Why Every Filmmaker Needs a Strong Personal Brand

Most filmmakers want to make movies.  However, few think about establishing themselves a brand as a filmmaker.  In the immortal words of Alex Ferrari of Indie Film Hustle: “If you don’t think you need a brand as a filmmaker, you’re wrong.”  As wonderful as I personally find that quote, I think it needs a little elaboration. What follows are 5 reasons you NEED a brand as a filmmaker.

1. It helps to further relationships with your customer

A brand is essentially the cumulative interactions any potential business partner or customer has with an entity or organization.  So in a sense, saying a brand helps you further your relationships with your customer is a bit redundant.  However, the idea of you your brand, is essentially the personification of your company.  Having this personified image of your company makes it much easier for your clientele to establish a relationship with your company.
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2. It helps people better identify with the creators behind the content.

At least when a brand is starting out in the film industry, the brand will be heavily associated with the filmmakers themselves.  As such, for the first couple of films your company makes, the brand you’re developing will also be furthering the personal brands of the key crew.  If your key crew tends to put out similar films time and time again under your production company’s brand, then eventually the brand itself will develop a following of it’s own.  After a time, it creates a feedback loop.
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3. It helps give your fans something to associate with

​If you develop your brand correctly, then consumers will come to know what films you make that they like.  Giving your customers a brand to rally behind can really help them to develop a relationship with the creators.  Instead of being able to say I really Liked Paranormal Activity, customers can say I really like the movies Blumhouse puts out.
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4. It helps you develop a community around yourself.
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People can have a really deep association with brands.  Look at what happened when Coca Cola Released New Coke.  Even though taste test after taste test proved that consumers strongly preferred New Coke to Coca Cola, the brand eventually experienced a tsunami of customer complaints for getting rid of the old flavor of Coca Cola.  Essentially, the brand had build such a large community that were so attached to their product, when they took it away certain parts of the community couldn’t handle it, even though many of those parts of the community were shown they liked New Coke Better in blind taste tests. 

Branding and Community building can be so powerful that even when a customer prefers an alternative product, they’ll keep coming back to yours for that warm fuzzy feeling they get when they use your product.
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5. It can help you become greater that a single filmmaker in the eyes of your customers.

Most of the people reading this already know that JJ Abrams is the head of Bad Robot Productions.  However, there are a lot more people involved in Bad Robot than just JJ Abrams.  The icon of the robot running through he field gives you an idea of a huge company working together to put on productions that take you to outer space across multiple fictional universes.  Surely, there’s no way such a thing could be done by a single filmmaker?  We all know it’s not, but it’s also grown to embody much more over time.  Just as your brand will. Thanks so much for reading!  Check back next week for an installment on HOW to go about building your brand.

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