7 Best Movies About Advertising and Marketing That You Must Watch

by Marie Barnes

Do you watch movies just for fun? Well, we are sure that movies may have a more significant influence than only amusement. What’s more, some of them may even reflect on our careers and teach us valuable lessons. Here is a list of 8 best movies for those who are into advertising and marketing.

The Social Network

The Social Network tells the story of Facebook’s rise from a simple site designed for college students to the most popular “social networking” website. For many people, this is the movie that defined its decade. It represents the business that is conflated with one persona – Mark Zuckerberg. Scott Brown wrote in his “The Social Network for Wired,” "Like Facebook itself, the unreadable public Zuck is a fascinatingly content-free platform, a cipher that avid minds can't help but fill with their own interests and obsessions."

The movie provides a marketer with insight into how to build a business based on a brand persona and what steps to take on the way to tech stardom. Additionally, it teaches some marketing lessons like how to reach out to and use influencers to spread your idea. Do you remember one of the guiding principles of today’s marketing? There is a common answer: building connections. And it exactly what Facebook does.

Steve Jobs

We can compare Sorkin’s portrayal of Jobs in Steve Jobs to his portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network. True, both of these movies feature the men who revolutionized the way people connect and gave rise to new ways of conducting marketing. This biographical movie is about the man behind Apple, who had a huge impact on technology and the world as we know it today. It’s fascinating to get an inside look at how Steve Jobs identified what people wanted by thinking as his persona.

Marketers can learn a lot from the movie. In Steve Jobs’ opinion, if you want to create a successful marketing message and build a powerful brand, you should communicate values in your marketing, not just features. Marketers should show people that they cannot live without your product. Remember, things don’t sell themselves.

What Women Want

What Women Want is a golden oldie featuring a male marketer who one day experiences electroshock and starts hearing everything women are thinking. The movie provides the marketer with a reminder that customers’ buying behavior depends on emotions.

IMHO, the movie is a must-see marketing training showing how to address to your target market. As a marketer, you should know the intended audience inside out, right? The movie shows how you can market in a way that means not just to know your audience but to understand it as well.

The Founder

The Founder is a movie about Ray Kroc, the “founder” of McDonald's. The story of a traveling salesman who seeks full control of a fast-growing empire and the two McDonald’s brothers who watch McDonald’s as their restaurant. In the movie, you can find many marketing tricks based on franchisee success. For marketers, it shows the importance of understanding the market, being flexible and open to changes. The movie turns to the idea of maintaining a consistent look and feel. This consistency of the brand delivers the same customer experience each time, which leads to success.

Syrup

Syrup is a drama film featuring two marketing executives who try to sell their energy drinks by creating the right image. The movie delivers a marketing message announced by Brett Forbes, an executive producer for the marketing satire Syrup. Image and perception are important in every aspect of marketing, but certainly not everything in life.” As a marketer, you can learn how to grab your buyer’s attention by creating a brand image. Besides, the movie is a reflection of a society where consumers are sometimes image-conscious and cynical.

Crazy People

Crazy People is a comedy about Emory, an ad executive, who composes honest and funny ads. After he presents them, the boss sends Emory to the asylum. Here is just one example of his ads, “United — most of our passengers get there alive.” The movie features a person who reaches his breaking point that results in opening up a new career path.

For a marketer, the story is a great example of truth-based marketing that can be incredibly effective. It teaches us to be honest. For example, if you make a mistake, admit it, and fix it. The movie shows how to do it right: “Buy Volvos. They’re boxy. But they’re good… Be safe instead of sexy.” The movie provides us with a good way to show the real benefits and stay honest with the process.

Moneyball

Moneyball is a true story about a baseball manager from Oakland A’s in Major League Baseball. He couldn’t afford to buy the “big players.” So he decided to take a different route and hired a “data-nerd.” When they started using the player’s statistics as their main strategy, the team started winning. For a marketer, the movie shows that you don’t need a big budget to be successful. Besides, it shows the importance of data, numbers, analytics, and statistics, rather than opinions or intuitions.

Do you want your business to stand out? So you should choose the right tools for managing your SEO campaign. That said, LinksManagement is the way to go. Its tools can help get more organic traffic to a website, boost sales, and increase earnings.

The Joneses

The Joneses is a movie featuring the perfect family. In reality, it’s all fake. They’re a group of marketers and actors who leverage their influence to promote products to their community. The movie is a “must-see” for all marketers. It provides a fascinating insight into “self-marketing” or “hidden marketing”, and influencer marketing. The “family” sells lifestyle by becoming attractive and taking a more personal approach.

The movies mentioned above can teach us many valuable marketing lessons. They are just a few examples that can trigger all sorts of marketing insights and motivation. What movies have been useful in your career as a marketer or have inspired your inner marketer?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Marie Barnes is a writer for Bestforacar and an enthusiastic blogger interested in writing about technology, social media, work, travel, lifestyle, and current affairs. She shares her insights through blogging. Follow her on Medium.