Film marketing

Today in class we had a discussion about the best ways to promote a film, we also created mind maps where we personally wrote down some of our own ideas about film promotion:

Which method are you most persuaded by?
From a personal view I am most persuaded by film trailers because they are the main indication to me as to whether or not the film will be any good or suited to my film interests. Film trailers need to be able to make the public want to go to see the film, so they need to be enticing and effective but not give too much away about the film. They tend to show funny parts, areas of tension, romance and cliff hangers-depending on the genre to allow the public to be aware of the genre and so they can get to their target market who will hopefully find these areas interesting and make them want to see the film.

Which method do you believe is most successful?
However I believe the most succesful way to promote a film is through word of mouth because it can be spread across a wide range of people without any cost.` It is normally a product of other methods of promotion-for example someone will see a film trailer and tell their friends and family that they saw a film trailer and they want to see the film, this method is most effective when the film has come out because once people have seen the film they are likely to tell people about it via social networking and through face to face conversations-these will hopefully be positive reviews because if they are bad reviews there is likely to be a much smaller volume of people going to The Cinema to see the film.

Film marketing strategies include:

-Viral videos
-Publicity stunt
-Publicity blitz
-Press junket

Viral videos are videos such as behind the scenes videos or teasers that are uploaded on to social networking video sites such as youtube or perhaps instagram, they are a great way of raising awareness because people can share videos on other popular social networking sites such as twitter and facebook which acts as a double method of promotion meaning it reaches a huge population, these methods tend to be used for highly anticipated films to build excitement and awareness for the film.

Publicity stunts are when someone perhaps from the film goes out in public to do something that goes against the social norm to draw attention to the film, such as a flash mob. These are good because they catch the attention of everyone in the area at the time which means that it will lead to a lot of word-of-mouth promotion-these would be likely to be filmed which means they can also be viral videos meaning that it is a very effective way of promoting the film.

A Publicity blitz, this is promoting the film so much that the public can't miss the numerous promotions coming from the film, the film marketers will advertise on the sides of buses, billboards, use numerous teaser trailers and place ads on the internet and in the newspapers, they will try to get the image and film name anywhere they can in order to promote the film. This is a good way of promoting a film because if it is heavily marketed, the public will become increasingly interested in the film and will draw more people to come to see the film.

A Press Junket is a way of getting favourable interest from the public via the press meaning that there will be a more positive interest for the film so the public are more likely to be interested in seeing the film, they are attended by a publicist, Publicists are public relations professionals who represent celebrities rather than companies, they ensure that there is nothing but positivity coming from the interviews, these press interviews are normally attended by one of the main characters in a film with the film's logo in the background.

Key learning points 
In this post I looked at how films are marketed and which are the most effective and convincing methods of promoting a film to its potential audience, this will be useful when I come to creating a magazine front cover and poster because I can look at what makes a film poster and magazine cover persuade the potential audience to go to see the film. I have also been able to gain knowledge on the various different methods of marketing a film and the technical terms for these methods.