As a case study example of how effective film marketing can be, I have decided to explore the film "Noah" released in 2014 and see how effectively the film marketing techniques can be deployed with particular effect.
Generally, a film promotion campaign consists of three main parts that can be attributed to it's success.
These are:
Advertising: Generally this includes promotional materials covering the likes of a film poster, depicting the narrative of the movie to potential viewers in a very simplistic manner, usually, if the promotional material is that of a film poster the marketing agency must sell the film to potential viewers in the use of a single image. Ideally, this would bring across to the viewer in the image the USP of the film, or in other terms, the Unique Selling Point of the film. Trailers promoting the film, either the 30 second TV advertisement version or the full 2-3minute feature length cinematic version of the trailer also fall under the category of advertisement features. For the example of Noah, there were a multitude of posters and trailers released that each in their own way were successful in portraying this alternate version of the biblical story, one with which many film goers prior to it's release were unfamiliar with, given the original story told by the screenplay.
Publicity: This is the part of the film's promotional package that encompasses not only the creative team but also the actors and main 'Hollywood stars' of the film offering their opinions of the film. This endorsement by those who have worked on a film project normally gives inspiration to potential viewers of a film all of the encouragement they need to go and see a film in it's full glory at the cinema. For my example of the film "Noah", prior to the film's public release and exhibition in cinemas, leading man Russell Crowe conducted many interviews expressing his fondness and gratitude he felt indebted to make towards the film. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QX-OIff51ZQ
Tie-Ins: Tie-Ins to a film's release are typically orientated at spreading the word of a film's release as quickly as possible. This may be done for example, by the film studio agreeing a sponsorship deal with a fast food chain outlet such as KFC or McDonalds to create and then promote a special themed menu based around the release of an upcoming movie picture.
However, despite these three main methods of film publicity, film studios typically are aware that the quickest way of spreading news as to a film's release is through word of mouth. In the contemporary 21st century technologically advanced world that we have grown accustomed to in recent years, "word of mouth" has arguably lost it's original founding meaning, in that nowadays "word of mouth" is now most prevalent through the continued use and extensive development of social media apps such as Facebook and Twitter which allow millions of people to communicate intravenously with one another every single day. These social media tools can then be extrapolated for an entirely new purpose by film studios creating accounts on these sites and using them to connect with their audience and successfully promote new movie pictures and film material that is later to be released.
Merchandising- As part of the film's promotion, merchandising is produced as a way of immersing the audience in the release of an upcoming picture release and encouraging audiences to go and see it. Similar to Tie Ins, merchandising helps to promote an upcoming movie release by promoting the film upon certain products such as shoes and clothing to immerse the audience in the world of the film and to captivate the audiences.
