Movie marketing – more than just media interviews
Description:
Over the past 10 years Hollywood has been filling less and less seats in its theatres. Home-entertainment options like streamed movies/TV shows and video games have significantly eaten away at moviegoers motivation to visit the big screen. Hollywood has fought hard to maintain its profitability by providing a richer viewing experience to its patrons. Investments in technology like Real D 3D projectors and rich sound systems have made Hollywood 's profits increase by 17% over the same 10 year period. Even with profitability up, the trend of fewer and fewer patrons is something that cannot be ignored.
Studios spend millions of dollars to ensure their movies are a success.
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4) Product Placement – Studios can arrange to have their movie mentioned in the story/script of a popular TV show.
5) Publicity Stunts – activities organized and implemented in the public around the release of a movie that is meant to generate media attention (i.e. many 7-Eleven Convenience Stores in the US were temporarily converted into Kwik-E-Marts to promote the Simpsons Movie)
6) Viral Videos – videos are created to generate buzz for an upcoming film, a video can be anything from a parity to a prank (i.e. Carrie movie coffee shop prank).
7) Social Media – many studios/distributors choose to promote their films via popular social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter etc.
8) Licensing/Merchandising – many blockbuster films are licensed to a variety of businesses which in turn help to promote the film even more (i.e. McDonald’s licensing “Frozen” on its Happy Meal packaging and toy).
There are a number of factors that will affect a movie 's chances of being successful
1) Budgets (i.e. high production and marketing budgets)
2) Star Power (i.e A-list actors/actresses/directors/writers)
3) Film Rating (i.e. G, PG, PG-13, etc.)
4) Cultural Relevance (i.e. film based on a popular novel, comic book, video game or theme)
5) Release Date (i.e timing can coincide with movie 's theme or be around a holiday weekend)
6) Genre (i.e. Action,
On the horizon, Blockbusters number of competitors should steadily increase from new emerging technologies. If Blockbuster extends into the realm of VOD, Legal Movie Downloads, or Digital Video Recorders (DVR), it must realize there are existing and powerful players in these markets already. This new technology is shaping the market for many deals or partnerships. They will face fierce competition, but in the future, Blockbuster must not find it self on the outside looking in.
2. Pirogi, Jeanine. (2013). Titled: The Rise & Fall of Blockbuster: The very Long & Rewinding Road" (The Street). N.p., 23 Sept. 2010. Wide-Web. 11-Dec.
Movie marketing is a tricky thing. A movie could be a complete disaster, but if the marketing is done right, the movie will do well. If the movie a delightful, but the marketing is done badly, the movie could bomb and cost the studio a lot of money. I’ve seen it happen a lot over the years. Remember that movie John Carter? That movie cost a LOT of money to produce. I saw the movie since I already read the books and knew from what I saw that it was going to be a fun film to watch, but from a marketing standpoint, and having been a marketing major in college, I knew the movie was going to bomb. Why? No one knew what the hell it was about or who the hell John Carter was.
Concession sales and ticket sales are the two biggest sources of revenue for a movie theater but the exhibitors has limited control over both revenues and profits because those two are important aspects. Attendance allows for profitable sales of concessions and advertisements, but there are significant caps on the volume of concession sales per person, and selling price seem to have reached a maximum. Both continue to increase in cost to the consumers and may have reached a price point that is starting to drive consumers away from going to see a movie.
The movie studios want customers to be able to get their movies and entertainment as easily as possible. The easier it is for people to acquire their products the more likely it is that they will. By offering many different options for customers to obtain movies and entertainment, Blockbuster has a strategic advantage over its competitors. The convenience that Blockbuster can offer in their ability to distribute the movie studios products is a definite advantage. Another advantage
is growing outside of the USA. This kind of growth includes the large countries that previously specialised in film production. For countries such as China and India, the annual release of films has grown progressively for the past decade, followed by a forced growing purchase power and investments in cinemas (Lorenzen, M. 2008). The American film industry must, in a way, watch its back. Especially when the amount of small film countries, such as Denmark and Switzerland, has grown. The smaller countries have attracted attention by not only up-scaling their production, but also winning market shares from Hollywood. Other new filmmaking countries are also on the rise, with Korea, Mexico etc. joining the market, who bring cheaper production technologies to their advantage (Lorenzen, M. 2008).
They also initiate the contracts with the theaters and negotiate the percentage of box office sales they will receive. Many of the distribution companies are integrating with the production studios because the need for distribution is diminishing with the conversion to digital. This makes these suppliers a strong force.
The film industry has always been somewhat of a dichotomy. Grounded firmly in both the worlds of art and business the balance of artistic expression and commercialization has been an issue throughout the history of filmmaking. The distinction of these two differing goals and the fact that neither has truly won out over the other in the span of the industry's existence, demonstrates a lot of information about the nature of capitalism.
The latest one that caught my eye was the ‘real-live-experience’ for the new Alice in Wonderland movie at Disney World. In the park, there were a lot of advertisements for the forthcoming film, but one screen was different than the other, as it was a live-feed to Johnny Depp, who was dressed up in full wardrobe as the Mad Hatter. After first being surprised by the live poster, people started to interact with him, asking questions or waving and Johnny Depp reacted in real-time. I admire it because while it caught fans of guard, it provided a fun way of interaction with the movie – promoting it beyond the traditional forms such as trailers, posters or interviews. Further, it appealed to all ages. The stunt itself made use of the live-streaming
The costs, methods of distribution, and themes of Hollywood and Nollywood films reflect strongly their target audiences; how the target audience affects the production of a film and how the production of a movie is designed to capture a specific
The competitive forces in the movie rental industry are quite strong, as I will explain through the five forces model. There are a vast amount of substitutes for watching a movie. You can go to a play, sporting event, concert, out the lake/beach, go for a run, watch regular television, go shopping; I could go on and on. Also, torrenting or pirating movies is growing increasingly popular. Buyers have a strong presence in this industry mainly because they are picky about how much they will pay to rent or stream a movie. With the amount of substitutes and their pickiness, they make this
A producer who knows that their film doesn’t have a lot of money or publicity would use a film festival to get both of these things. Also these films will most likely be in art house cinemas but if one is particularly successful then this could move to multiplex cinemas the troll hunter is one of those films that has crossed the brigde from art house to multiplex and is now being shown in over 20 vue cinemas in the UK, the producer did this by getting the film publicity from channel 4’s sister channel E4 and making a competition for a private screening this made the film sort after which then lead to interest from multiplex cinemas. But for films that won’t need that sort of publicity will have a big Hollywood premiere that would most likely have a segment on TV showing the premiere and would include interviews with the cast, director and any other notable person involved with the film. Celebrities from outside of the film will go also to show the films quality and also so that they themselves can get publicity, films like this will almost always be shown in multiplex cinemas this is the same for Cars 2 but will probably have this kind of showing but because it’s a childs film the TV shows and so on will most probably be shown on kids TV most obviously the Disney
They went into contracts with their movie suppliers to reduce the cost of the movies purchased and forming a long term relationship with their suppliers.
Film companies have excelled in how well they can and are able to distribute and market their films and this is because of the introduction of new technologies. These technologies include: Official websites and blog sites, press and public previews, online competitions, phone apps and social networking sites. The typical and traditional form of marketing a film towards an audience would be in the form of film posters and trailers but as technologies have advanced so has marketing methods. For example for one of my case studies, The Avengers have really interesting methods which engages their audience on their website which has direct links to their social networking pages including Facebook and Twitter. This form of cross media convergence – using social networking sites to promote the film has a huge impact on the film industry and audiences for example for the film industry its very cheap, they can easily target their intended global audience and they can add a range of content to tease the audience to get them excited for the release of the film like uploading short clips, behind the scenes and trailers. It is also beneficial for the audience as it gets people more engaged with the film, they can share experiences with friends and keep up to date with recent updates and news. Also film companies tend to use competitions as a form of marketing to the audience for example on the official website of the woman in black the audience got the chance to write a scary ghost story
“They provide an opportunity for unknown filmmakers to get their movies in front of a