Back in the 1980s when I was a cub reporter on the marketing beat, I had a memorable encounter with film marketing expert Marvin Antonowsky over his handling of Oscar nominated movie “Gandhi.” Antonowsky died earlier this week.
Pictured is part of an Exhibitor Book containing photo-ready analog “Gandhi” advertisements to use in 1983.
I knew I wouldn’t be able to reach him on the day Oscar nominations were announced, so I made a deal to interview him in advance on how Oscars nominations would be handled. Antonowsky was a tall, imposing man with a streak of impatience that surfaced immediately when I started my interview with very basic questions about awards marketing. He thundered why I was asking such stupidly basic questions.
I quickly dropped the introductory chit-chat and got to the heart of pre-setting advertising emblazoned with Oscar graphics for newspaper and TV ads, which he agreeably explained. He told me that there were only two things that could happen on Academy Awards nomination day. Plug in the big number of Oscar nominations in pre-arranged advertising or else cut down everything because the film failed to get enough nods (a link to my story is below). The epic biographical historical epic, “Gandhi” did not disappoint receiving 11 nomination and eventually won Best Picture.
Antonowsky was doubly interesting because he was among the first wave of a new breed of theatrical marketing executives that Hollywood studios literally plucked from the street of Madison Avenue in the 1980s. They were expert in selling packaged goods with TV advertising, and studios had started buying TV commercials in a big way. Antonowksky came from mainstream ad agencies J. Walter Thompson and also Kenyon & Eckhart (he would also work at NBC Television).
In contrast, the career marketing executives at the studios at that time were newspaper centric in media orientation, but movies were increasingly youth-market focus that required pricey TV advertising.
“The incumbent film executives had spent their entire careers in publicity with an emphasis on newspapers for both advertising and publicity efforts,” says the book “Marketing To Moviegoers”. “The very insular old-timers were suddenly working shoulder-to-shoulder with younger and worldlier newcomers who alone seemed to hold the key to the magic of the television medium.” Today, Hollywood’s marketing executive understand TV advertising, the internet and everything else that draws an audience.
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