Essay

“Successful media products depend as much upon marketing and distribution to a specific audience as they do upon good production practices”. 

To what extent would you agree with this statement, within the media area you have studied?

 

I agree with this statement, I think that they do depend on marketing a lot. If the film is not marketed to the right target audience, then no one will go and see the film, to see the good production practices used.

 Marketing is the main area of the film; it needs to be done right as it is the factor that can make a film a success or a flop. If the producers and distributors spend lots of time and money on marketing, it pays off. One film that did this very well was The Kings Speech, Harvey Weinstein spent a lot of his time and money pushing the film, marketing it everywhere, although the budget was only $15 million, which is a reasonably small budget, a vast majority of this was spent on marketing the film. This was proven a good method as the film managed to make $414 million in the box office, which is outstanding. This is because there was so much marketing throughout the UK that everyone knew about the film. Weinstein had thought of everything, marketing it by entering it into film competitions, making two posters, featuring two separate trailers for the UK and US etc. This proves that marketing is a key aspect of a film’s success as there was a slim chance that this type of film, with such a small budget was going to be such a success without the use of blanket marketing. This is because only 7% of British films make a profit and of films costing £10 million or more, only 17% make a profit.    

Marketing is key within the making of a film, and it needs to be timed right. To make a film successful, the timing, place and actual type of marketing need to be correct. 

All three are very important. Timing means that the film needs to be marketed at the right time, for example if the films trailer was advertised on the TV. Warner Bros would not advertise a new children’s Disney film at 10pm as they would not be showing the trailer to the right target audience. They would need to advertise the trailer either during or just after school times, not late at night when none of the target audience will be watching.

This links in with the place of marketing. This is equally important as the timing as they need to be making sure they are marketing to the right audience. For example, a horror film with an aged 18 rating, like Dredd, will not want to be marketed on the children’s channels at peak times.

 Distribution is also a very important part of film making. The film needs to be distributed around the UK and US as much as possible, because the more places and times the film is played, the more chances there are to view the film. If a film is only played in the cinema a few times, there is less chance of people going to see it. Tie-ins are also a very good way of helping make a film a success. The use of tie-ins helps create more of a buzz around the film before it is released. A recent example of this is the link between the new Hunger Games: Catching Fire film and Subway. When you buy a product from Subway, the sandwich shop, there is a code inside that offers you the chance to win free tickets to see the film and uncovers secret content about the film. This was release 2 months before the film’s release to help people familiarise themselves with the film before its release date. They have also partnered the film with a charity, which lets you help feed children if you take a picture of yourself with a cardboard cut-out of the stars of the film, which are located in Subway. This will help the film as it is partnering it with something helpful and people will learn about the film whilst helping the unfortunate.

In conclusion, I think that marketing and distribution to a specific audience are very important as they are vital to have if a film is to be a success.