How important is the poster in selling an original new show?

The poster is everything in communicating the concept, tone and star power of Original content according to local subscription executives.

Speaking recently on Screen Forever panel there was consensus on the importance of marketing Original titles, which unlike acquired international titles, don’t come with any history or brand recognition.

But within that are crucial artistic decisions and the realisation that so much weight is attached on getting streaming viewers to click and play.

Cailah Scobie, Chief Content Officer at Stan said, “We invest incredibly heavily in marketing our Originals. I think one of the challenges with Originals is you are generating all of that marketing and that publicity yourself.

“Whereas with licensed content, there is often also international campaigns happening at the same time. But we take each piece of content, in terms of our Original slate, and look at the right marketing strategy: the audience obviously, a lot of outdoor advertising, digital advertising, TV, radio. It is a very important part of our strategy and ultimately, we want to find the audience for our shows.”

Alison Hurbert-Burns Executive Director at Binge said, “We look at what we’re commissioning, but then how we sell it. So when you come in and pitch to me, I’m already sitting there thinking, ‘How do we market it?’

“We won’t commission something if we’re not going to spend money marketing it. And in the ‘attention economy’ that we’re in, it’s really important. …especially if you’re launching a show from scratch. You have to create the awareness of it in a market that’s full of choice.”

Tyler Bern, Head of Content ANZ said Prime Video spends “an insane amount of time” looking at key art.

“It should be a 30 minute meeting, to look at a couple of different concepts, and then you’re on your way. But it’s hours and hours of time debating the merits of key art,” he explained.

“Deadloch is coming up in a month. We all know what Deadloch is in Australia. We’re gonna have a large marketing campaign. Everybody knows the Kates (McCartney / McLennan). You’re gonna see Deadloch up on Prime Video, and you’re going to click on it.

“But for our Indian customers, for our customers in Eastern Europe, they don’t know what Deadloch is, and they’re gonna see it on Prime Video. With so much content, we want the show to pop and we want them to click on it and to start to watch.

“So it becomes a very nuanced conversation about how we can best represent the show in a tiny little box. It’s a unique problem. We do a ton of testing and customer research just to make this tiny little box pop for our global customers.”

L to R: Tyler Bern, Alison Hurbert-Burns, Daniel Monaghan, Cailah Scobie.

Hurbert-Burns added, “You’re often having to shoot it when you’ve got the cast. So we’re shooting High Country (poster), while we’ve got everyone. Same with Love Me or Strife.

“It’s often a long way out when you’re conceiving the show and commissioning it. You’re thinking straight away about how you’re selling it.”

Daniel Monaghan, Senior Vice President, Content & Programming at Paramount ANZ agreed on the importance of key art in rows of home page posters.

“It’s the little picture that you click on. It’s not just a billboard anymore,” he said.

“It’s like the actual window in. The amount of times that you get from distributors -if you’ve acquired something or you’ve inherited something via your pipeline- key art that (makes) you think ‘You will need to change that for this market for it to get the click through, because it doesn’t necessarily work for an Australian audience….’

“You’ve got to have it right. Because otherwise, in a second, it slides on by, and then it’s gone out of their mind.”