How are films/artists promoted? Has this changed in recent years?
Films and artists can be promoted through various different medias.
In Theatres:
- Can be promoted through the use of trailers, these usually occur before a movie.
- Film posters
- Slideshows, trivia games before movies.
- Standees (life-size standing cut outs of actors)
- Cardboard 3D displays, sometimes producing sound
Television and radio:
- Paid advertising; 30 second commercials, newspaper/magazine ads
- Product placement; paid active (e.g sponsoring a TV programme) or passive insertion like on-set posters or passing mention in dialogue.
- Extended placement such as talk shows like Ellen etc
- Interviews with actors/directors which news entertainment outlets feature
- Paid broadcast of behind-the-scenes footage or documentary
- Advanced trailers, teaser trailers etc
Internet:
- Studio sponsored film websites
- Cross media convergence with major search engines such as Google (e.g part of StarWars' marketing was done through the use of Google Search Engine where users were asked to choose a light or dark side)
- Cross media convergence with social media marketing such as twitter and facebook (e.g Twitter created a special hashtag for the release of StarWars 7 where a emoji would appear once users would hashtag. Facebook allowed users to add a lightsaber to their profile picture to promote the movie)
- Movie websites with inside information and exclusive such as trailers and teasers.
Print:
- Paid advertising in magazines, newspapers and insert in books
- Synergistic links of original books and special edition or special prints
- Comics
Promotional Tours and Interviews:
- Exclusive interviews with directors and cast as part of DVD extras
- Interviews as part of talk shows
- Tours, book signings, meet and greet
Merchandising:
- Co-branding/co-merchandising in a film (Synergy)
- Promotional giveaways such as signed posters, DVDs, Action figures
Methods of promtion have changed in recent years due to technological convergence and proliferation of hardware over the years. We are constantly adapting to better and more technology and therefore our methods of promotion is becoming vast and more varied.
What different forms of marketing do we see?
-Cross media convergence where because of technology we are able to promote over different media
platforms for example, Star Wars 7 used CMC with Google to market the film further.
-Synergy; cross promotion of products e.g promoting a soundtrack alongside a movie
-Movie Websites, Facebook/Twitter Pages
-Movie trailers/teaser trailers
-Film posters
-Book signings/poster signings
Any innovative methods of promotions?
Innovative methods of promotion would be contemporary ways to interact with users through technological convergence. SW7 CMC with Google where users were asked to choose the light/dark side, Spotify allowing users to choose the skin of their music player based on the coordinating colour scheme of a movie. Another more modern and slightly recent method is through the use of Snapchat. Snapchat filters allows promotion of movie releases by created a special filter for a movie release.
