How Marketing Helped Scream Franchise Slay At The Box Office
By now, the Scream movie franchise is as generational as it is durable – reaching everyone from Gen X to Gen Z during its 30-year run across production companies like Miramax and, more recently, Paramount.
While Scream basically coined the slasher-film-sendup genre, most of the sequels have also relied on strong marketing and a stable cast, such as Matthew Lillard, Neve Campbell and Courtney Cox, who show up in most of the seven titles to-date.
The most recent movie, Scream 7, has been a masterclass in cross-channel marketing.
According to iSpot, since late October when the first Scream 7 promo aired, these spots have delivered some 245 million household TV ad impressions in the U.S. on a little over $6 million dollar investment by media value (so including Paramount-owned networks).
Considering the flick just scored over $64 million in domestic box office sales for its opening weekend, that is none too shabby.
The top nets by share of TV ad reach features diverse audiences across multiple languages:
- NBC (23.6%)
- ESPN (16.3%)
- BET (7.3%)
- Telemundo (7.2%)
- Univision (6.5%)
When it comes to social, Tubular Labs, found that social media strategies helped amplify marketing spend, with over 1.5 billion video views across platforms featuring Scream 7.
Social media marketing aligned with linear TV ad spend, with four of the five most-seen videos about the movie were Spanish-language. What’s more is the most-seen videos were also heavy on owned content – with videos uploaded by either the stars of the film or Paramount's various regional pages (including Paramount Mexico).
With a strategy to market to younger, diverse moviegoers, such as Spanish-language moviegoers, and solid second-screen tactics, is it any wonder Scream 7 continues to “kill it” in ticket sales?
@paramountmexico Cada llamada, cada asesino, ha llevado a esto. #Scream7 ♬ original sound - Paramount México