4 lessons for today’s PR from the smash hit.
Lightning Czabovsky is associate professor of public relations at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
“Backrooms” exploded at the box office with a record breaking $81 million in its opening weekend. Besides roughly tripling distributor A24’s previous opening weekend record, the feat is all the more impressive for a film that cost about $10 million and had little in the way of traditional marketing.
So, what led to the film’s success? And why have you perhaps not even heard of it?
Well, you may not spend a lot of time in the backrooms of YouTube.
The film is based on a 4chan concept that was eventually popularized into a series of YouTube short films by Kane Parsons (aka Kane Pixels), a director so young he’s reportedly still weeks away from being able to legally celebrate his success with alcohol. The shorts, set in the creepy world of spartan rooms, have garnered a couple hundred million views on YouTube.
So, how is it that a film with a tiny fraction of the production and marketing budget of Disney’s latest “Star Wars” could take out that film mere days after its release? And wasn’t it just a few months ago A24 used the much more expensive, loud, everything, everywhere, all at once PT Barnum-like PR approach to turn Timothee Chalamet’s “Marty Supreme” into a short-lived placeholder as their top grossing film?
It could feel like a black swan event if “Backrooms” was the first time this has happened. But, it’s the third YouTube-related box office success story to happen this year.
In January, YouTube creator Markiplier, who built up 38 million followers by playing video games, self-financed and self-distributed the indie horror film-based-on-a-game, “Iron Lung.” Using fan demand to get theaters to show his film, his YouTube-centric promotion approach resulted in over $50 million at the box office.
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And, one of the only reasons “Backrooms” didn’t make more opening weekend is because another indie hit, “Obsession,” is still having its own wild box office run after increasing its box office returns in its second and third weekends, an unheard of reality in modern day theatergoing word of mouth. That film comes from Curry Barker, a 26-year-old director who also became famous by, you guessed it, making YouTube content.
Forgoing the big budget ad spend and legacy PR approach of the (now getting cancelled) late night celebrity talk show circuit of entertainment publicity, these films offer four lessons of today’s PR:
- To build upon a community, you have to have created a strong community first
Some may simply say the takeaway is, “Let’s partner with someone on YouTube!” But the first lesson is not one about a platform but about relationships. These successes are only successes because these creators spent years building a community of loyal fans and supporters. Years ago, when Planned Parenthood found itself in a defunding situation with the Komen Foundation, it activated its supporters on Facebook. But it could have only done so because it had already cultivated that infrastructure and those relationships long beforehand. Therefore, any relationship is only of value if it’s been built and maintained, often requiring years of work.
- Good relationships are often multi-layered
The relationships are not just between creators and their fans. On May 31st, Markiplier released “Iron Lung” digitally. But, while many distributors release their materials on platforms from Amazon to a rotation of streamers, “Iron Lung” is exclusively being released on YouTube. While it may seem like this limits its potential, the reality is Markiplier has a relationship built with his fans on the platform. But his success is also in part because of his loyalty and partnership with YouTube. And YouTube’s success is because of their loyalty to Markiplier, resulting in the platform giving the creator extra perks for the exclusivity. Successful relationships are often built in an ecosystem of multi-tiered relationships, therefore making this an example of what layers of mutually beneficial relationships truly look like.
- Meeting expectations is a form of trust in a relationship
These mutual benefits only work if followers are getting what they want and expect from the relationship. The “Backrooms” film is built from the “Backrooms” shorts. “Iron Lung” stems from a relationship built on video games. Even when people or organizations are at their peak with many followers, they still have to give what is expected of them from that relationship. For example, even at Adam Sandler’s theatrical peak, his fans generally stayed home for his serious turns in “Punch-Drunk Love” and “Reign Over Me.” Influence is a form of relationship expectation. And expectation is a form of trust.
Legacy media needs YouTube, not the other way around
When newer media stars become a success on an older platform, it’s common to hear how these creators have become “Hollywood stars.” But, the reality is the inverse: these creators are demonstrating they’re already stars or influencers in their own domain. The same occurs when Taylor Swift drops her products in theaters as an extra cash cow.
And success doesn’t have to be wide-reaching. To gross $50 million in theaters, that means only about 10% of Markiplier’s YouTube followers needed to show up. The lesson being, make sure to appreciate and measure where the real value is in your media relations realities. These creators are showing their value is mostly on the newer platform; their content’s release in older forms of media are just the icing on the cake.
Industry measures also often fail to properly capture these realities, as seen by industry tracking predicting “Backrooms” opening with less than a third of its ultimate result, a common legacy media measurement problem when 3/4ths of the audience was reportedly under 35. Imagine other PR industries being that far off in their metrics. Therefore, it’s important to ask if your measures are too legacy based in their understanding of your audiences.
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