Film marketing is essential for a film's success, involving various strategies such as advertising, press releases, and social media to attract audiences. Successful marketing campaigns can lead to significant profits, with films needing to make three times their production budget to be profitable. Key components of marketing include understanding the film's marketability, defining the target audience, and utilizing various platforms for promotion.
Film marketing is essential for a film's success, involving various strategies such as advertising, press releases, and social media to attract audiences. Successful marketing campaigns can lead to significant profits, with films needing to make three times their production budget to be profitable. Key components of marketing include understanding the film's marketability, defining the target audience, and utilizing various platforms for promotion.
Film marketing is essential for a film's success, involving various strategies such as advertising, press releases, and social media to attract audiences. Successful marketing campaigns can lead to significant profits, with films needing to make three times their production budget to be profitable. Key components of marketing include understanding the film's marketability, defining the target audience, and utilizing various platforms for promotion.
Film marketing is essential for a film's success, involving various strategies such as advertising, press releases, and social media to attract audiences. Successful marketing campaigns can lead to significant profits, with films needing to make three times their production budget to be profitable. Key components of marketing include understanding the film's marketability, defining the target audience, and utilizing various platforms for promotion.
Marketing What is Marketing A crucial part of a film’s success is how well it has marketed. And people wouldn’t know a film exists without marketing. However, when a film goes into production, it needs to be advertised like any other product and get an audience excited to see it. File Marketing
Many people believe that the success of a film is all about how well it runs in theaters.
Well, I would like to say, Film marketing is all about driving the desired audience unto the theaters. It is sometimes called press junket or film junket.
Film marketing consists of different elements such as advertising, press
releases, media involvements, interviews, and most prominently Social Medias nowadays. What is marketing?
Marketing = Advertising
Successful marketing involves getting as many people as possible
interested and excited in your product.
Reach = the potential number of people targeted e.g., more media
platforms advertised on = bigger reach. • Successful marketing campaigns result in large viewing audiences and therefore, make their production and marketing Successful budget back. marketing • A marketing campaign is successful if a profit is made. campaigns • In Hollywood only 25% of films released make a profit (rule of thumb). • Again, rule of thumb is that a film needs to make three times its production budget in order to make a profit. • A huge amount of time and effort goes into the marketing of a film; this is for many reasons but a
Marketing pivotal one is that marketing a film effectively
costs a lot of money.
budget • In 2007, the average cost of marketing a
Hollywood movie was 50% of its production budget (Josh Friedman, LA Times). • For example, a film that cost $70m to make would have a marketing budget of $35m making the total cost of the film $105m. In order to market your film successfully, How do you must look at how you are going to market it.
you Look at the marketability of the film;
ensure • Does the film have an exploitable
theme?
success? • Is the cast/director of interest?
• Is it a genre movie? • Will reviews matter? How do you ensure success?
Marketability: If you can find some key selling points or unique selling points(USP) then you can push them on the potential audience. The USP is what separates one film title from another released at a similar time or within the same genre. The USP could be many things, for example: • The innovative use of special effects • An unusual mix of genres • A popular star The marketing strategy
• WHAT – is the film? – defining genre. What similar films have been released? Is it commercial, arthouse? - Positioning (image or identity of the target market for the product) • WHO – will it appeal to, who is the Target Audience? • WHEN – Timing is everything • HOW – do you make your Target Audience aware of the film. How do you make them want to go and see it? WHAT is the film? (genre & positioning)
Who is your target demographic in terms of gender.
Demographics • When – is the best date for the film’s release?
WHO is the • When – can/should the marketing start? (phasing)
• How – do we raise awareness and interest? target • How – do we establish what trigger points there are?
audience? Once you have answered all of the above questions,
you can begin creating. There are numerous platforms on which you can market your product, and each can entice a potential consumer in a different way. Online TV
Cinema
Marketing Radio Press
platforms Magazines
OOH (out of home: posters, billboards, busses, etc.)
• The first visual materials for a film are usually a
Cinema poster and trailer.
• These are often referred to as teaser posters and trailers. Why? posters • Teaser trailers and posters can appear up to a year before the film is due to be released. and • For Hollywood films, regular or full posters and trailers appear anything up to six months before
trailers the films planned release.
• Trailers are shown in cinemas, on television and online and posters are exhibited in cinemas, on busses and around cities/towns (OOH). Synergy
• Synergy is an important way in which the major studios promote their
films. • Synergy helps the studios to maintain their dominance over the film industry as independent companies are unable to use synergy to the same extent as the Big Six studios Viral Marketing •Viral marketing involves using the internet to spread promotional messages (such as videos), relying on the audience to forward them on. The benefits of viral marketing are that it is significantly cheaper than other forms of film advertising (e.g. broadcast and ambient media), it engages the audience, and can create hype around the release of a film.
•Viral marketing was used effectively to promote the release of the independent US horror film ‘The Last Exorcism’ (2010). Using the social media website Chatroulette users began online chats with a teenage girl who then appeared to become demonic. A video of user reactions was then released on YouTube, gaining over 8 million views. This was a cost-effective way of generating interest in the film and creating word of mouth. The use of websites such as Chatroulette and YouTube also helped the film to appeal to their target demographic of young adults. Social Media •Social media has become increasingly important in the marketing of films. Using social media offers the benefits of being cheap, interactive, and immediate. It helps the audience to feel involved with film, can also be used to data mine information about the demographics of the audience.
•The ‘Girl Who Played With Fire’ (2009) is an independent European film that received funding from the UK Film Council to support its use of social media to promote the film’s release. A Facebook game was developed in which users ‘investigated’ their Facebook friends by answering about them. Their scores would then be posted on their Facebook wall and appear on their friends’ news feed. This is an example of passive advocacy as the audience are raising awareness of the film’s release.
•A Facebook game was also used to promote the release of ‘Avengers’ (see above), with the Avengers Alliance game having 1.4 million daily users prior to the release of the film. •As part of the marketing campaign for ‘Veronica Mars’ (2014) the official website included a Race to the Box Office page in which users could score points every time they mentioned the film, liked or re-tweeted official pages, and gain access to exclusive content.
