‘Blood Into Wine’ is the story of rock star Maynard James Keenan’s mission to make quality wine from his vineyard in an arid corner of Arizona. Maynard may be a 40m album selling rock star in command of a loyal (often obsessive) fan-base, but a documentary film about wine is the very definition of niche.
Geting a distribution deal for a special interest film is a tough challenge and that’s why Semi-Rebellious Films (the producers of the film) decided to approach distribution differently. From the start they saw this as a social sell. Word of mouth promotion to like minded individuals was the order of the day and they encouraged fans of both wine and of music to host private screenings at any venue that fitted – be at bar, restaurant or, in my case, at a private cinema.
The message was simple. ‘Organise an event and we’ll send you a DVD of the movie to show. When you’ve watched it, tell us what you think, tell your friends what you think and tell your social networks what you think.’
Fans were encouraged to post on the official Facebook page, via twitter and on blogs. For the producers, everything was geared towards the DVD release a few months out from the start of their marketing. The alternative distribution of the movie was designed to generate a buzz for the compact format of the feature. Their calculations clearly led them to believe that this is where their money would be made.
I liked this idea an awful lot and wanted to to test out my own wine social network so I contacted the producers directly and organised a screening to coincide with their visit to London. This afforded me a great opportunity to run a Q&A session after the screening and within 2 weeks of reaching out to my network I’d filled out the RSA’s private screening room with wine bloggers, distributors, merchants, tweeters, and a few Tool fans for good measure.
The story of the event is told here but the learning of this alternative model of distribution was clear.
If you can’t get the theatres to put on your show then hand the show over to the people.
