The month the film ate

Every September a certain kind of account goes quiet for three weeks. I have seen it from the platform side and I have lived it in-house, and it is the same account every time.

Somewhere in the last week of August a decision was taken to make a National Day film. A proper one: a director, a location, a day of casting, an edit that goes through four rounds because somebody senior wants the flag a second earlier. It takes three weeks. It takes the best people. By the standards of the year it is a nice thing to make.

While it is being made, the account does nothing else.

No new creative goes into the testing slots, because the creative team is on the shoot. No new audience is opened, because nobody wants a result that argues with the film. No offer is tried, because the offer is the film. The weekly test review is cancelled twice and then quietly for the month. From the outside the account looks steady. From the inside it is holding its breath.

The film costs what it costs. The invoice will be defended in the review, and usually it survives.

The sunk cost is the three weeks. An account that was learning something every week learnt nothing for a month, in the one month of the year when the market was changing fastest underneath it. That learning does not come back. It was not paused. It did not happen.

The film will be in the review, with its views and its comments and a screenshot of the reply from someone important. The month around it will not be in the review, because nobody puts a month in a review.

The film is fine. The cost is the month it ate.