It's still baffling to me how a powerful juggernaut like the "High School Musical" franchise is a mystery to many people that watch or are in the industry.
Even when year after year the highest performing movies at the theater are those an entire family can watch together, the industry still acts confused about the reason why.
It seems they believe the cynical lie they seem to want to produce on the screen on what life is really like. The problem is they only present one side of life, not the other side.
Television historian Tim Brooks and Lifetime executive says, "This is a reminder that as American TV hurtles toward ever more explicitness, there is a market of people who don't want any of that."
I would say he's even understating it. The market is huge, not just some type of small niche.
When you consider the High School Musical CD was the number one seller for 2006, and the worldwide audience is over 250 million, you'd think the industry would get it.
High School Musical 2: You Are The Music In Me
Robert Thompson of Syracuse University made some amazing comments: "We are so deep into the age of irony, that when you encounter something as naive as 'High School Musical,' it's almost avant-garde. It's cutting edge!
"I would even go so far, as to call HSM subversive. The fact that they pulled this off in 2007 is amazing."
What's amazing to me is to think that the demand for wholesome entertainment and meeting that demand is amazing to this guy. Anybody that lives in the real world knows there are millions upon millions around the world that prefer this type of entertainment. Disney (DIS) has proven that with "Musical."
Why is "High School Musical" so successful? It's because there's a real world out there that values family, wholesomeness, fun, good music and showing another world besides the cynical one always portrayed by Hollywood.
There are millions of marriages that last for a lifetime, millions of children who prefer clean fun to sexual pressure and portrayals, and millions of families that want to sit down together and feel comfortable engaging in entertainment they all can enjoy.
If High School Musical can't convince you this is true, nothing will.
» What "High School Musical" Teaches Marketers from TheAlphaMarketer
The biggest thing the success of "High School Musical" should teach any marketer is not to always believe what you hear and see. If you listen and watch what's going on in the market, you'd think there was no such... [Read More]
Tracked on: October 1, 2007 8:40 PM | Permalink to Trackback