A new study confirms growing frustration with spoiler-filled and deceptive movie trailers...
A new piece of research undertaken by the University Of East Anglia has confirmed what many of us already very well know: film trailers are giving too much away.
The study surveyed over 500 filmgoers, and it found that more than 80% of those who responded were "disappointed" with a film they'd seen off the back of a trailer. Furthermore, the key frustrations were trailers that gave too much spoiler-y information away, and "deception." Which instantly makes us think of this story here.
In particular though, "audiences are strongly irritated by the revelation of crucial plot details including surprises, narrative reveals and plot outcomes – despite decades of industry research that indicates audiences are more likely to see it the more they know about it in advance."
That latter point is the crucial one there, we'd argue. Distributors need you to buy a ticket, pure and simple, and spoilers have become collateral damage in the quest to get people to do that. That said, Dr. Keith Johnson, lead researcher on the project (and a man who presumably gets to watch a lot of film trailers) said "we also found that audiences are aware of those issues when they watch a trailer, and find trailers enjoyable despite the expectations that a marketing campaign might set up."
Oddly, the most cited trailer in the study appears to be the one for The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug. We don't recall that one being necessarily over-spoilery, but we'd imagine it's more that the film was about when the study was being conducted.
Either way, the conclusion thus far seems to be we don't like trailers, but we still watch them. Thus, the status quo continues. You can read more on the University Of East Anglia's work, here.
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