Licensing: Lights Camera Advert!

But Hollywood is always up for a remake and the big studios have wasted no time in adapting to this scenario. Instead of selling blockbuster properties to brands, studios are increasingly partnering with companies for joint promotions. The film is then publicised through the brand's marketing spend.

A good example of this has been the large number of tie-ins between romantic comedies and online dating sites. These allow films to be promoted through sites' email lists, while the sites themselves are able to use the films to give added benefits to members.

Andrew Ryan, managing partner at Universal Pictures, says: "Gone are the days when studios were in total control of the promotion. The value the brand brings in terms of exposure has now been recognised. If we can work with Heineken on the Jason Bourne films and they spend multi-millions on media, then we're not going to moan about only receiving a relatively small fee for that."

Legislation concerns have forced the studios to become more creative, says Ryan, citing The Incredibles as an example of what promotional licensing used to be like. "It was impossible to walk down a supermarket aisle and avoid it. It got over-exposed and brands didn't get an awful lot out of it."

Although this type of joint promotion has always gone on, it is becoming much more prevalent. The very existence of these deals is providing less of a reason for brands to go back to paying a high premium. "Supply and demand dictates it's a more effective marketing method to match brands to movies and get paid back by exposure," says Ian Downes, founder of Start Licensing.

For the studios, the attraction is that media models - for instance, the traditional use of TV making way for other direct routes such as online advertising - are changing. By partnering with a brand, film companies can get a message out in a number of ways, says Downes.

Owen Dommell, account manager of partnership specialist Lime Communications, says only category A films, such as the upcoming Indiana Jones movie, insist on licensing deals. Most other film promotions won't involve a licensing fee. The only stipulation is that the brand undertakes an above-the-line marketing campaign around the film's release date.

However, it would still be wrong to forecast the death of the licensing sector as we know it, says former Kellogg marketer and managing director of Atom Marketing Andy Duff. "Big properties can still command big licensing fees. Five to ten years ago the film industry would go to an FMCG brand to talk about a global deal and threaten to walk away if the negotiations went below £1 million. And we would pay it. That might not be the case any more, but there are still some big deals being done."

The key difference, says Duff, is how the promotion is executed and whether a premium product giveaway - such as a promotion targeted at children - is involved. "Look at the Mr Men Persil promotion, which contained a toy with the pack. There was no commercial advantage to Mr Men to do that and they would have had to have a fee."

But with brands increasingly reluctant to be seen to be targeting children, especially in the food sector, it stands to reason they will look at other areas in which to spend money. Brands appear to be happy to take up barter promotions with studios, though the cash they used to lavish on the sector appears to be heading in another direction: towards sport.

Alignment with big events and tournaments or football clubs means the whole obesity issue can be easily sidestepped. The Marketing Store's business development director, Corine Pouvreau Miles, says that there is a drift towards sports marketing. "For the studios, no one is paying big money for licences, because there are so many out there. More money is moving into sports, because it is both safe and family-orientated."

Downes concurs. "There is a move in this direction. With sport you pretty much know what you're getting. With a movie, if you're not seeing clips it could be a bit of a risk."

For many films about to hit the cinemas, the lure of free publicity through above-the-line marketing spend linked to promotions appears impossible to resist. It is a win-win situation. But the question that 2008 has yet to answer is: what will happen if marketing spend is reduced this year?

TIE-IN HOUSEWIVES ON DETERGENT

Disney backed the DVD release of the third series of Desperate Housewives with a competition on the packets of the Reckitt Benckiser-owned Vanish and Woolite laundry brands.

The on-pack promotion, which was devised by Lime, invited consumers to enter a daily prize draw to win one of a number of prizes. These included a Mazda MX5, copies of the DVD boxset and a trip to Los Angeles.

Disney was not paid a fee for the use of the Desperate Housewives property in the promotion. However, it was able to advertise the boxset on Reckitt Benckiser's above-the-line support, which launched alongside the DVD.