One of the most sure-fire ways to advertise a kids movie is a marketing tie-in; get McDonalds to run an offer with plastic toys and you've got another avenue of advertising with overwhelmingly positive connotation. When dealing with a movie for adults, however, the effect stops. Or rather, it shifts. Instead of targeting people through merchandising or Happy Meals, movies with a more mature target audience are marketed in sneakier ways. Take Life After Beth, an unnecessary installment in the unnecessary zombie rom-com genre that tries so hard to be an indie hit, with a hipster cast (Dane DeHaan, Aubrey Plaza, John C. Reilly and Anna Kendrick) and lack of interest in zombies. The film is rather flat once it gets past its necrophilic concept and had the movie been released as-is it would have passed by most people without notice. But in the weeks leading up to release twenty-something-tageted British TV channel E4 had been pushing the film in a decidedly upbeat way as part of their Slackers Club. And wouldn't you know it it helped increase the film's awareness to a respectable UK first week, with people thinking it was good flick. The second week drop-off likely came when people realised it wasn't.
