How flash designers screw up social media strategy

The film industry is undergoing a similar disruption as the music industry.  Filmmakers and studios simultaneously decry file sharing (like the record labels) as cutting into their profits.  Small filmmakers talk about how online word of mouth gives them an audience and promotion opportunities they never had before (like independent musicians).  Large studios complain that online anti-buzz can kill their movies even before they're fully released (like major labels and now-defunct retailers).

However sometimes you shoot yourself in the foot.  Such as example is the new film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's bleak, post-apocalyptic novel, "The Road".  Here's a screenshot of the film website at http://www.theroad-movie.com/

Seems good, right?  No, it's a giant flash object.  Here's the source code of this page:

<script type="text/javascript">
 var so = new SWFObject("SiteShell.swf", "tf2", "100%", "1300", "9", "#000000");
 so.addParam("quality", "best");
 so.addParam("allowScriptAccess", "always");
 so.addParam("allowFullScreen", "true");
 so.setAttribute('redirectUrl', 'upgrade_flash.html');
 so.write("flashcontent");

</script>

Major social media channels, like Facebook, can't easily share this.  Here's what happens when you enter the film's website as a shared link on facebook: 

Boring.  We're sharing a link about a film, but there's no image to share.  It's not going to be as effective in getting people to re-share it.  The website for the new film Zombieland has the same problem (http://www.zombieland.com/).  Here's the website:

And here's how it looks when you share it on Facebook:

Seriously, you've got big name stars in these movies, but you're doing marketing without a film still, or even a shot of the star.  Does this not seem crazy and wrong-headed?  It gets worse when you go to the trailers section.  The logical thing is to watch a trailer, get excited, and immediately share it.  In fact they've got a share button at the top left of the trailers page:

Awesome, right?  Not really.  Here's what you get when you try and share it, either through the Share button or by pasting the link on Facebook:

Normally Facebook would pick up a still on the page and repeat it, but there are no stills, just one giant Flash object.   And, because it's a giant flash site, there are no URLs except the main one.  So if you're on the trailers page and want to send your friends right there, you can't.  Here's what your browser URL bar looks on every page of the site:

In the world of people that measure website effectiveness and marketing (my world), extra clicks are death, and failing to use the full functions of a medium are foolish.  It's as if they ran a radio ad for the movie on network television and left the screen black.  It's not going to kill the buzz for the movie, but it's going to make it a loss less effective.

The lesson here is that when you're building any kind of site with Flash, you need to consider a number of different use cases.  Yes, there's the people who will come to the site and very excitedly immerse themselves in the environment.  But the ones who are most excited are going to want to share that material, and if it looks like crap when they do, you've failed to take advantage of the very best social marketing interaction of all.

Comments

[Joseph Poirier]

I don't know if you did it purposely or not, but the next to last paragraph in your article beginning with "In the world..." is in monospace font, which made my brain read it in a Don-LaFontaine-like movie-trailer-voiceover-voice and read the first three words as "In a world..."

I bet you could make a great horror movie trailer with that paragraph. Cut to darkened room with sinister computer monitor glow, and sharp close-up cut to finger clicking a mouse at "extra clicks are death". Extra long blackout at "left the screen black". Climactic trailer moment at "kill the buzz". You get the picture.

Too bad LaFontaine is dead.

-- Joseph P