Three recent approaches to marketing a flick...

...and one of them is going the way of the dinosaurs when it comes to marketing them.

With a tip of the hat to Scott over at Idea Grove, the first one involves Kevin Smith with a very cool little trick to get build buzz on Myspace for Clerks II. Add a link, be in a movie. (Not quite, but read more there.)

The second concerns the previously mentioned Snakes on A Plane and the well-known efforts of a blogger to get tickets to opening night. This effort built enough buzz to have the marketing department on the picture change to reflect the blog effort. Tail wagging the dog, but the big test will be opening weekend. If it blows up huge, watch out for Snakes On A Sequel blogs everywhere.

The third, and my least favorite, but still the most typical of the way the movie industry promotes can be found in Adam Brandler’s latest movie, Click. I think I counted 49 brands referenced in the first third of the movie alone, but I may be wrong:

Best Buy^®, Bed, Bath and Beyond^®, Staples^®, Twinkies^®, Ho-Ho’s^® and TGI Friday’s^®, and so on. Hard to believe they still needed funding that bad to have that much placement.

I’m betting Snakes will do great based on the trailer I saw and the efforts of the blog. So will Clerks II, and not just because of the success of the first one either, but because people like Smith are showing they understand how to take advantage of new channels now available with which to promote a film, and engage people, ahead of time.

Contrast that with the producers of Click who took the easy way out, (for them at least), and blanketed the screen with the same ol’ same product placement in the movie and trailers leading up to it. Oh shoot wait, I forgot, they probably did a tie-in with Best Buy for a special movie edition ‘Click’ remote.

Although that one probably doesn’t mute the dog.

Tags: advertising, Click, brands, viral, Clerks II, Snakes On A Plane