I saw Toy Story 3 in 3D at the weekend. This has been on the list of cinema must-sees for my nine-year old and me for a couple of years. We’ve watched Toy Stories 1 and 2 numerous times and saw the 3D versions in preparation for the hotly anticipated third and final episode.
We’d been sucked-in by a very clever demand creating PR campaign, even before the opening week onslaught from the media and critics arrived. Launch PR summary. All your favourite characters (toys) return with loads of great new ones, like a Ken for Barbie, an evil Teddy as a real badass villain. Most important was the emotional pull. This will make adults reconsider their relationships with their children. If you don’t shed a tear at the crunch, heartstring-pulling moment, you’ve got no soul. Real men cry, or real dads at least.
Frankly I followed the herd behaviour, a kind of mass hysteria. Why the media and critics did is not clear to me? I think Toy Story 3 (3D) is a great film. BUT, it’s not the absolute classic it had been hyped to be. Ken was such an obvious pastiche, I could have written his character biography. The big Teddy and his gang of baddies are totally unmemorable. I cry easily but the big emotional scene is signposted so clearly in advance and the moral delivery so ham-fisted I barely let out an aaahhh.
Even the nine-year-old only puts this film at number three on his favourites so far this year, Avatar and Alice in Wonderland being at one and two, both also in 3D. I reckon Pixar’s latest blockbuster will get knocked out of even its number three spot once we see the next film with awesome effects, pant-wettingly funny jokes or a moderately challenging storyline.
I write this knowing the film has smashed UK box office records, another extension of the PR campaign laying the groundwork for monster DVD sales. I must also admit every kid in the cinema seemed enraptured for the entire 108 minutes. The PR has worked, big time.
What about the advertising around this film? I think cinema advertising can be fantastic. Trouble is brands need to sort out whether they’re bone-fide premier league using 3D or decidedly lower-division with 2D commercials, prior to a 3D feature. The first half of the ad-reel had Pizza Hut and Renault Scenic slugging it out in 2D to irritate with their multiple short spots, one for the car followed by one for the food, literally. We’re at the cinema ready for story-telling, drama and visual stimulation and we don’t need a succession of shorts. It doesn’t matter how many times we see that cheese oozing out from inside the crust, we like ours on top of the dough.
Now we get to the brands who know image counts for lots. Put on your 3D glasses and see the wow ads. Sky had the last spot before the main event and showed they really know about emotional pull. The taster for 3D football really did have a different angle, their closing sequence showed great perspective and they didn’t need to make you flinch with shards of glass zooming at you from the screen.
The cinema audience is hugely skewed to young people, the tech-savvy so called digital natives. It’s got the pull of brilliant content and a context suited to social media. There is much talk by ad-people about melding data on people’s movements and lifestyles into ways of extending the reach and effect of advertising and establishing conversations within social networks. Surely the cinema is where the necessary experiments can be conducted as to how people will actually react and respond to the joined-up world of location based advertising and smart-phones.
The Specialist Outdoor media companies like Kinetic, Posterscope and IPM should catch this ball and run fast with it. Otherwise other communication specialists, with better personal styling granted, might eat this mouth-watering piece of your lunch.
