好莱坞大片的中国新宠：时光网

Now that Hollywood has mostly figured out how to get its biggest movies approved for release in China, studio marketers here are grappling with a new puzzle: What is the best way to woo China’s ticket buyers?

好莱坞差不多已经了解如何让它的电影大片通过中国的发行审查，接下来电影公司的市场人员正在和新的难题作斗争：什么才是吸引中国观众的最好方式?

Trailers and television advertisements, the two most effective methods to drum up interest, are difficult marketing tools to use in China. Chinese theaters do not typically play trailers. The cost of advertising on TV can be exorbitant, in part because studios must buy time at the last minute. China usually limits foreign films to an advertising window of a few weeks.

在中国，引发人们兴趣最有效的方式——预告片和电视广告这两种市场工具举步维艰。中国电影院通常并不播放预告片。电视广告的费用过于高昂，部分原因是由于电影公司必须到最后时刻才能购买广告时段。中国通常会把外国电影的广告窗口限制到几周内。

Instead, film companies pay for outdoor banners and signs, advertise online, team up with local promotional partners and, increasingly, call a company with enormous reach that few people outside of China have ever heard of: Mtime.

因此，电影公司将费用转投户外海报和标志、在线广告以及建立本地宣传伙伴，此外，它们越来越多的通过一家触角广布却在海外鲜为人知的公司——时光网。

Founded in 2005 in Beijing by Kelvin Hou, a former Microsoft executive, Mtime started as an online listing of movie times, hence the name. Then a film database was built and added. Next came a movie-news service, aggregation of user-submitted reviews, a movie-scoring system and an online ticket service for 3,000 theaters. Now attracting 160 million unique desktop and mobile users a month, according to Mr. Hou, Mtime is effectively Fandango, IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes and Yahoo Movies rolled into one.

2005年，前微软高管侯凯文创立了时光网。网如其名，一开始时光网是电影放映时间列表，之后加入了影片数据库。此后，电影资讯服务、用户评论聚合、电影评分系统和支持3000家影院的在线购票系统被一一加入。目前时光网每月拥有1.6亿来自电脑和手机的独立用户。侯凯文称，它实际上是售票网站Fandango、电影资料库IMDb、影评网站烂番茄和雅虎电影的合体。

And for a fee, Mtime will promote movies through all of these services, helping studios to quickly cover a market they covet but do not yet fully understand.

通过以上所有服务，时光网为电影提供收费宣传，帮助电影公司迅速覆盖它们渴求但并不在行的市场。

Next comes merchandising: Mtime, which counts Fidelity Growth Partners and CBC Capital among its backers, has started designing movie-themed products that are sold on its website and inside Chinese multiplexes. Mtime began opening these “merchandising centers, many in partnership with Wanda Cinemas, China’s largest theater operator, in January. Mr. Hou will have 80 of these centers operating by December.

下一步是周边商品。以富达国际投资和中国宽带资本为后盾的时光网开始涉足电影主题商品设计，并在网站和中国的电影院内出售。时光网从一月开始开设的这些“周边中心中，大部分是和中国最大的院线商万达电影合作的。侯凯文将在十二月前开始营业80家这样的中心。

Walt Disney Studios was one of Mtime’s early merchandising partners. According to Mr. Hou, Mtime sold 300 items tied to “The Avengers: Age of Ultron, which was released in China in June. Recently, “Cinderella dresses were selling on Mtime’s site for $53.

迪斯尼工作室是时光网最早的合作伙伴之一。侯凯文表示，六月在中国上映的《复仇者联盟：奥创纪元》已经售出了300个相关商品。最近，《灰姑娘》里的裙子在时光网上以53美元的价格出售。