed marketing boost. She owned several media outlets, like her television show, her magazine, and her own satellite radio channel, all of which are used to promote the film.

    After watching Precious, I feel that every step and strategy used to generate interest and awareness for this film really paid off. After hearing about this film and knowing that a person like Oprah endorses this film, I immediately became interested in viewing it. Somehow, these strategies didnt tell much about the film so the whole film itself is a surprise for the viewer. It was able to generate enough interest from the people without really divulging much information that may give away the plot or the films entire content. After watching it, I feel that the marketing strategy didnt really prepare me for what Im going to see. Indeed, it was able to catch my attention, but still I really didnt know much about the film.

The film Precious was a very compelling story and I think that it was able to live up to the hype it generated from the various marketing strategies it employed. Despite all the marketing challenges that it faced, it was able to attract the interest of the viewers, and I think watching it is a worthwhile experience.