Consistencies in Marketing

Within the promotional marketing of a film it is common practice for the film trailer and the poster, both intended for promotional commerce purposes, to share and maintain certain consistencies that make up the defining themes and the attitudes the producers of a film wish to communicate to an audience.

As the example of the action adventure film "X Men" demonstrates, both the cinematic trailer and the poster for the film share and maintain certain values and consistencies that the promoter of a film will inevitably seek to capitalise upon when promoting the film such as  the subjective characters of the film, will invariably possess some sort of special quality or hidden power. This is evident through the letter "X" bearing such a significance in the marketing. The single letter "X" also conveys a deep mystery as to the characters' identity. An alternative argument could also be the fact that as the X-Men characters were originally created as comic book characters to fuel the imaginations of adolescent males, the marketing campaign could be targeting traditional, original fans of the series in it's primary incarnation of a comic- book series. As the adolescent youth that enjoyed the comic book series in their younger years the producers of the film may be hoping to rekindle this enthusiasm for the characters through the release of a film so that the now-grown original fans of the comic book series can take their own families to revisit and enjoy the new cinematic release.


This marketing tactic would immediately infer and imply that comic book fans would know the whole backstory of the characters of the piece having read the comic books in their younger years.  


Examples of consistencies within film marketing are aplenty as this is a crucial element of a film's production that needs to be tackled correctly as a film is validated on it's success through the promotion package used to promote the film, basically put; the more successful a film's promotion, the more people will purchase tickets to go and see the finished film upon it's public exhibition at a cinema or independent arts house. Consistencies within a film's marketing practices are important as it is through these consistencies that viewers are able to pre determine what the key themes, issues and messages the film is aiming to promote.


However, it is important to note that there is not just the promotional articles of a film trailer and a poster by which to promote a film. There may also be other external promotions that take place for the film, such as an article published within a magazine, or a publicity tour of a film's director and main actors may take place. A promotional/publicity tour is where the acting stars and on occasion the director, spend a few weeks prior to the release date of a film visiting various TV programmes and radio shows with the objective being to reach a wider audience within the specified demographic as possible. Although these tactics are normally reserved for exclusively the rich and influential film studios who are able to afford such publicity expenditure within their budget reserved for promotional activities, they are publicity tactics that ultimately can work well within a film's favour in deciding it's "fortune" at the box office upon release as more people are able to hear about the film upon it's release and therefore make plans to go and see it.