Author | Reed note
Of the six key films in the Spring Festival, "Hot and Hot" is the first to go viral: on January 11, Jia Ling posted on Weibo about her mental journey, announcing that the film was released on the first day of the Lunar New year. # Jia Ling lost 100jin # exploded, and the next day, the new trailer released, # this can't be Jia Ling's arm # reached the top again. In those two days, the number of people who wanted to see "Hot and Hot" on Cat Amoy platform increased by nearly 1.7 billion.
Before that, however, there was an episode: a week before the official announcement, a suspected photo of Jia Ling after losing weight was released.
The girl in the picture looks like Jia Ling, skipping rope in a pink coat and losing a lot of weight. The release of this photo soon brought the first wave of discussion to Jia Ling's new film, but judging from a lot of evidence, it may not be the film's initiative, or even upset the rhythm of the announcement.
Similarly, not long ago, Mr. A's long-term stand-in for "Flowers" posted a photo of himself and Xin Zhilei on social platforms. In the play, Mr. A, who has always been mysterious, had a face, and some viewers were very dissatisfied, believing that this destroyed Mr. A's mystery and the blank space of the plot (many suspected that Mr. A was played by Hu Ge). The stuntman then sent an apology, and soon after, the account was cancelled.
After the rise of short videos, spoiler marketing is not new, and there are even active spoilers like Yu Zheng and Guo Jingming, who want to publicize every step such as makeup and framing to the audience. but the emergence of "special cases" like the above also makes people wonder: where is the scale of spoilers? How does the industry do a good job of keeping secrets?
Heat is good.Spoiler marketing has a long history. Before the release of "Reunion 4" in 2019, an anti-drama publicity film was specially produced, which aroused audience curiosity, created topics of discussion, and spawned a lot of memes. People flocked to the premiere in order not to be spoiled by spoilers. In the end, the zero-point opening of "couplet 4" grossed nearly 200 million, accounting for 87.4% of the day's box office.
In 2020, Jiang Ziya released three paragraphs of commentary on Douyin before the release of the poisonous tongue Movie, which received hundreds of millions of broadcasts, 4 million likes and 100000 comments. the next day, the number of people who wanted to see Jiang Ziya exceeded 2 million. On the contrary, this kind of active spoiler aroused users' interest in watching movies.
But the recent "Hot and Hot" slimming photo leak and Mr. A's stand-in photo incident are clearly another negative.
Jia Ling revealed on Weibo that she had lost 100 jin for filming "Hot and Hot" on Jan. 11, and the hot search soon went viral. In the past year, in order to maintain her sense of mystery, Jia Ling voluntarily disappeared from the public eye and did not participate in the new season of Ace versus Ace, nor did the crew attend when she walked the red carpet on Weibo night. The whole network was looking for a recent photo of her, and finally found a group photo posted by Zhang Xiaofei on Weibo in April last year, showing a significant change in the shape of her face.
In the long Weibo post, she mentioned, "I know that I have lost 100jin, and now as long as I meet you, it is the best publicity for the movie, but I can't bear to give up." I'm afraid of interrupting the surprise of the movie, and I don't want you to think that I just made a movie about losing weight. " It seems to be a response to the suspected slimming photos released the week before.
Judging from some clues, this "spoiler" is probably not the film's initiative. First of all, when the photo came out, the film had not been officially filed, and there has been no official response since then. Some people think it may be an AI face-changing synthesis, while others find that most of the first slimming photos posted on Weibo have been "sandwiched". Recently, Dong Yuhui said in a live broadcast that he had seen the movie, and Jia Ling refuted the rumor: "the pictures circulated on the Internet are fake."
However, whether it is a real photo or not, the "Jia Ling weight loss photo" incident did cause the first wave of popularity, with the Baidu index showing the first small peak in the "Jia Ling" search index from January 4 to 6.
After the official announcement, the discussion also focused on the topic of weight loss.
The slimming incident has become a blurred area, and everything has become what Liu Cixin calls a "chain of suspicion", but objectively speaking, it does contribute a lot to the popularity of the early stage of the film. It is reasonable to prove that the film is well aware of the concerns of netizens, and there is a figure full of muscle in the official trailer, but it is Zhang Xiaofei who turns around.
Jia Ling's slimming down is indeed the biggest selling point of "hot and hot" at present. As early as last June, "Jia Ling needs to lose 100 jin in order to lose weight for her new role" went on a hot search, and everyone already knew that this was preparing for her new film. And whether to lose weight successfully, what is the effect of losing weight in the end, in order to keep the suspense to the end, these will only be seen in the cinema on the first day of the Lunar New year.
When the stand-in of "Flower" Mr. A posted a photo with Xin Zhilei on the social platform, "Flower" is still two days away from its membership finale, and the identity and ending of Mr. A have not yet been revealed. At this time, the actor was in a hurry to "show his face", causing dissatisfaction among netizens, thinking that it affected the mystery of watching the play and the necessary blank space, and destroyed the audience's different imagination of Mr. A.
Finally, the stuntman deleted the blog and apologized, and the account was cancelled soon after.
As a result, this episode does not have much impact on the popularity and word-of-mouth of "Flowers" itself, but the audience who is chasing the show does not have a good impression.
There are also cases in which spoilers directly have a greater impact. In the popular "Xianjian 6", one of the protagonists, Zhu Shifang, was not originally played by Zhou Lijie. Shortly after the launch of Xianjian 6, Reuters photos of characters such as Shu Fang were complained that netizens thought the actors did not stick to the roles at all. It wasn't long before everyone found that the play had changed.
In addition to this kind of passive spoilers, there are also active spoilers on the film side. For example, recently, when the film "five Fortune Linmen" started a make-up live broadcast on Weibo, the lead actor appeared in front of the camera one by one with make-up, asking fans to put forward their opinions, and the creator responded and modified accordingly. This afternoon, he also posted pictures on Weibo, spoiling several pairs of CP kissing scenes in the play.
What is the rhythm of the spoiler in the heart of the marketer?Generally speaking, the film side will have some requirements on the spoiler before the film is released, especially for the film with suspense reversal element, the creator will have a clear control over the release rhythm.
Take "the Tide of anger" as an example, there are multiple reversals in the film, and the final suspense is that the three stars who do not seem to be in the same camp are actually working together to set up revenge. Xiaoxiao, who is in charge of marketing the film, told Xiaowu, "before the film is released, neither the director nor the film wants us to tell the audience that the three protagonists are in the same camp, or do they want to keep this suspense." Their real relationship will not appear in the material until a week after its release, and then focus on three men to avenge their families and victims. "
Last summer's hit "the Vanishing her" premiered at the Hainan International Film Festival half a year before its release, and the audience at that time was told that they "hope not to spoil it on social platforms." The marketing action before the release of the film is also obviously based on suspense, and the early posters are all about "limit reversal".
Until after the Dragon Boat Festival, the popularity of the movie became more and more popular, and marketing also focused on social topics such as "falling in love must see", "why not take you to see the undersea starry sky" and other topics, which is tantamount to completely exposing the biggest suspense point in the film. Why not the man's motives and tactics have all been exposed. For this official behavior, some marketers told puffer fish, "at that stage, the core topic of the film has completely shifted from suspense to scumbag, so even if spoilers destroy the perception of some suspense fans, but for the market, only the advantages outweigh the disadvantages."
Plot reversal is the key point to attract the core suspense audience in the early warm-up process of the film, so the marketing rhythm also needs to be carried out step by step. In addition, the mystery of new actors, new roles and new images may also become a gimmick in pre-screening marketing.
For example, in order to maintain the mystery, Naran, who played the role of Da Ji in the first movie, did not take any other plays before its release. The actor who plays Li Na in "playing alone" directed by Peter Chan has also been the focus of attention both inside and outside the industry.
Jia Ling's weight loss of 100 jin in "Hot and Hot" also belongs to this category, but Xiaoxiao believes that "it is not uncommon for an actor to lose weight abroad. It is a sign of an actor's professionalism to lose weight or gain a lot of weight for a character." But at home, it often becomes a gimmick or marketing point. As for the effect, it ultimately depends on whether the change in the artist's body size plays a key role in promoting the plot, as well as the success of the film itself. "