Film_Advertising

With all big and small budget films the bottom line is profit. The film industry take certain precautions to make sure their film is targeted at the right audience. The purpose of finding its target audience is to maximize the audience for the film and therefore maximize its earnings when it is released on the big screen. Veteran distubutor Tony Ciancoiotta once said that when he’s trying to figure out to buy a film he’ll ask himself, “Who would stand in a lineup outside, at night, in January to see this film' Picture the lineup and that’s your target audience. Here are some simple examples of a target audience for a film. This could be a sequel to a film like Spiderman. The audience will consist of fans of the previous film, and even fans of Stan Lee’s early Spiderman comics, which the film was based on. With each new movie release, a studio has to find out its target audience and create a new brand. This is why they like sequels and franchises so much. It’s as easy as this, a string of films based around a similar or in some cases the same brand are easier to market as audiences have already had a taste for them. Other examples are trilogies like The Lord of The Rings and the Star Wars films. These have huge brand loyalty, and can be associated with a whole range of different merchandising too. Stars might also be considered brands if they associated with a popular film or even one type of film. Audiences feel comfortable going to see a film that may have a well-known actor like Tom Cruise in it because he’ll be associated with popular blockbusters. Also in the film industry, films have been known to have a limited shelf life. Films can only be marketed to great effect prior there release. Once the film has been show on the big screen word-of-mouth takes over takes over. This then comes down to the standard of the film, and if people liked it or not. Here for you is a general outline of the progress the film industry go through. Product… A film has to be clearly identified for marketing, to determine its prime target audience. We might do this by genre, age, gender, socio-economics categorisation, psychographic categorisation. Placing… A film can benefit reasonably well by having a fair release date. You would do this to make sure the film has a decent release date to maximize its profit at the box-office. If your film were a new super hero film, you wouldn’t want it to have the same release date to the Dark Knight for example would you' No. Promotion… Promotions are practices undertaken by most films studios. They invest in expensive marketing campaigns to maximize their target audience attendance for there up and coming film release date. Film promotions can take many different routes such as print advertising, known as posters and ads in newspapers and magazines, TV and radio, Internet sites and merchandising, which can be associated around the film. Publicity… Publicity can consist of star interviews, news stories and reviews in leading film magazines such as Empire or Total Film. All this is done to make sure a film gets the best opportunity for profit as humanly possible. Advertisement also has a big part to play in the film industry. Once you’ve identified you target audience, then comes selling the product. Advertising has come to be known as form of communication that typically attempts to persuade potential customers to purchase a particular brand or product. The truth is you see advertising in film without even realizing it. Every time you see a character sip a certain brand of fizzy pop eg. Pepsi, drive a certain sports car eg. Aston Martin, buy a specific brand of beer or shop in a particular store, you can almost bank on the fact that the company paid good money to be represented in the film. For the advertisers, their products gain greater recognition. If everyone in the film is driving a specific make of car, even without thinking about it, people are encouraged to buy there make of car. But there is a downside, if the film isn’t a great success and basically a flop. The advertiser might not get the money back they invested to boost there sales for a certain product. There is another form of advertising. This is the advertising done to promote the films. These are Previews shown before films in theaters, previews show before films on DVD’S and Poster/Billboard advertising. Film posters… A successful film poster will help with attracting the target audience and persuading them to watch the film. The following will all help a film poster be successful. A large title that attracts the eye, big bold colors that stand out from the background, a picture which will stick in your head and attract views to the film, persuasive language and main characters name’s for promotion. For example, if there were a new horror film staring Will Smith coming out soon. The poster would consist of eerie images in order to appeal to horror fans. Also because Will Smith is a well-known film star, I’d make sure his name was in large bold text to stand out from the rest of the poster. The colors I’d use would be dark colors to represent death. Films poster also uses catchy strap lines, this could be done to give the film mystery and persuade you to go and see it. The Mist film poster was deigned Drew Struzan. Drew Struzan is an American artist. Struzan has painted famous album covers, advertising, collectibles and book covers. But he is best known for his extensive movie poster work. Struzan can be best known for he’s Star Wars posters, The Back to the Future posters, E.T the Extra-Terrestrial poster, Harry Potter posters and a personal favorite of mine, Risky Business poster. In total Stuzan has 150 film posters to his credit. Analyzing Drew Struzan’s The Mist poster is fairly easy. The poster uses dark colors to give a state of horror and mystery. I also think the bright light symbolizes “hope” and determination. At the top of the poster we see a tag line “Stephen King’s legendary tale of terror”, and below that we see “fear changes everything”. By including Stephen King’s name on the front cover we automatically have a target audiences interested in the product. With the film poster being dim and dark, and using such language as “fear changes everything” we also know it’s a horror film and will then appeal to horror film fans too. At the bottom of the poster we see the previous films the director has directed in the past, these films being the most popular and successful ones he has directed. Now the audience has a good idea of the genre of the film, they know it started out as a Stephen King novel and they also know the previous film Frank Darabont has directed.