Even in this new pandemic-era film world, trailers still remain the most effective tool in promoting a film. Today, we are pleased to announce that you can now see when trailers were released for all films being tracked by The Quorum. Just click on any film title, and you will see a vertical gray line with a “T” at the top designating when a trailer was released.
Trailers, of course, are designed to build awareness and interest in upcoming releases. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Case in point, THE LAST DUEL, which opened to a slim $5M this weekend, saw no gains in awareness when its trailer was released on July 20th.
As we pointed out back then, the failure to see gains in awareness can be from numerous things: poor publicity, lack of trailer distribution, or just consumer apathy. Regardless of the cause, it can be a big red flag when the numbers don’t increase.
Need another example? Take a look at the chart for IN THE HEIGHTS. Warner Bros. released a few spots for this film, but none resulted in any meaningful gains. As we all know, the film went on to disappoint at the box office.
Are there examples of a film getting a spike in awareness from a trailer? Absolutely. Take a look at the chart for SHANG-CHI AND THE LEGEND OF THE TEN RINGS. The first trailer resulted in a big ten-point gain in awareness.
Notice that the second trailer didn’t see the same results. That’s usually the case. It’s the first one that we look to for the big bounce.
What’s remarkable about SHANG-CHI is that not only did the first trailer meaningfully lift awareness, but it also resulted in a spike in interest. The interest score for the film jumped from 4.8 to 5.6 from that first spot. Of course, SHANG-CHI remains the only 2021 release to cross $200M domestically.
So, have fun with the trailers. This weekend we got spots for THE BATMAN and BLACK ADAM. Now you can watch to see how the numbers change for these and all upcoming trailers.