The Art of Selling the Artless

Hard to tell if this is cutting-edge satire of the amorality involved in Hollywood publicity or honest insight from someone who forgot what a soul looks like, but this how-to guide for marketing DVD dreck in a dozen easy steps works well as both.

Many are obvious -- sex up the package, Cuisinart critics' blurbs, copious radio giveaways (the author refers to her market as "film(s) made for radio"), overemphasize a bit player who has since achieved stardom. Others are more amusingly diabolical:

"MySpace is a key stop on the bad movie marketing tour. After creating a cool looking homepage for the film, recruiting a few celebrity “friends� and posting a deceptive, download-able trailer, it’s time to hold a contest! ... After the film has made about 10,000 MySpace friends, I send out announcements about the star studded “premiere after-party� (date and time to follow, of course) to all our new pals, asking them (did we mention the after-party?) to post a promotional banner on their own webpages. Yes, this actually works."

Only once the author got to her description of said DVD release party was I sure she was just kidding:

"The goal of the party is to have something momentous happen — D-list celebrity catfights, drunken brawls, feuding rapper shootouts — which will be later mentioned by the gossip columns and tabloid press. If done correctly, the party will not only interest the soft news media but will also catch the attention of city services such as the fire department or the local bomb squad."

Surely she's kidding about sacrificing a rapper or two just to promote remainder-pile material, right?

Right?

Just think what'd happen if someone could come up with an equally ingenious formula for selling quality stuff.