Question

Hey fam, just read this article where Warner Bros is citing the film title's poor SEO value (it doesn't include the characters name) as to the reason for the underwhelming performance in the box office. Thoughts? Id love to hear the communities feedback as The Verge has comments disabled lol.  
https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/11/...EBdMo

Answer 1

I would have thought the real reason is it doesn't look like a good film

Comments

Looks good to me. ‍♂️

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I haven't seen it but apparently people who thought they were going to hate it for the 'woke' anti male agenda that was marketed and pushed on twittersphere from fans actually quite enjoyed it. Can't really blame anyone not being too fussed though after suicide squad being a bit meh (in my opinion) among all the other reasons

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I didn't have a clue what the film was about after watching the trailer. And like @muna2 said. After the absolute mess Suicide Squad was, it's not really making me want to go watch it either. DC movies haven't had the best track record

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Captain Marvel had the benefit of releasing between the two biggest films in Marvel History in the midst of a Marvel film Golden Age though & getting some advertisement / hype from the end of the first film.  

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And it was called: Captain Marvel lol

Answer 2

It was poorly marketed and targeted a demographic that wasn't all that interested in a very niche part of DC comics storylines. Would it have performed a bit better had the title just been Harley Quinn from the start? Likely

Answer 3

Also, there is il2 sturmovik: birds of prey

Answer 4

Them alienating their market is the reason why people don't watch it. Not for men? Gone. Not for kids? Gone. Who else is left?  

Comments

How is the film not for men?  

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@pfeffer it is. It was marketed that way that way

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It certainly isn't for women, because it heavily tries to pander to them, but it misses the mark completely and ends up insulting their intelligence.  

Answer 5

Yup, fixed it. It's not that you made a shitty movie, it's your SEO. Nailed it.  

Comments

In that case, the coronavirus outbreak happened because of PPC.  

Answer 6

Maybe it’s because Harley Quinn wasn’t in the original birds of prey until the last three comics. DC has been doing these twists and they’re not working out because it doesn’t follow the comic storylines and trust me on this comic geeks are serious about that! One suggestion i heard which i thought would have been good is Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn off shoot!  

Comments

Even better: don't call your Suicide Squad spin-off "Birds of Prey" if you're not going to write a story centered on the actual Birds of Prey. That's like writing a movie titled "Nightwing and other inhabitants of Bludhaven, including one Batgirl" and then being shocked that people don't immediately catch on that it's a movie about Barbara Gordon's love life.  

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If we are to go by the assumption that everything is the fault of SEO or some other obscure technical boogeyman that normies won't understand, sure, we can go with the title. On the whole, I believe - and this is more like a hunch than anything else, an opinion, I have no arguments to back this up - that if you want your movie to succeed, you should - I don't know - not write a movie that's boring, incoherent and dumb and that tries way too hard to pander to the audience, but ends up just talking down to them, insulting their intelligence. But that's just my opinion. :P Now having a title that actually reflects your content, instead of glorified clickbait would also help, yes.  

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@sst Lol DC is pandering to a specific set in their audience. People that don’t know the comics and are politically charged towards one direction.  

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@germano, why would anyone be politically charged towards a crappy band that couldn't play their way out of a rubbish can?  

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@sst because Disney owns everything and they’re mad!  

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@germano, you will bow to THE MOUSE!  

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@sst  

Answer 7

Not even the best SEO strategy can help sell just awful products and services . Hence this just being a bad movie

Comments

My grandma was always angry at me because I don't really like meatballs. Why did I never think to tell her it's SEO's fault? "Granny, I can't help it! Your meatballs are scrumptious, but your internal linking SUCKS! "

Answer 8

They were pushing a political agenda and they failed, that's why.  

Comments

Pretty much this. "Get woke, go broke". If your movie is good and is backed up by a billion dollar studio, some SEO movie title won't matter. It does matter, when you tell probably 80% your potential customers, that this product is not for you (that being men). And ironically enough, none of those woke people who thrived for this marketing approach showed up either. They just stayed home crusading on Twitter to look for the next thing to infest.  

Answer 9

Birds of Prey: And the fantabulous long title that gets us into long-tail keyword territory

Comments

Birds of Prey. Or The Curious Case of the Movie Studio That Failed Miserably With Its Preceding Comic Book Movies and Continues to Refuse to Learn Lessons From Previous Botches

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@maletta, hahaha, that's why I love SEO people! :)

Answer 10

Movie was lacking I only watched hoping it was similar to last years jokerr

Answer 11

Wow, this is like a scene from black mirror. we are living some stuff really futuristic

Answer 12

I went to see it and never knew the name of the film as it was not memorable. I asked for Harley Quinn. I thought it was great.  

Answer 13

Hey Tom, Yes, makes perfect sense that the name would be the lead characters name: Joker, Wonderwoman, Batman, Superman, Aquaman. etc. What perplexes me is, who thought it was a good idea to name it 'Birds of Pray' in the first place, sounds like a NatGeo film about raptors. They may have tried 'Harley Quinn in Birds of Prey', but still just the name of the lead is enough, especially for the first film in what could be a franchise. IMO

Comments

@cornstalk76, Birds of Prey is an actual comic book team from the DC universe.  

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Horia, Hello, This title, is it as well known as 'Harley Quinn', the main character in the movie?  

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@cornstalk76, in the comics community? Definitely. There was even a short-lived TV adaptation, in the late '90s or early 2000s. To the general public? Definitely, no. But that is irrelevant as to the reasoning behind the name. You suggested the name sounded silly, so I just meant to clear up its origin.  

Answer 14

Little do they know that now more people will give it a bad review. The Jokes on them  

Answer 15

I don't buy this excuse at all. First and foremost, if you do a Google search for Harley Quinn, Google is smart enough to associate your search with the new movie and what you get for results are showtimes at the top, the wikipedia knowledge panel for the movie on the sidebar, and then recent news down below. There's not really any magic SEO benefits to be gained by changing the name now. This is not a case of mistaken identity or confused google searchers, but an absolute train-wreck of a marketing strategy and a failure to deliver a viable product to the appropriately selected target market, both aspects of which are simply being cleverly spun by a PR firm to be literally anything else. For starters, February is considered a "dump month" in the film community, and while this alone doesn't necessarily mean the movie won't do well, it's a sign DC didn't have much faith in the movie to start with and it certainly can result in significantly lower commercial and critical success than releasing a movie during any month not named January or February. Secondly, I would also suspect there was a bit of an unlucky element that is drastically affecting overall ticket sales this month, since the worlds 2nd largest market for movie releases is China and almost all of China's movie theaters are currently shut down in an effort to limit the spread of the new Coronavirus. Finally, and most importantly, the movie is rated R, and while I personally will be able to appreciate this decision, the key demographic for a rebellious female goth anti-hero like Harley Quinn is without a doubt teenage girls who aren't old enough to go see the movie. Why would DC choose to choose promotional partners like hair, nail and lip color brands that target young women if their key demographic can't even buy a ticket to go see it? Sources: . https://www. cnbc. com/. /beijing-scrambles-to-support. https://stylecaster. com/. /orly-harley-quinn-nail-polish/ https://www. smashbox. com/. /always-on. /birds-of-prey. https://www. eonline. com/. /this-harley-quinn-mayhem.  
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dump_...onths

Comments

@horsefly86 Don't buy it for a second either. Search "birds of prey" using ahrefs or similar keyword research tool and what are the second, third, and fourth most popular modifiers people add to the words "birds of prey"? Are they still "klingon birds of prey", "romulan birds of prey", "largest birds of prey" and "Florida birds of prey" as they were prior to the increased interest and search demand for this movie or did people start using new keyword modifiers as search demand for the movie increased and Google understand it to be related to the film, cast, and trailer for a movie called birds of prey because those are the words they used to search?  

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@phenothiazine great point! This screenshot makes it pretty obvious that people know what "Birds of Prey" refers to, and actually suggests changing the name might cause more confusion than had they just stuck with it.  

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@horsefly86 Google Trends shows increased search demand for "birds of prey" beginning Jan 8, 2020. Prior interest level was calculated to be about 2-3, but since then the demand has steadily increased leading up to the release of the film on Feb 7, 2020. What else other than searches for the movie would have caused the search demand to increase 30 days prior to release? Given the pattern those keyword modifiers follow (film, cast, trailer, poster, release date, preview, reviews) and the consistency with which those terms are used when people search for information related to other films, what else other than an upcoming movie titled birds of prey could Google conclude from this search patterns within this peak in search demand?  

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@horsefly86 "This screenshot makes it pretty obvious that people know what "Birds of Prey" refers to" Not necessarily. Many people who don't know what a bird of prey is or that the term exists outside of the sphere of this movie will likely start their search with: birds of prey. For the person searching that term on Jan 6, 2020, the SERP they were shown probably had nothing to do with the movie. So, what did they do? They probably searched "birds of prey movie", "birds of prey film" or something similar to express their intent to find information about the movie. Same goes for the person searching Jan 7, 8, 9, 10, etc. until Google sees enough of the same pattern to understand that "birds of prey" can also mean "a superhero movie starring Harley Quinn" and adjusts the SERP results accordingly. Nowadays, people searching for actual birds of prey are going to have to add modifiers to their search to help Google understand they're searching using the old patterns Google was familiar with before Jan 2020.  

Answer 16

Or the previews were underwhelming and that's correlated with bad rankings  

Answer 17

The cover and art work made it appear to be a cartoon . I'll still watch it but it looks like a Quintin Teratino cover which only works for him lol