In order to sell and promote awareness of a product successfully, quality marketing is key. Although, products are not the only things that require a marketing plan. Movies, just like products, need to be marketed effectively if the creators of the film want to gain the attention of their target audience. Marketing a movie is very complex, because the goal is to convince people to spend some money, and to actually sit down for a couple of hours and watch it. There is a lot of competition in the movie industry since because so many different films make their debuts at the same time, so how do producers and marketing teams get people to see their film rather than another one?
The steps of marketing a movie:
- Reach your target audience.
Before the marketing process even begins, a specific target audience for the film should have already been decided. Often, a target audience may be implied by the genre, the topic of the movie, or even the cast members. For example, the target audience for action films would probably be geared more towards men just as it would be geared towards women for romantic films.
- Decide which elements of the film are the most important to market.
In order to gain people’s interest, it is important to know which elements of a film are most notable. When a huge Hollywood movie has a cast of well known stars, they will not hesitate to constantly remind people of that. If somebody like Morgan Freeman plays the leading role in a film, his name and face will appear in basically every advertisement. There are many other elements to consider marketing though, such as the genre or the director of the film. People want to watch movies that were made by directors who made other movies that they love, so this element becomes very useful in marketing also.
- Give the audience a reason to choose your movie for viewing over the competition.
It seems that in every commercial for a film some sort of claim is made having to do with being “the best film of the summer”, or “the film everybody is talking about”. These claims are essentially made to give a sense of pre-approval for viewers. Film commercials often provide quotes from positive reviews by critics as a way of showing that someone will vouch for the quality of the movie. People are more likely to have high expectations for a film if critics have praised them. When deciding which movie to see when they go to the theater, people will remember which choices gave them a good reason to watch their film.
- Pick which marketing techniques will be used.
It is important to decide which form of advertising is going to be used for marketing a film. In the past, posters were used commonly to promote movies. But, with the evolution of technology, many different forms of digital and online advertising have made their way to the forefront of advertising. Although posters are still used, it is vital to the success of a film to take advantage of television and internet advertising. Setting up a series of television commercials promoting the film leading up to the release, and while it is being shown in theaters is a good option if it is within the budget. Placing advertisements on youtube videos has became a popular way of marketing as well.
The movie industry is worth billions of dollars, a fact that would not be possible without the use of marketing. Millions of dollars are put into movie marketing on its own, proving its effectiveness.
- Paul Gielow
- Paul Gielow
Sources:
- "A 3-Step Plan for AMC Theatres." The ODoyle Rules. N.p., 16 June 2011. Web. 09 Apr. 2016.
- Kehoe, Keith. "5 Steps in Creating a Film Marketing Campaign." Indie Film Place. N.p., 30 Nov. 2013. Web. 09 Apr. 2016.
- "How Movie Marketing Works." HowStuffWorks. N.p., 25 Sept. 2008. Web. 09 Apr. 2016.
- "Topic: Film Industry." Www.statista.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Apr. 2016.
http://www.statista.com/topics/964/film/
Good to know all these knowledge about movie marketing! I think the format is also good with an interesting picture and highlighted outlines ;)
ReplyDeleteLin Wu
The way movies are marketed is very interesting, thanks for the comment!
DeleteIt's amazing to realize how complicated the movie marketing is. All we see are just nice and short trailers but never think about why they choose the scene to be trailers.
ReplyDeleteSo much work goes into marketing a movie that goes unnoticed by the audience, and you will look at movies differently if you know about them. Thanks for the comment.
Delete