Monsters vs. Aliens-Social Networking for Consultants

Prelude: Soon I’ll be presenting a program to computer consultants about how to use the power of social networking to build your brand and strengthen client relationships. To illustrate how to add entertainment value to build your brand and strengthen client relationships, in this post we’ll compare social networking and marketing to the movie Monsters vs. Aliens. Put on your virtual 3D glasses. Ready? Let’s go!

Three Ways to Market: 2D, 3D or 3D IMAX

Monsters vs. Aliens came out in three versions: 2-D, Read D, Imax 3D – the one we went for. But, wait a minute . . .

Why would someone pay almost 3 times more to see a movie you could see for $5? Consider the tradeoffs: no 3D, no 3D glasses, a regular size screen, a stationary seat, a routine viewing experience.

What goes along with the upgrade? 3D, 3D glasses and a HUGE screen. Say no more. When we went to see Monsters vs. Aliens, after I purchased the tickets I double-checked: Is this Monsters vs. Aliens 3D IMAX?

No?

Run the card through again, I told the ticket-taker. That will be an extra $15 he told me as he swiped my card.

Pondering the parenting lesson in all of this [what is the value in extravagance?], we threw caution aside, grabbed our 3D glasses and found cushy rocking seats together in front of an approximately 52 by 72 foot IMAX screen.

Monsters vs. Aliens is a 2009 computer-animated 3-D feature film from DreamWorks Animation and Paramount Pictures. The movie was the first computer animated movie to be directly produced in a stereoscopic 3-D format instead of being converted into 3-D after completion, which added $15 million to the film’s budget. Source: wikipedia

Because this an audience of computer consultants, here’s the technical data:

Ed Leonard, CTO of DreamWorks Animation, says it took approximately 45.6 million computing hours to make Monsters vs. Aliens, more than eight times as many as the original Shrek. Several hundred Hewlett-Packard xw8600 workstations were used, along with a large and powerful ‘render farm‘ of HP ProLiant blade servers with over 9,000 server processor cores, to process the animation sequence. The movie demanded 120 terabyte of data to complete, with one explosion scene alone requiring 6 TB.^[4]

Since Monsters vs. Aliens, all feature films released by DreamWorks Animation will be produced in a stereoscopic 3-D format, using Intel‘s InTru3D technology. IMAX 3D, Real D and 2-D versions were released.

Is your marketing 2D, 3D or 3D IMAX?

Only here to watch the Monsters vs. Aliens trailer, here it is . . .

Now, about that comparison . . .

Monsters vs. Aliens Social Networking for Consultants

Disclaimer: all alien and monster references relate to this movie, not Alien, not Aliens, not Monsters, Inc. or any other films in these genres.

In this movie, aliens land in a space ship. On the ship, an evil dictator issues commands and clones robots to carry out his mission to take over the world. A series of battles ensues.

Monsters, also known as misfits, each have a super power that they use to fight aliens. Representing the people, they want to save the planet.

What similarities do you see between aliens/old marketing and monsters/social networking?

Need some clues? Watch the slideshow.