Maverick Entertainment presents “marketing mimicry”: targeting the urban‐American teen film‐viewer via DVD and direct‐download

Abstract

Purpose – This paper seeks to explore a host of straight‐to‐DVD and direct‐download motion picture marketing, production, and distribution strategies deployed by Florida‐based Maverick Entertainment. The focus is Maverick's most prominent and successful sub‐genre “urban teen gangsta” films.Design/methodolgy/approach – The somewhat wide‐ranging and eclectic approach taken in this paper draws from two emergent academic subdisciplines: consumer culture theory (CCT), largely on the business‐school side, and media industry studies (MIS), largely on the communications‐school side. The project thus attempts to bridge the interpretive poetics and eclecticism of CCT with the interpretive aesthetics and eclecticism of MIS and relies on a blend of filmic, marketing, PR, journalistic, trade publication, and academic evidence.Findings – It is argued that “marketing mimicry” – where Maverick imitates specific successful urban‐teen themed cross‐over film marketing strategies of major and mini‐major Hollywood studio titl...