As the teaser for Paul Thomas Anderson's "The Master" debuts today, I’ve always wondered how well movie trailers do for news sites. I sure like them, and they’re fairly low-hanging fruit that easily jazzes things up. But I also wonder why nobody in the trade space has mastered the presentation, the distribution and the overall “bigness” that trailers represent. THR had “Skyfall” leading the site this morning, an idea I like…but it doesn't happen all the time, and their trailers are either strewn throughout the homepage or actually buried here, tucked away on the video page once they fall away from the general news roll. Variety often places the trailers here in their Boffo blog but doesn’t particularly call them out in a more significant way. The Wrap has no dedicated place for them at all. Deadline actually does highlight a trailer section here on the homepage (on their top tab). I’m not a fan of the “hot” designation (feels a bit '80s), but they are trying to do something solid. But still, why won’t these sites work harder to make them more of a major component, both aesthetically and editorially?
There are so many opportunities to show them off, and they appeal to every one of these organizations' audiences: the knowledgable entertainment fan, the general web surfer and the business-to-business reader; and if you’re the THR, for example, tubthumping growing consumer traffic, then these are the kinds of things that need to be blasted wide nonstop, as well live in a beautiful home that gets shown off often. I also don’t know why there isn’t more of a race to get them exclusively. I realize the studios want the giant portals like Yahoo! and MSN to have them first…but I can’t imagine some negotiation, horsetrading and dealmaking couldn’t get these sites in the game. Am I missing something?
No comments:
Post a Comment