Does this make sense to anyone?

Does this make sense to anyone?

Last year, Universal Studios enlisted the help of the Firefly fan base to promote the movie Serenity. Joss Whedon himself stated that if it wasn't for the Firefly fans' support, the movie would never have been made.

I was one of those fans, and I received a special invitation (along with a few thousand of my closest Browncoat friends) to review the film on my blog prior to full release. The film was further promoted - largely by the fan base - through the tactic of guerilla marketing.

And now, one of those fans, who goes by the online handle of 11th hour, has been emailed a cease-and-desist order by Universal Studios, along with a demand for US$9000 and threats of a $150000 lawsuit. This order is about original artwork that 11th hour sells based on Firefly and Serenity. In effect, she is still taking part in the guerilla marketing campaign, which so boosted the revenues Universal made from bums in the seats at theaters and sales of DVDs and other merchandise.

In other words, she has been doing for Firefly what Andy Warhol did for Campbell's Soup - promoting it through her original artwork. Whereas Warhol did the soup can image merely to create art for art's sake, 11th hour has been doing it to promote and hopefully increase Universal's Firefly and Serenity DVD sales.

Memo to movie studios that use guerilla marketing campaings, and use the fan base to promote your product: do not bite the hand that feeds you so very, very well. If you rely on the fans themselves to promote your work, then don't get all pissy if they actually, you know, promote your work. Instead, accept it for the free advertising that it is.

Otherwise, you may find yourself facing a backlash.

One of these days, I hope that movie studios, TV networks and the like realize that the internet is not taking revenue away from them, but is instead a potential cash cow that they are not utilizing effectively. Universal did use the internet very effectively last year through the essentially free promotion they got for the movie Serenity, but heavy-handed tactics like this have the potential to undo a lot of the effectiveness of such promotions in the future. After all, who wants to participate in free guerilla marketing for a film studio if they think it will only get them sued?

Technorati Tags: Movies, Firefly, Serenity