Perspective

Marketing skills come into their own when competition is at its fiercest. In UK the ITV companies have been hastily revising the art of self-promotion in the face of franchising, while the video industry has been prompted by satellite to start putting some effort into advertising. In the film industry, US majors plunge extraordinary sums into feature promotion, while the importance of a successful opening has been blown out of proportion. The need to sell hard and sell fast has gripped the industry, overshadowing the less boisterous skills of market assessment and product targeting.