# Marketing a movie by not marketing the movie **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** movies\ **Created:** [July 1, 2023, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marketing-a-movie-by-not-marketing-the-movie/986413 "2023-07-01T17:20:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2023, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marketing-a-movie-by-not-marketing-the-movie/986413/1 "2023-07-01T17:20:20Z")
For the latest Studio Ghibli movie, they are releasing nothing about it. No trailers, no commercials or ads with any type of footages or images, just the title and a vague poster. They are banking on their studio’s name recognition (and probably the novelty/mystery of the unmarketing) to ensure box office success. It will doubtlessly work in this case. Has anything like this ever been tried with an American movie? Could it work (with “work” meaning a big ooening weekend) in the US, with a big name or big franchise? > **[Studio Ghibli Won't Promote Its Newest Movie How Do You Live](https://www.cbr.com/studio-ghibli-wont-promote-how-do-you-live/)** > > Fans will go into Hayao Miyazaki's final film How Do You Live? without any knowledge of what they will see other than the mysterious bird image. > **[Everything We Know About Studio Ghibli's How Do You Live?](https://www.cbr.com/ghibli-miyazaki-how-do-you-live-facts/)** > > Legendary filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki of Spirited Away fame is set to release his final project, and it may be his most ambitious yet. > **[Hayao Miyazaki is getting worried about how his new anime is being marketed,...](https://soranews24.com/2023/07/02/hayao-miyazaki-is-getting-worried-about-how-his-new-anime-is-being-marketed-ghibli-producer-says/)** > > Toshio Suzuki also discusses how Ghibli has stayed in business without releasing a theatrical feature in almost a decade and whether this is Miyazaki’s final film. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2023, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marketing-a-movie-by-not-marketing-the-movie/986413/2 "2023-07-03T05:39:40Z")
Here’s one example which is somewhat similar. > **[Netflix Dropped ‘The Cloverfield Paradox’ After the Super Bowl Five Years Ago...](https://variety.com/2023/film/features/cloverfield-paradox-super-bowl-commercial-netflix-same-day-drop-1235520392/)** > > “#FilmTwitter is going to explode tonight,” director Ava DuVernay tweeted on Feb. 4, 2018, just minutes before kick-off for Super Bowl LII. “Something is coming that I can hardly believe. Lawd. His… It wasn’t a wide theatrical release, and it wasn’t a major studio deal with a big-name cast, though it does have the “Cloverfield pseudo-franchise” recognition factor. So it’s not an identical situation, where they were counting on news coverage of the non-marketing to do the marketing for them during the weeks leading up to the release. Indeed, it wasn’t really announced at all, and the whole promotional message was “surprise! here’s a whole-ass movie you didn’t know about!” However, it is comparable in that they chose not to do any advance marketing, and then they did a big splashy announcement and hoped that media coverage and internet chatter about their unusual strategy would do most of the heavy lifting. Incidentally, it’s hard to say if the approach could be considered to have “worked.” The movie apparently didn’t get stellar viewing numbers (Netflix is opaque about its stats), and snap reviews were pretty bad. But there’s some reason to think the movie got better short-term viewership than if they’d marketed it more conventionally. But it’s the first example that pops to mind. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2023, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marketing-a-movie-by-not-marketing-the-movie/986413/3 "2023-07-14T01:49:22Z")
This movie comes out tomorrow in Japan and we should at least hear what people think of it soon.