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.