The movie trailer, the most common but vital marketing campaign element, is the art of the tease and lure. With about 2 minutes, marketers attempt to give the audience an inkling of premise, actors, scene, and tone of the movie in order to convince audience to buy a ticket and sit in the cinema for 2 hours. Today, the trailer market is quite mature and even stereotypic, especially in Hollywood. Film investors are willing to spend millions of dollars for a 2 to 3 minutes video because they know well that the trailer could greatly affect the opening and following gross of a movie. .
A few weeks ago, I watched the trailer of the film "Her" by Spike Jonze occasionally. In this two and half minutes video, the transition, the climax, the breakdown, the emotion changes, the tone of scripts, the music of piano, they are mixed and paired harmoniously and elegantly, making me feel the character. But after watching the movie, I thought its trailer is more graceful and exquisite than movie itself. "Her" is about a lonely writer developing a relationship with a highly intellectual operating system and getting hurt. According to the most common form of audience segments, there are four quadrants: men under 25; older men; women under 25; and older women (Inside a movie marketer's playbook, Tad Friend). Usually women under 25 and older women are the core audience of this type of doomed love and tragic romance story, but "Her" consists of so many elements, such as the setting of future technology and city, a failure marriage, romance between human being and virtual system, sex, betray and cheating, so it seems broadly relatable. When I watch the trailer, I was curious about this future operating system, the ending of their relationship, and attracted by the sexy voice of Scarlett Johansson. However, the movie itself is dull, fatigued, and easily predictable, since the trailer spoils too much to its audience, leading us no expectation and little suspense.
