Is Red The New Green?

There's a new trend in movie marketing, and it comes in the form of red band trailers. Red band trailers differ from the standard green band trailers in that they feature more adult content. If green band trailers are a PG, red band trailers are a decided R. Red band trailers, when shown in theaters, can only be shown before an R or NC-17 rated film. On the internet, however, few rules apply.

Recently, Regal Cinemas decided to permit the showing of red band trailers. Before this decision, the exhibition of red band trailers had largely been frowned upon, and were contained to online exhibition. However, with red band trailers growing in popularity, it would be hard for the major theater chains to ignore the trend, especially as it becomes harder and harder to convince someone to see a movie in the theater. But that raises a question, are red band trailers more effective then standard green band trailers?

Based on current use, a red band trailer can be effective for movies that rely on adult material to appeal to their markets. (Think, Harold and Kumar, Shoot 'Em Up, and Clerks 2) Typically, audiences of those movies want violence, gore and profanity, and an edgy red band trailer might get a few more of those people into theater seats. That said, I'm not sure that a red band trailer would be a significant box office driver. What it can be more effective at, however, is a traffic driving tool for a film's website. If red band trailers are contained within the online realm, and not exhibited in theaters, then it provides users with an incentive to seek them out, increasing engagement and time spent with the film's marketing efforts. If they become widely available through theater exhibition, you lose some of that drive, and the red band trailer becomes no more special then the standard green bands.

Chris Thilk, blogmaster at Movie Marketing Madness, recently wrote an article in Brandweek that praised red band trailers. "The creation of R-rated trailers is a great thing for the audience and a sure-fire (for now) buzz-creation tactic for the studios. The increasing amount of adult comedies, films with humor and situations that are only appropriate for adult audiences, owe much of their success to the freedom the Internet allows in distributing trailers that show exactly what those audiences can expect."

While I agree that red band trailers are, for now, an effective buzz-creation tool (I wouldn't be writing about them if they weren't), I think their effectiveness takes a dramatic drop with increased distribution outlets. Ultimately, red band trailers are an interesting tool to experiment with for the time being -- 10 years from now, however, your guess is as good as mine.