(Ecns.cn)--The big-budget movie is the type that dominates China's silver screens today, and you might conclude that if the technology used isn't 3D animation or the plot doesn't feature an ancient swordsman, a film has little chance of commercial success.
But a small-budget movie has produced a miracle at the box office by taking it home. 33 Days Since Breaking-Up (33 Days) was made on less than ten million yuan (U.S. $ 1.58 million), but audiences have paid over 300 million yuan (U.S. $ 47.28 million) to watch it.
Audiences naturally identify with the classic tear-jerker plot of lost love, but the film's massive internet marketing campaign is unique as well.
Lost love a universal story
"Being disappointed in love is a universal story - a normal experience just like catching the flu", the director Teng Huatao told China Newsweek, and he complimented his source, "The author writes an excellent heart-breaking story, sensitive, dramatic, and helplessly hopeful."
Originally posted in regular installments, just like Charles Dickens' works, the website named "Douban" allows the new modern feature of interactivity; reader responses to the episodes could be posted as well. Douban is an online artistic community of young people and Bao's unfolding tale evoked charged responses from regular readers. "I love this process where the readers and I warm to each other through the bonds of lost love", recalls Bao in her diary.
Teng Huatao is a director who cares about the ordinary increments of private lives playing out against the brutally fast pace of modern cities. The script for 33 Days was a perfect match for the director's forte. Teng is not a fan of panoramas and special effects. "I insist the essence of film is to evoke emotions common to audience members", Teng told China Newsweek.
Invention a necessity
The success of the film is a miracle because Teng's offspring did not initially delight everybody; most troubling, it was ignored by the media and shunned by would-be corporate sponsors. "Our cast and directors are stars in TV dramas, but newbies to film circles", says producer Hao Wei, "and the reporters covering TV dramas and film are two distinct groups. We could hardly arouse the media's interest."
Chen Shu was in charge of the film campaign. He disclosed, "We planned to cooperate with a big sponsor and let that company cover the expense of the film trailers. However, the other side had no confidence in us and the negotiations failed."
The film campaign staff was left with no other option but to create their own online self-promotion and marketing model, which soon turned heads in the traditional media and earned the group much credit for their brilliance at new media marketing.
Misery loves company
The movie's core target is audiences aged 18 to 30. Chen specializes in social media marketing and public opinion monitoring, and it was he that chose the internet as the major marketing platform.
Chen had done some analysis of the movie's core audience which is young people born in the 1980s and 1990s. This generation finds it easy to fall in love and also to jilt their lovers, he says. Lost love is a smart topic because this group is socially open and willing to share their depression and heart break with others. Marketing to emotions was going to be the right choice for the film campaign.
The campaign team was inspired by an ordinary old British lady who appealed to people via video over the internet to help her find her long lost love. The team decided to adopt the perspective of ordinary people.
It searched for average Joes and Janes who were willing to tell their heartbreaking tales, and then shot their narrative, cinema verite. The video reached an internet record at its summit – a click rate of 20 million. Based on the overwhelming response, the team did a second round of testimonials in seven cities across China, and produced the film trailer Lost Love Ana, which also enjoyed crazy circulation levels on the Internet.
