Exam Question

2013 Q1. To what extent are stars and/or celebrities important to the promotion of your three main texts? 

Stars/celebrities are clearly very important when it comes to the music industry, they help to promote their music and can create huge fan bases. For example, the three main artists I studied; Adele, Jessie J and Amy Winehouse all have their own individual fans. Adele is known to appeal to mostly females who are between 25 to 44 and with children, according to Nielsen. This factor is important to consider when looking at how Adele is promoted. Maria Bailey who is an author of eight books about marketing to mothers said "By appealing to moms, Adele had a built-in marketing machine in place." This is because on average, mums share six times more on social media than any other demographic. Jessie J's fans even refer to themselves as "heartbeats" which highlights the amount of support she has and is a promotion of her in itself. However, an article found in the Daily Mail from 2015 was about Jessie J "unfollowing all of her fan base" on Twitter, which left her loyal fans very upset and tweeting negative things about her. This is an example of when celebrities could have a negative impact on their own promotion too. Amy Winehouse too has a very loyal and supportive fan base, even after her death. This is clearly seen as the outside of her home in Camden was filled with flowers, candles, pictures and messages from devastated fans after her death.

The appearances of celebrities are also a key aspect of their promotion. The fact that Adele is often described as "plus size". In fact, in an issue of the Rolling Stone magazine she admits "Sometimes I'm curious to know if I would have been as successful if I wasn't plus-size," which clearly shows that the physical appearance of a celebrity clearly has an impact on their promotion. Jessie J however is known for her amazing voice as much as for her quirky sense of style. Her fashion choices are often spoken about in the media, including 'glamour' and 'elle' magazines. This shows that she is a style icon which promotes her image and therefore her music. Similarly, Amy Winehouse had a unique style which caught people's eyes. This is evident as she even has a "style file" dedicated to her on the 'Vogue' website, which has images of her most memorable fashion moments. This clearly displays that her physical appearance is very important when it comes to her promotion, as it is still one of the main aspects why people remember her today. 

Exam Question - June 2014

B1. Discuss the marketing strategies used by your selected industry. Refer to your three main texts.

Most if not all blockbuster films use cross-platform marketing strategies in order to raise audience awareness of the films release. Films which have a bigger budget such as Skyfall (2012) directed by Sam Mendes had an estimated budget of over $150 million and Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014) directed by Matthew Vaughn with a budget of $81 million have more opportunity to create effective marketisation. Whereas lower budget films such as Weekend (2011) directed by Andrew Haigh had around £120,000 (almost $150,000) meaning it didn't have as much money to spend on the marketisation of the film.

One of the most prominent ways of marketing in the film industry is the use of trailers, once trailers get released they start getting shared across multiple social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter. Some films take it a step further, for example, Kingsman had an interactive experience which allowed the audience to step inside the world of Kingsman by completing Secret Service missions through their electronic devices. This helped to create thrill among the audience and made them further anticipate the release of the film. Furthermore, Vaughn teamed up with Mr Porter; an online retail destination for men's fashion, to create a 60 piece collection of clothes and accessories which are identical to the ones seen in the movie in order to invite fans to dress like a Kingsman. Realistically, this would've helped to promote the film to a more middle-class audience as they're the ones who can afford the pricey products, with the cheapest blazer being £895. Once again, this would've helped to fuel the audiences anticipation for the film.

Similarly, Skyfall's theme song "Skyfall" being sung by Adele is a form of marketisation in itself as she's an extremely popular and respected artist. This means her popularity will attract a large amount of people into listening to the song with the hope of it leading them to watching the movie. The song reached number two at the UK Singles Chart and Adele also won an Oscar and a Grammy for the song. This information shows that the films marketisation strategy was successful as it released more excitement about the film, which is why it was purposely released on the 5th October as part of the Global James Bond Day; just weeks before the film was released in cinemas.

However as previously mentioned, films such as Weekend can't afford to use marketisation to the same extent. Additionally, the fact that the film is focused around homosexuality makes it difficult to promote. For example, in America the film wasn't immediately labelled as a 'gay film', which allowed it to branch out to a wider audience. Haigh himself mentioned in an interview that it is hard to promote a gay film as there is a resistance to accepting it as a serious piece of work. Nevertheless, the director Andrew Haigh and producer Tristan Goligher both went onto creating a movie called 45 Years (2015) which was a huge success and was nominated for an Oscar. This could've helped to promote their movie Weekend as their fans might've been interested in their previous work.

In conclusion, it is clear that the film industry has a number of techniques when it comes to marketisation, however it depends on a film's budget to see which ones they can afford to make use of.

Exam Qustion

Explore the different ways audiences respond to your three main texts.

This question relates to Stuart Hall's reception theory, where an audience either has a preferred, negotiated or oppositional response. My three main texts are Skyfall (2012) directed by Sam Mendes, Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014) directed by Matthew Vaughn and Weekend (2011) directed by Andrew Haigh. Media texts are generally polysemic, meaning that the audience form various responses since the texts can have multiple meanings.

A good example of an audience having a largely preferred reading is when it comes to the James Bond franchise. Skyfall being the 23rd movie, there was no surprise on the popularity of the film as it already has a well established target audience as well as fan base. This can be proven by looking at the James Bond 007 official Facebook page which has over 4 million followers. The fact that Skyfall was the 23rd movie in the franchise, automatically implied that it will receive a largely preferred response. This suggests that the spy theme in movies is majorly enjoyed by the general public, which explains why there's now an infinity of movies consisting of similar themes and genre. Leading onto another one of my studied texts, Kingsman. Matthew Vaughn, the director and one of the writers of Kingsman is well known for his other work such as Kick-Ass (2010) and X-Men: First Class (2011) which also gained generally positive responses from the audience. This is clear as X-Men is a franchise and Kick-Ass got a sequel released. Similarly, it has been announced that a sequel of Kingsman is due to be released this year, "Kingsman: The Golden Circle". This simply highlights the fact that the movie received a preferred response from its audience. However, lower budget movies such as Weekend don't always get the desirable response. Upon it's release in Italy, Weekend was restricted to just 10 cinemas after the country's Bishops described it as "indecent", meaning it received an oppositional response. This had an impact on the audience response as it limited the scope of its release as many people would've been discouraged from watching the movie. On the other hand, others may have been encouraged to watch the movie as according to The Guardian, the movie "has proven a surprise box office smash in Italy" which led to it being shown on 21 screens the following weekend as a result to the audiences preferred response.

Another way of measuring audience response is by looking at the awards movies have been granted with. Skyfall being the most successful of my studied texts, won 2 Oscars along with 64 other wins and 115 nominations. Although Kingsman was more popular due to its larger budget of $81 million, it received less awards than Weekend whose budget was only £120,000. Kingsman received 6 wins and 21 nominations as opposed to Weekend with 20 wins and 18 nominations. Furthermore, Andrew Haigh went on to directing a movie called 45 years which was a huge success being nominated for an Oscar as well as winning 20 awards and having 20 nominations.

Exam Question - June 2015

Explore the different audience appeals of your three main texts.

My three main texts were Skyfall (2012) directed by Sam Mendes, Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014) directed by Matthew Vaughn and Weekend (2011) directed by Andrew Haigh. These movies have clear differences in the audience appeal, the fact that both Skyfall and Kingsman have been created from a much higher budget than Weekend, automatically means they have a higher audience appeal. This is because the marketisation for the movies was able to extend much further and therefore reaching more people globally. Whereas a low budget film like Weekend is focused on appealing to a more niche target audience.

Firstly, the uses and gratification theory helps to explain the appeal of the texts to the audience. The movie Skyfall being the 23rd movie of the James Bond franchise already had a huge fan base who were looking forward to the movies release. This implies that many people would therefore watch the movie in order to be able to discuss it with their friends/colleagues, which links to the social interaction explanation from the uses and gratifications theory. Moreover, the use of star power with Daniel Craig was likely to be a part of the audience appeal. Similarly, the Kingsman cast also consists of star power, for example Colin Firth who plays Harry Hart and Samuel L. Jackson who plays the antagonist Valentine. These actors are very well known, meaning their fans were attracted to watching the movie. The fact that the movie was based on the comic book "The Secret Service" written by Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons who were credited as the writers of the film, along with Jane Goldman and Matthew Vaughn means that the film will appeal to the fans of the comic book. In reference to uses and gratification, Kingsman offers a sense of personal identity through the character of Eggsy played by Taron Egerton, who is a working class boy with no real opportunities to make something of himself. Some audiences may be able to identify themselves with his character as he is extremely relatable. Weekend however has no such thing as star power included, this is due to the very low budget of the film as well as the niche audience it was aimed at. The movie largely focuses on the issues among homosexuals, allowing the audience to have insight into a world we don't usually have such explicit access to. Just like in Kingsman, the protagonists Russell (Tom Cullen) and Glen (Chris New) are very relatable and the low budget of the film helped to add to the realism of it. All three of the main texts offer the audience entertainment and a form of escapism as well as the things previously discussed.

The actual content of the texts is what also makes them appealing. For example, the action driven story lines in both Skyfall and Kingsman will be appealing to the thrill seeking audience. Kingsman also offers scenes of humour in order to keep the audience entertained throughout, in my opinion the humour included is the reason why so many people loved the movie. Whereas Weekend offers a very exclusive and real insight into issues which we don't usually hear about in our day to day lives. Although Weekend wasn't as successful as Skyfall or Kingsman, the audiences who did watch it gave it much praise. It can also be argued that Weekend wasn't as popular due to its issues revolving homosexuality, however this is disproved by the movie Moonlight (2016) directed by Barry Jenkins which won abundance of awards, including 3 Oscars. However, it did have a much higher production budget of 1.5 billion USD as opposed to Weekend's £120,000. Although it could be suggested that Moonlight had a stronger audience appeal as homosexuality has become more normalised.

To gather a better understanding of the audience appeal of the texts, it's interesting to look at the amount of followers the movies have on social media. I looked specifically at Facebook as it's one of the most popular and longest running social media websites which includes people of all ages. For example, the James Bond 007 franchise has over 4 million followers, while Kingsman has just over 750 thousand and Weekend doesn't even have an official facebook page. This shows us that there is a correlation between the audience appeal of movies and their social media accounts.

Film Comparison

Kingsman - 2014 - Matthew Vaughn -$81 million
Skyfall - 2012 - Sam Mendes - $200 million
Weekend - 2011 - Andrew Haigh - £120,000
Pride - 2014 - Matthew Warchus - N/A

Age Ratings (UK):
Kingsman - 15
Skyfall - 12A
Weekend - 18
Pride - 15

The above age ratings help our understanding of what sort of audiences the movies were supposed to attract. Although Kingsman and Skyfall are both Action movies, Kingsman has a higher age rating due to the explicit bloodshed and violent scenes (church scene) as well as nudity and profanity. Whereas Skyfall being the 23rd James Bond film already has a very large fan base meaning a lot of families would be going to watch it, therefore making the film appropriate for children as well as adults. Although there are scenes of sex and nudity as well as violence, the film was likely rated a 12A due to the wide fan base it has, meaning more people could go and watch it.

Due to the very revealing sexual content of Weekend, it has been rated an 18. Profanity and drug use is also included in the movie, all these aspects have been included in order to make the movie as realistic as possible, and in my opinion it achieved that. Due to it's sexual nature the film was restricted to just ten cinemas on it's release in Italy after the country's Bishops branded it as "indecent" and "unusable" in the country's many church-owned film theatres (AFP news site). However the film won much praise after premiering at the SXSW festival in the US. It has also won 20 awards. Pride also covering the issues of homosexuality, was rated a 15, this is because it doesn't consist of scenes as explicit as the ones in Weekend. The MPAA gave the film an R rating which is the nearest US equivalent to the UK's 15 certificate. The Independent published an article calling the MPAA's rating "draconian". Additionally, any references to homosexuality were removed from the DVD cover in the US. Overall the response to the movie was clearly good as in 2014 it won Best British Film Award.


Kingsman and Skyfall are both high budget films, meaning they would've been more popular as more money could've been spent not only on the production of the films but also on the advertising of it. This is seen through the gross earnings of the movies, with Kingsman earning 414.4 million USD ans Skyfall 1.109 billion USD. 
Whereas Weekend and Pride both had very low production budgets, Weekend being £120,000 and Pride's production budget being unavailable but assuming to be fairly low with production companies such as BBC Film and BFI supporting it. The gross earnings of Weekend was only around 484,000 USD and Pride 7.5 million USD. (information from Box Office Mojo)
These figures show that the more money is put into the production and marketing of the movie, the more likely it is to be popular and therefore earning more.