DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHO YOUR CUSTOMER IS?

DO YOU KNOW WHO THE CUSTOMER IS?

One of the reasons you don't have a brand is because you literally do not know who the customer is.  It's true that the personnel in the casting office are key to making inroads in Hollywood but it's important to understand that casting is best viewed analgously as a group of "personal shoppers" for the real customers.  For the purposes of this discussion I'm restricting the customers to the big purchasers of talent that can drive real career growth.

The final answer with respect to "Who is the Customer?" depends on the magnitude of the role and who the production entity is.  Here are some key customers:

1. Lead role in Studio Tentpole - Zendaya has a great career going for herself.  You may remember that she played MJ in Spiderman: the next generation.  The customer for this role is VP of Business Affairs at Sony.  In order to get a potential candidate in front of the customer, the aspirant must first win over the casting office, the director, the producer(s) and possibly also the financiers of the picture.  It is assumed here that the studio is the financier and the producer but some motion pictures have complex financing schemes and multiple production entities.  Often the financiers have a significant say in what NAME TALENT will be cast.

2. Series Regular role on television or streaming.  In order to become a Series Regular as a result of casting process (as opposed to an organic promotion), the candidate goes through a multi-stage auditioning process, the first of which is the casting office; the second is a producer or a producer-director session (also with casting) and subsequently, if there is interest from the producers for the talent there will be two rounds of evaluation by the EXECUTIVES AT THE STUDIO (might be as many as 10 people) and finally the EXECUTIVES AT THE NETWORK (also might be as many as 10 people).  These are called STUDIO TEST and NETWORK TEST respectively.  If you heard your friend "tested for CSI: Boise" they are likely referring to one of these tests. It's typically a taped session in a room on the studio lot with the executives (and casting/producers) present.  If you want to further extend this selling process, the network (for advertising-supported entities) must then present their TV PILOT CAST to the ADVERTISER COMMUNITY at events called an "upfront" which is a PR event held by networks and studios where they show their proposed new television shows to the advertisers.  Advertisers might request changes to the shows cast to better reflect the diversity of their customer demographic.  If no advertisers sign on for a new show, the show is effectively dead.  Although with the advent of streaming services and premium cable, a show that is originally developed for prime time but rejected by the advertisers might later find a home on premium or basic cable where the production is paid for by subscribers rather than advertisers.  In this case subscriber interest plays a role in deciding whether television shows will be produced for more than one season.  When viewership declines the show is cancelled.

3. Guest Star on a television or streaming show.  Generally speaking, Guest Stars are used to promote individual episodes of television shows.  If you're on a consumer-facing site devoted to television, you might read that Jennifer Garner is going to be appearing in the upcoming season of PARTY DOWN (Starz).  Her purpose is both to appear as the fictional character but more importantly, to provide the production with what is called A PROMOTABLE NAME so that the producers can market the show to E!, TV GUIDE, PEOPLE and any number of media outlets who are in the business of pop culture or celebrity culture.  The customer is the PRODUCER, on behalf of the commercial success of the show, which would include factors like anticipated Nielsen ratings or viewership and that sort of thing.  Clearly the Guest Star is more of a marketing tool than a pure casting decision.

4. Co-Star or day player roles.  Thes are more entry-level roles in television and feature films and the casting office arguably plays a much larger role here.  In my recent experience, talent that meet the requirements of casting, including audition tapes, are narrowed to a group of 3-5 candidates who are sent on to the final decision makers which would include: A) the director of the episode, B) the producer(s) and C) the network.  Who exactly is involved in this last three decisions likely differs depending on the production.  In rare cases talent will be approved by A) and B) but rejected by C) due to diversity goals or some other criteria.

5. Indie filmmakers.  Sometimes indie filmmakers are smart and hire real casting directors and sometimes they just go online and run a casting call on the website.  Here the customer is the filmmaker or the casting director.  If the budget for the indie is large enough, the financiers might again be the final decision makers for major roles in the movie.

You might think why this information is critical to actor branding?  Well, you arguably cannot develop a branding strategy unless you know who your customer is and why they go shopping.  More about this later.