IN GOOD COMPANY

There's a new movie coming out from Universal Pictures and Grace Hill Media called IN GOOD COMPANY. I've seen the trailer and it looks like it could be pretty interesting (you can see the trailer here).

Marketing of a lot of things is changing rapidly with the rise of the blogosphere, and Grace Hill Media is trying something new with this movie. In addition to providing special screenings to the media and critics, they are offering a free screening to any who runs their own blog. I've decided to take them up on it and will report on the movie once I've had a chance to see it.

If you have a blog, you can also take advantage of this offer:

There’s been overwhelming response from bloggers responding to the offer for free tickets to an advance screening of IN GOOD COMPANY.

So Universal Pictures and Grace Hill Media wants to respond to that enthusiasm by upping the ante: any blogger who signs up for the free tickets and then posts this offer and a link to the IN GOOD COMPANY trailer on their site will be automatically entered in a contest to win their very own private screening of IN GOOD COMPANY in their town. The winner can either fill the screening with their friends and family, or see the film alone with that special someone – it’s entirely up to them. One lucky blogger here in the US will win.

Sign up at info@gracehillmedia.com and send us your link. And of course, all the non-winners will still be eligible to attend an advance screening in their area.

I think this is a pretty smart idea on the part of Grace Hill Media. Normally word of mouth on a movie can't start until it actually hits the theaters. With this approach, potentially thousands of bloggers with millions of readers can start the word of mouth going and generate traffic for the movie. Of course, if the picture is bad, it also has the potential to kill the thing before release. I'm guessing that Grace Hill thinks they've got a winner here, or they wouldn't be quite to willing to have a bunch of bloggers at advance screenings.

If this works for Grace Hill, I wouldn't be surprised to see this approach taken with other products.