Put on a Happy Face

Have you ever noticed how many FYC campaigns are forced to show their characters in full blown happy mode at all times? The reason for this is a depressing one: people don’t watch depressing movies. If they have a pile of screeners, most of them are going to watch the films they know won’t make them want to put their head in an oven. Hence, films that have very difficult emotional scenes are portrayed as happy happy happy.

Take, for example, three ad campaigns currently running Hollywood-Elsewhere: The Kids Are All Right, Somewhere and Another Year. None of these ad campaigns tell you what you need to know about how good these films are – they are just shiny, happy carrots dangling out there in hopes that, if they’re happy enough, or make you feel happy enough, you just might watch the movie. I suppose the same could be said for the Blue Valentine ads on this site – all happy all the time.¬† Does the strategy work, do you think?