Does PROMOS help a film?

They can both help and damage depending on individual cases. They create an awareness and prepare the audience to watch the movie in a certain programmed mindset. The problem with this is even the makers many times do not realize what mind set they are preparing out there with the audience.


For instance King Kong’s campaign in its promos and hoardings had a single point agenda that of exciting the people to come and watch a giant gorilla. As this is drilled into all concerned for months by the time the movie releases we all rush in and can’t wait to see the gorilla but instead we are subjected to nearly 45 minutes story without Kong making an appearance.
Why people would be restless in those 45minutes is because the promos prepared us to see Kong and not a story.


In my college days me and my friends went to see a Malayalam film starring Sridevi. The poster had Sridevi with her saree riding up half her thighs and that was the reason we were first in line. The theatre was packed and the film started and it turned out to be a very emotional and tragic and extremely well made film. But the point is we didn’t come to see that. One hour into the film when a scene came where Sridevi was finally wearing the same saree as that of in the poster there was a rustle in the theatre as everybody became high alert. In the scene her legs were shown for exactly one and half seconds in the situation before the film becomes super serious once again till the end. All of us almost wept at the betrayal of that poster.


Now the interesting point is if the distributors put a poster of a close-up of a teary eyed Sridevi instead of her legs we would have been in a mindset of watching an emotional story and then her leg could have come as a bonus if at all or maybe not even noticed as we would be immersed in the story. But looking at the poster of her legs from the still photograph taken at the time of that one and half second shot can create a hurricane in the minds of a particular audience. Anyway this is just one instance I wanted to give in the context of how a campaign can damage.