Michael Moore's "SiCKO" - Understanding the art of buzz creation
Earlier this month, CustomScoop’s Sarah Wurrey posted on the possible PR headaches that might ensue for the health care industry when Michael Moore’s latest film, SiCKO, is released on June 29. We found the variety and diversity of blog chatter on the film fascinating, and decided to do some deeper analysis of where the chatter is coming from, what’s triggering it, and what the tone of the conversation is.
As Moore will be up in our neck of the woods tomorrow, appearing in Manchester for a screening of his film, we thought we’d share some of our findings.
While always a polarizing figure, Michael Moore understands better than most how controversy creates interest, and the lead up to the US premier of his latest film is no exception.
Prior to the initial showing at the Cannes Film Festival back in May, an exchange between Mr. Moore and the government caused an increase in chatter when the U.S. Treasury Department said it was investigating whether or not Moore had violated a long-standing trade embargo with Cuba. During the filming of “SiCKO,” Moore took a group of 9-11 workers to Cuba for health care he claimed they could not get in the US.
The discussion started to ratchet up when former Senator (and likely presidential candidate) Fred Thompson entered the fray.
Thompson, who earlier in May had written a piece for the conservative National Review criticizing Moore’s trip, was challenged to a debate on the health care issue by Moore. Thompson issued a not-so-typical response by posting a short video on Breitbart TV, which is also available on YouTube.
This all occurred in the lead up to the film’s introduction at Cannes, on May 19, the most obvious spike in chatter. After the premier in Cannes, chatter dropped off a bit, but has recently started increasing again, just prior to the film’s US theater release on June 29.
After chatter from Cannes started to die down, smaller spikes followed: after the filmmaker’s appearance on Oprah (June 5); his testimony before a legislative committee in Sacramento (June 12); and the appearance of a pirated copy of the film on the Internet (June 15).
That Moore is a master at sustaining buzz shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. One blogger even speculates that Moore himself leaked the film to the Internet. Moore has solicited video stories from YouTube users to be posted on a group site for the film: http://www.youtube.com/group/sickothemovie.
Both his supporters and his detractors have taken to Web 2.0 medium to get their own messages out, all of which is adding considerably to the film’s ability to stay in the public eye in traditional media as well. The result, as shown in the tonality chart below, has been a boon to Moore:
Neutral coverage from entertainment and blogs owned by mainstream media sites, or blog posts by individuals who simply note the film’s upcoming release, make up 42 percent of the coverage we’ve rated thus far. Positive and Somewhat Positive coverage makes up 37 percent, demonstrating that Moore’s supporters are active on blogs and are actively supporting the filmmaker online.
We’re going to continue to monitor the chatter on this, up through and maybe a bit past the film’s release on June 29, to see how the conversation develops.
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