Business journalist/analyst Robert Marich, who authored the book “Marketing to Moviegoers,” has decades of experience covering film, traditional media and new media. His forte is translating data and business concepts into easy-to-digest written descriptions.
CNBC, CNN, Fox Business Channel and the “Today” show have interviewed him for film-related stories. As author of the book, he has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg News, Variety, the Hollywood Reporter, the New York Post, Toronto Star, Washington Times and Media Post.
He’s been a guest speaker at the Beijing Film Workshop, Bradley University, Columbia University, Fordham University, Loyola Marymount University, University of North Carolina, Notre Dame University and the Zlin Festival (Czech Republic). He has blogged on media topics for Huffington Post.
As a journalist, he currently is a free-lance writer for Variety, the Los Angeles Business Journal and, of course, the next edition of “Marketing to Moviegoers.” In the past, Marich contributed to London-based Screen International, Broadcasting & Cable, the Los Angeles Times, Emmy Magazine, Forbes magazine and the Pacific Coast Business Times.
Earlier in his career, Marich held full time jobs at Kagan Research, Variety’s Deal Memo film newsletter, the TV International newsletter, The Hollywood Reporter, Investors Business Daily, Advertising Age and Television Week/Electronic Media. He also worked as a researcher for Adams Media/IHS Screen Digest.
In 2009, 2012, 2015 and 2018, he served as lead editor updating new editions of “Music Business Handbook and Career Guide,” which is a leading college textbook. Marich also authored text for photo-driven book “More Than Just a Kiss: Movies About Love” for White Star Publishing that was published in English and three other European languages in October 2010.
Now based in the New York City area, he covered film while living in Los Angeles, London and New York. As a journalist, he attends important film and TV program markets around the world. Marich is a graduate of Bradley University in Peoria, IL.
From Robert Marich’s Introduction to “Marketing to Moviegoers.”
When I was a cub reporter in the early 1980s, I broke into business covering Hollywood as an epochal shift engulfed movie marketing. The incumbent film executives had spent their entire careers in publicity with an emphasis on newspapers for both advertising and publicity. In the late 1970s, shifts in the core movie business gradually made television advertising the centerpiece of marketing.
There was a pearl of wisdom that I still remember from this previous generation of movie marketing executives. They advised to always “sell the sizzle and not the steak.” If one is marketing a monster movie, the trailer and advertising should show terrified people, but not the monster. Leave the moviegoers intrigued enough to want to buy a ticket to see that. Interestingly, the opposite philosophy prevails today, because film marketing is an era of the “tell-all trailer.”
Read more excerpts from the film marketing book.