If you’re marketing a brand, one sure way to get attention is to get product placement in a major motion picture.
But even better is a compelling film about your brand. Case in point: Spotlight, which tells the tale of the Boston Globe’s investigative team and their coverage of child sex abuse in the Catholic Church.
Spotlight, which has received three Golden Globe nominations, has literally cast a spotlight on the Globe, offering a marketing bonanza for the newspaper.
There’s no doubt that the movie has increased the visibility of the Globe to new audiences. And in an age when newspaper audiences are shrinking, this is critically important. But it has also offered numerous opportunities to promote the paper to the traditional media consumer, loyal reader, and advertiser alike.
And for that new generation of news consumer more focused on the digital and visually stimulating, the Globe has created a free e-book and a short documentary that focus on the stories that inspired the movie as well as the paper’s other investigative work. Ads for these products are running the Globe’s online and social media. To obtain the e-book, readers must enter their e-mail address, the holy grail of targeted e-mail marketing.
Not only is the Globe promoting the movie through its own editorial coverage, other media reporting on the movie are doing so as well. And the movie has inspired interest in the Globe’s original journalism, resulting in original Spotlight stories appearing on the Globe’s most-read articles list.
This is good news for the Globe and for journalism in general. It highlights the impact the Globe’s coverage had on a community and why journalism matters. And it has opened up opportunities for the Globe to promote itself and attract new subscribers and advertisers.
Only time will tell if this strategy makes a lasting impact on new generations of Globe readers.
–Team Paula
