Evaluation Question 2 - How effective is the combination of your product and ancillary texts?

The distribution of a media product is incredibly important when it comes to the success of the product. Film distributors are responsible for a lot of the marketing, looking at identifying the audience as well as reaching them, deciding a release date and then promoting the film within this timespan, until release. Film distributors decide how much the film is going to be advertised as well as when and where. This is crucial as it needs to gain interest from people to create an audience, not only this, but it needs to draw the correct audience. For example if the target was young children you would advertise the film up until the school holidays, to have it released within the holidays so they are more likely to go and watch it. Distributor’s methods for promoting can vary for each set film and company.

When it comes to advertising there are several different platforms that can be made use of. This includes things like posters, bus signage, billboards, TV adverts, radio adverts, having its own website, social media advertising, trailers and may more. Without any of these no audience would be made as there would be no talk about the film itself, no one would even be aware about it. By covering such a large variety of platforms the doors to a larger audience are open, enabling them to get the biggest reach that they can. This is because people who tend to watch little TV won’t necessarily see the adverts; however they may spend a lot of time on social networks and see from it here. This is where audience research becomes a very important aspect, the distribution company need to know and understand their audience as the marketing will differ depending on the demographics and size of the audience. Looking at the trailer I have produced, for example, when advertising the trailer on TV it wouldn’t be shown during the day as this is usually a time in which children will be watching TV so our target audience would not have watched it. Once more has been discovered about their audience they can then optimize attraction for the product. Examples of this are as such –

Here you can see that for children’s films bold and bright colours are used, as well as displaying the main character in the centre of the poster with some form of over exaggerated expression on their face. You also have other characters behind them. This is because often children can recognise the characters, for these examples Lego and SpongeBob are both incredibly recognisable. Now comparing these to the horror posters we can see that they are more dull, main characters are not given away too much and there is no specific action occurring on the poster as they do not want to show too much of the story line.

Distributors work along with a marketing plan which can take action up to a year before the official release date of the films. This is because they need to build the audience by releasing teaser trailers, posters etc. As the release date gets nearer they often try to build themselves into other advertising campaigns to create even more talk around the film.

A recent ad campaign that has been effective is the recent film release of 50 Shades Of Grey. The film is based on a book itself, so it therefore already has an audience. Due to this it is easy to find out even more about the audience. By releasing a film more talk was brought up about it, firstly being the uproar about who was going to be Mr Grey. The film had a budget of around $40 million however so far has made a domestic total of $161,377,000. This is due to how much talk was made about the film before its actual release. Promotion for the film started incredibly early, with the release of the cast, soundtracks and small teaser trailers, as well as new book covers for the film.

When it comes to merging the promotional material with the products it is incredibly important that a narrative and theme has been kept. This is important as it links all of the products together, creating an instantly recognisable identity. Looking at my trailer and promotional products I have tried to stick to using a similar colour scheme, as well as keeping the lighting dark to create a gloomy atmosphere.