United International Pictures (UIP) — the film distribution giant owned by Universal and Paramount — has launched UIP Mobile, which will market the movies direct to consumers in a bid to reduce the companies reliance on exclusive deals with operators.
“The move will see mobile Internet sites produced for every film and highlights the increasing shift by content providers away from operator portals…Once UIP Mobile, which has been soft-launched, has been evaluated, the company plans to include the mobile site address on all above-the-line marketing materials, in the same way Web URLs are included today.”
The company is experimenting with different ways of offering the content (which includes trailers, ringtones and exclusive movie news), and the WAP portal is joined by mobile content ‘packs’ that users can download from the UIP web site to their computer and transfer it to their phone via bluetooth or USB.
“If we strike a deal with an operator, we may break exclusive content there first,” said UIP senior media manager Steve Hunt. “Then it would go onto UIP Mobile. Some content will be exclusive with operators, some with UIP Mobile – we’re testing.”
Considering that the movie industry views this content as promotional it doesn’t make a lot of sense to restrict it to one carrier, so I expect to see every movie producer and distributor moving this way. Things like trailers are pure advertising, and it’s good to get advertising to the consumer with as little cost to them as possible.
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