As a creative geek and ex film industry monkey, I particularly adore movies, because I know how insanely hard they are to bring to fruition. And that's just practically speaking, leave aside the corporate and funding machinations. Then you have to promote your creation. Maybe that's harder still.

Last year I 'experienced' Blade Runner 2049. I watched it three times in a week.

It's lurid romantic melancholy is sticking to me like paint thrown at a Holi festival. It is IN-CRED-I-BLE. Right now (ask me again in a couple of years) it is my film of the decade. 

Then I started thinking about it as a marketing wonk. Having the perfect product would outwardly seem to be manna from heaven. But we are so bombarded by hyperbole, amped to eleven trash Biggest Budget Wins marketing, that we have become numb to much of it.

Bad products need selling too, apparently. To compete they need the marketing that has caused consumers to become cynical of all sales messages. That is a nightmare environment the genuine marketeer, big or small, with a great product, has to move within.

PASSION. AUTHENTICITY. CONSUMER INTERACTION. COMMUNITY.

In this scenario the marketeer must seek the tools that they have an advantage in. Hopefully that's your customers and consumers. Contrary to popular opinion, people aren't stupid. Engage your audience and their greater collective power to drive your product. A poor product daren't try this. It must SHOUT at it's audience, and nobody likes people that shout (NB: brands are people, but that's for another time).

A great product asks you to join and help. A great product put to it's intended audience with passion and real-ness (no corporate vanilla speak or jargon) will be carried on a wave of goodwill and praise. Your audience WANTS to help you. Help them help you.

FUN FACT: GENUINE MARKETING HAS A BETTER RETURN ON INVESTMENT. IT'S NOT JUST WELL MEANING FLUFF.

We all want great products. A beautiful film is a great product. We appreciate great products, and we'll fight to tell others about our experience. Blade Runner 2049 is an exceptional product.

Enable your community. Talk to it as a peer. Look after it. Respect it. Thank your community for driving you forwards.

Marketing Blade Runner 2049 must be, should be, a nightmare. If I was in the team, I'd feel it was my duty to sell an awesome product, that talented people worked on for years and risked their hides to create. I'd HAVE to let the world know. But what if it gets lost amongst the din of every other movie saying how awesome it is? The prospect of the pap winning, genuinely makes me feel ill. Marketeers should feel this way.

I do empathise though. Film marketeers can't just market what they love. They will have a string of movies, with widely varying qualities. Passion and authenticity is hard found in a corporation, but it exists, and can flourish...Another blog, and compromise and pragmatism.

Do see Blade Runner 2049. It is a genuine masterpiece, a modern miracle of creativity.