120607_MOVIES_PROMETHEUS.jpg.CROP.rectangle3-large — The movie was a gorgeous, expensive, poorly executed nightmare. Make sure your marketing isn't like this!

John and I saw the movie Prometheus, against the advice of friends. We should have listened to our friends. We couldn't resist the lure of a big-budget, glitzy science-fiction thriller, and the premise was appealing. It's easy to see how they spent the money - the sets were gorgeous and exotic and ranged from remote locations in England, Iceland, Spain, and Scotland. The effects were stunning, as promised. But as it turned out, the film lost the thread of the story and was so random and too pointlessly brutal that the only thing that kept us from walking out was the hope that it would improve toward the ending. It didn't. So, we wasted a rare two hours of freedom on a Saturday as well as our money. Some quick figures and a quote from Yahoo Movie Reviews:

All hype, no substance. There is no point to anything in this movie. The characters lacked substance and the story line was lacking depth and some semblance of reason. It just got ridiculous, especially in the end. The only obvious point it was making is that it is striving to create a franchise to possibly make more money. Everything was just so random.

While people may argue the film was a success, its finances are far from stellar: Prometheus cost $125 million to make, and after 17 days has grossed only $108 million. It began production in April of 2010 with an originally scheduled release date of December, 2011; finally to be released in summer of 2012. Of course, it may still break even but has already been far surpassed by other summer blockbusters. A big budget is no guarantee of success - in movies or in marketing campaigns! If you think of your marketing campaigns in the metaphor of a great movie - a great story, characters we can relate to, a realistic budget, and resourceful and schedule-conscious project managers.

A big budget can do wonderful things for a movie, or a marketing campaign. But more money won't make a poorly-planned movie or an incomplete campaign successful. And yet we see aviation companies that can hardly afford it shelling out very large sums of cash for gorgeous ads in glossy magazines without much planning or even sufficient thought about how to measure the success (or failure) of the ad. Our recommendation - save the exotic locations, gorgeous effects, time effort and MONEY for a well thought-out, proven concept supported by a measurable, results-oriented marketing system that you can invest in. Some questions to ask:

Is this a sound, proven concept?
Are we reaching the largest number of the most qualified prospective buyers?
What action do we want people to take as a result of this ad?
How will we measure the response to the ad?
Do we have a complete, multi-step follow up campaign for those that express interest but don't buy immediately? (This will include almost everyone if the item is complex or large-ticket.)

For more about NON-random acts of marketing, read about our Marketing Solutions here, or download our free ebook below.} else {.