Are the trailers ruining the movies?

When it comes to running a marketing campaign focused on film promotion, one of the main tactics is still to bet on the old and famous trailers. There is no way to disprove the idea that presenting a bit of movie history along teasers trailers (shorter) and full trailers (longer) is still one of the first steps that studios and producers define.

Many other ideas are part of a good marketing strategy for promoting a movie. Just to name a few other examples: scheduling attendance at famous talk shows, free and pay TV advertisements, digital platform campaigns and promotional materials such as posters and official photos of the movies (or behind the scenes) are also on the front lines. But for some reason, trailers have taken a stronger root and end up being the kind of material most anticipated by audiences so they can be interested in movies.

Increasingly realizing this demand from the public, studios are investing in new bets to create new ways to edit and promote trailers (who are increasingly stylized and trying to talk more properly with those on the other side of the screen). If you make a comparison with the trailers of decades ago with the latest trailers, you notice the big difference in this timeline.

As expected, of course, as technology and from an increasingly demanding audience and more aware of what they want to watch (and the factor of the high ticket prices helps in this matter), studios would have to find a way to revitalize the idea behind trailer production because it's not just another bunch of scenes. So the result has come... But was it beneficial for the movies?

Giphy

Well, it's impossible to deny denying how different modern trailers are (the improvement is truly remarkable), but how far is this boldness of innovation worth it? Is the magic of movies being broken by the lack of expectation to watch something new in theaters because the trailers are showing too much information? For some people, this situation is quite tricky... But not for me.

In my opinion, the answer is pretty obvious to those who follow the cinema more closely... Yes, the trailers are being revamped to present a new perspective on the movies with the intention of modernizing and attracting a larger audience, but everything is being overly treated and nullifying the "surprise" factor that people usually expect when they watch a movie. So this strategy has not been worth it.

It's not uncommon to watch a 2 minute average trailer where all the main information (or the most impactful scenes) has ever been revealed. So the experience of watching a particular movie becomes boring and uninteresting... Almost as if there was no need to watch the whole movie anymore (especially having to go to the movies for that).

In addition to information overload (which in itself is a very pronounced problem), the work done with scene editing is sometimes biased and creates a false expectation on future viewers (something that usually causes a lot of frustration... because people expect to watch one thing and end up watching a completely different one). Of course this is not a defect of all trailers, but it has become a trend in a bad way.

Particularly speaking, I've had some bad experiences with some trailers (and it was even more boring because they were movies that I was very anxious to watch) and nowadays, I hardly watch any of the final trailers anymore, just limit myself to watch only the trailer teasers. I consider this to be something more than enough to avoid future frustrations.

VideoHive

On the other hand, one thing that I find quite interesting is the way some of the studios are advertising their trailers. It's not just about launching the trailer on the internet, it's about creating a real event with the goal of generating high public expectation by announcing dates, releasing small previews, and breaking into events of considerable relevance within the entertainment world.