Artificial Scarcity

Some people in entertainment just don’t get it.

Take the Walt Disney marketing team for the movie, Star Wars Episode 7: The Force Awakens. Rather than releasing the trailer on TV or online, they decided to create artificial scarcity by deciding to air it only in 30 theaters worldwide (read that as the US and Canada). What was Disney thinking? That nobody who saw the trailer would record it on their phone and post it on the Net? Did they not understand the consequence of that as one Reddit explained:
“It’s like Disney WANTS the first thing people to see about ‘The Force Awakens’ to be a grainy, shaky footage someone at the back of the screen took with their iPhone.”
Responding to the online fury of the Star Wars faithful, Disney backtracked and said the trailer would also be made available on the iTunes Trailer site. Wait. So they decided to leave Android users out? Are these people brain dead? Star Wars has a global audience; and globally there are far, far more Android devices than iOS devices!

Then there’s JK Rowling. With a lot of hoopla, she launched the Pottermore site promising more information and trivia about the Harry Potter series. Like Disney, she too put created artificial constraints on how many people could create accounts to the site! It pissed off many, including yours truly. And then nothing. The site was hardly ever updated! No wonder that Carolyn Cox made this remark when Rowling recently posted the background to the detested Dolores Umbridge:
“You can check out the story right now using your Pottermore account (10 points to anyone who can remember their username).”

One thing that Rowling could learn from the Star Wars franchise though is to do some prequels (the opposite of sequels). An entire book even, not just a short online article. Grindelwald’s rise, reign and fall could be one book. Voldemort’s rise and reign the first time around could be another. C’mon, Rowling, you can do better than a couple of measly articles on peripheral characters or the rules of Quidditch.

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