AGENT INTEREST AS A PROXY FOR PRODUCT DEMAND

ACTOR BRANDING PRINCIPLES

Let's apply this thinking to actor branding.  Some principles:

1. TYPECAST YOURSELF - The marketing goal of an unknown or developmental character actor is "typecast yourself."  In other words, make it easy for casting directors to efficiently find and identify you as suitable for a specific role in a sea of undifferentiated non-specific candidates.

2. YOU CAN CHOOSE AN ARCHETYPE - Given any combination of genotype and body morphology, there exists considerable latitude in the choice of "archetype" or cluster of archetypes to embody in the specific choice of your marketing concept, "typecast yourself."

3. MARKET SATURATION IS AN A PRIORI CONSIDERATION - Most actors have some reasonable understanding of points 1) and 2), however they typically fail to correctly evaluate the market saturation of their chosen brand or chosen archetype.  Therefore, the first step in effective actor branding is to identify a wide range of plausible character archetypes for the genotype, and then rank those possibilities based on business factors including a) market demand (how often television shows feature characters of this archetype) in combination with b) market saturation (how many other similar or better-qualified/more heavily-credited actors are in the same market who clearly also embody the given archetype).

4. MARKET DATA AND SALES DATA IS ESSENTIAL - Therefore, actor branding is at its most informed when talent representatives who have access to critical data, such as "frequency of role availability" (market demand) and "response rate" (market saturation) are available to guide the talent toward choosing the most compelling brand to offer.  If no such sounding board is available, the lack of interest from a theatrical agent is a good estimate of the demand for a particular archetype in a competitive market, such as Los Angeles.  

Here's a fictionalized example:  

Beverly naively believes she is best suited to play “girl-next-door” based on her cultural experience as a typical suburban American.  She is a highly qualified actress with an appealing face and spends $1500.00 to shoot superb photos with a top photographer.  However, after several direct email campaigns she receives little or no response from her mailings.  Several years pass and out of desperation, Beverly shaves her long, beautiful locks, and adopts a more gender-ambiguous look reminiscent of Julie Andrews’ alter ego in Victor, Victoria! or of Natalie Portman in V for Vendetta!  Beverly goes back to a basic photographer at 1/3rd of the rate ($500) and shoots three more photos with her new look.  After undertaking the same direct marketing to the same group of theatrical agents with her new marketing brand, she gets five meetings and signs with a competent talent agent.

In this example we find that the talent seller, the agent, has an intuitive grasp of the market demand and anticipated interest from his/her customers (the casting offices).  A high-performing salesperson (ie. a good agent) will want to sell only those products that have significant demand and will specifically avoid products which they know that their customers are unwilling to buy.  In the case of theatrical agents, they are paid a standardized commission of 10% on talent bookings and if they are unwilling to take on a talent archetype, it is because they anticipate that the product will not sell.  One other factor might be the agent already represents several products in this “category” which is likewise, an indication of market saturation.