As our film nears completion, we must decide how to market our film to the target audience we have chosen. Our target audience is mostly men between the ages of 15 and 35. Our film is dark and gritty and will most likely not appeal to many women or pre-teen children. The most likely BBFC rating for our film will be a 15, so anyone younger would not be able to view it anyway. Before deciding on our marketing campaign, we must first research how our target audience lives and where would be the best place to promote our film.
There are many ways of promoting a film. They range from the traditional way of posters around the country in places such as bus stops and train station, to TV adverts and trailers, to marketing the film on the internet using a more interactive approach. After much careful deliberation, our group has decided that because our target audience is typically teenagers and adults that are technologically sound, viral marketing will be the best way to market our film and will most likely result in more people seeing the film and leading to bigger profits.
Once we had decided what marketing technique we would use for our film, the group had to come up with ideas for posters, trailers and interactive graphics. We seemed to struggle at first, but once the first excellent idea became apparent, more began to flow.
The first (and perhaps most important) item that we completed planning was the poster. Every film has a poster (or “one-sheet”) and it is always one of the main reasons that people are drawn to the film and become interested. Usually the first item released in conjunction
with the upcoming film, the poster gives the public their first view of the tone and themes of the film. An excellent poster with intriguing and original ideas can really draw the public eye and get people pondering about what they are looking at and make them want to go and see the film. Our main idea for the poster came from two group members Taylor Gladwin and David Huxford. David came up with the idea of focusing on the shirt and tie worn by the patient in our short film, as his quest for smartness and acceptance is a major theme of the film. We as a group thought this was a good place to start as it was simple and more ideas could develop from it. As a group we agreed that just the name of the film and a shot of a shirt and tie would be too bland and would not catch anyone’s eye. After more discussions, Taylor Gladwin proposed replacing the tie on the shirt with a noose instead. The group agreed that this made the poster more original and fresh. The noose around the shirt gives our potential audience a feel of the film and shows them that it will be dark and will most likely contain death of some kind.
Now that our group had our basic poster idea, we set about deciding what viral marketing techniques would work well for our film. We drew inspiration from the film ‘Inception’ (Dir. Christopher Nolan, 2010). Though the viral marketing campaign wasn’t amazingly huge, the main part of the campaign we were interested in was the way the director and crew kept the story so hidden, right up until the release date. Many viewers of the film went in ‘blind’ and did not know the story at all, giving the film a bigger impact and special feeling. We decided that this was exactly what we wante
d for our short film – to keep the plot a secret and just draw people in through posters and viral ads. We also thought it would be an excellent idea to follow Alfred Hitchcock’s rule for his film ‘Psycho’ – who did not allow people to enter the movie theatre after the film had begun. As a group, we felt that this was an excellent idea and would have kept the suspense cranked up. The audience would not have been distracted by latecomers and could be completely absorbed in the film. We agreed that should our film ever get a wide release, this would be another technique we would use, thus keeping the audience delved deep in the mystery of the narrative.
Another film that used viral marketing well and influenced our campaign was ‘Cloverfield’ (Dir. Matt Reeves, 2008). A trailer for the film was released a year before its of
ficial release, containing just a website that people could log onto to find out more about the film that at the time had not released a title. As the release date drew closer, to promote the ‘lost footage’ scheme of the film, Facebook pages were created for each of the main characters and were updated regularly. Websites for the fake companies seen in the film we also created, to give the audience the feeling that the events in the film were in fact real. A whole Cloverfield universe was created, to give the film more depth and allow people to be more immersed in it. The campaign proved to be a success, as Cloverfield did very well at the box office. We decided that a similar campaign would work for our film as well. Many teaser trailers leading people to specific websites and ‘treasure-trails’ would get people absorbed in the film, leading them to tell their friends and hopefully make the anticipation for the film larger.
Overall, our group feels that if our film wanted to gain a wide cinema release a viral marketing campaign would be the best way to promote our film and draw the public interest. People of all ages use the internet nowadays, and it is probably the best way to promote a film, as long as the campaign is interesting and original. Of course, other traditional methods would also be employed but we feel that promotion on the internet sparks more interest from more people.
There are many ways of promoting a film. They range from the traditional way of posters around the country in places such as bus stops and train station, to TV adverts and trailers, to marketing the film on the internet using a more interactive approach. After much careful deliberation, our group has decided that because our target audience is typically teenagers and adults that are technologically sound, viral marketing will be the best way to market our film and will most likely result in more people seeing the film and leading to bigger profits.
Once we had decided what marketing technique we would use for our film, the group had to come up with ideas for posters, trailers and interactive graphics. We seemed to struggle at first, but once the first excellent idea became apparent, more began to flow.
The first (and perhaps most important) item that we completed planning was the poster. Every film has a poster (or “one-sheet”) and it is always one of the main reasons that people are drawn to the film and become interested. Usually the first item released in conjunction
with the upcoming film, the poster gives the public their first view of the tone and themes of the film. An excellent poster with intriguing and original ideas can really draw the public eye and get people pondering about what they are looking at and make them want to go and see the film. Our main idea for the poster came from two group members Taylor Gladwin and David Huxford. David came up with the idea of focusing on the shirt and tie worn by the patient in our short film, as his quest for smartness and acceptance is a major theme of the film. We as a group thought this was a good place to start as it was simple and more ideas could develop from it. As a group we agreed that just the name of the film and a shot of a shirt and tie would be too bland and would not catch anyone’s eye. After more discussions, Taylor Gladwin proposed replacing the tie on the shirt with a noose instead. The group agreed that this made the poster more original and fresh. The noose around the shirt gives our potential audience a feel of the film and shows them that it will be dark and will most likely contain death of some kind.Now that our group had our basic poster idea, we set about deciding what viral marketing techniques would work well for our film. We drew inspiration from the film ‘Inception’ (Dir. Christopher Nolan, 2010). Though the viral marketing campaign wasn’t amazingly huge, the main part of the campaign we were interested in was the way the director and crew kept the story so hidden, right up until the release date. Many viewers of the film went in ‘blind’ and did not know the story at all, giving the film a bigger impact and special feeling. We decided that this was exactly what we wante
d for our short film – to keep the plot a secret and just draw people in through posters and viral ads. We also thought it would be an excellent idea to follow Alfred Hitchcock’s rule for his film ‘Psycho’ – who did not allow people to enter the movie theatre after the film had begun. As a group, we felt that this was an excellent idea and would have kept the suspense cranked up. The audience would not have been distracted by latecomers and could be completely absorbed in the film. We agreed that should our film ever get a wide release, this would be another technique we would use, thus keeping the audience delved deep in the mystery of the narrative.Another film that used viral marketing well and influenced our campaign was ‘Cloverfield’ (Dir. Matt Reeves, 2008). A trailer for the film was released a year before its of
ficial release, containing just a website that people could log onto to find out more about the film that at the time had not released a title. As the release date drew closer, to promote the ‘lost footage’ scheme of the film, Facebook pages were created for each of the main characters and were updated regularly. Websites for the fake companies seen in the film we also created, to give the audience the feeling that the events in the film were in fact real. A whole Cloverfield universe was created, to give the film more depth and allow people to be more immersed in it. The campaign proved to be a success, as Cloverfield did very well at the box office. We decided that a similar campaign would work for our film as well. Many teaser trailers leading people to specific websites and ‘treasure-trails’ would get people absorbed in the film, leading them to tell their friends and hopefully make the anticipation for the film larger.Overall, our group feels that if our film wanted to gain a wide cinema release a viral marketing campaign would be the best way to promote our film and draw the public interest. People of all ages use the internet nowadays, and it is probably the best way to promote a film, as long as the campaign is interesting and original. Of course, other traditional methods would also be employed but we feel that promotion on the internet sparks more interest from more people.
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