What Kick-Ass Teaches Small Businesses About Targeting the Right Market

A product can gain buzz, like the movie Kick Ass did initially... but is the buzz coming from the right audience?

USA Today posted an article on the movie box office. Not unusual. In it, the article mentions the anticipation built for the movie Kick-Ass, even with comparison to another comic book turned movie 300. Not usual either. What was unusual was the relatively low box office. Yes there was online buzz. What's not kicking ass here?

Well, the common belief is that buzz does help for exposure.  But the movie had a risk -- The main characters were kids, yet the movie had an R rating.  That meant kids that would have been interested in the movie would be prohibited by the rating.

Takeaway for small businesses:

• Any ol' buzz is not equivalent to sales -- if the audience talking about the product the most can not use/see/purchase it, then the buzz is worthless. Which means....

• The target consumers really need to be the ones doing the buzzing to make an event/product launch a success. Otherwise...

• The benefit of what is being offered is not of value to the intended consumer. In this case, the tough sell was getting adults who could see an R-rated movie interested in seeing an action movie with children as main characters.

The last point is not a light subject in movie making. Even Star Wars creator George Lucas, who admits he likes the R2-D2 character the most, was concerned that the first Star Wars movie (Episode I: A New Hope) may not appeal to moviegoers because the earliest scenes  - between the attack on Princess Leia's ship and when audience first meet Luke Skywalker - contained no human faces onscreen for the audience to relate to.

In short terms, the benefit of a product may not be of value to a consumer.  In the case of Kick-Ass, the buzz may have been a distortion to whether the movie was marketed to the right audience. But there is some financial hope for Lionsgate (see this article on the box office for Kick-Ass in the LA Times).

What do you think? Offer your thoughts...