- •International business school – budapest
- •1. Introduction
- •1.1. Academic Background
- •1.2. Key Terms
- •1.2.1. Film Promotion
- •1.2.2. Promotion Strategies and Tools
- •1.3. Research Question and Objectives
- •If some of the release and post-release strategies - as practiced in the us - were adopted by the Russian film industry, filmmaking would be far more profitable.
- •2. Literature review
- •2.1. Promotion Strategies and Techniques
- •2.1.1. Promotion as Part of Marketing
- •2.1.2. Promotions Specific to the Film Industry
- •2.2. Comparison of us and Russian Film Promotion Tools
- •2.3. Main Differences in Promotion Strategies
- •3. Research Methodology
- •3.1. Research Design
- •3.1.1. Research Approach
- •3.1.2 Research Strategy
- •3.2. Data Collection
- •3.2.1. Interviews
- •3.2.2. Questionnaires
- •3.2.3. Secondary Sources
- •3.3. Methodology of Evaluation
- •3.4. Validity and Reliability
- •4. Data Analysis
- •4.1. The American Film Promotion
- •4.1.1. Secondary Research
- •4.1.2. Survey Results
- •4.1.3. Interview Results
- •4.2. The Russian Film Promotion
- •4.2.1. Secondary Research
- •4.2.2. Survey Results
- •4.2.3. Interview Results
- •5. Conclusions
- •1) To give an overview of promotional tools and strategies in general and in the film industry in particular
- •2) To analyse us film promotion through examples
- •3) To review the Russian film industry with a focus on the promotional aspect
- •4) To compare different ways of promotion in the two countries
- •5) To summarise a list of strategies that can benefit the Russian film industry
3.4. Validity and Reliability
One of the most important limitations of collecting information for interviews is the tight timeframe of completion. The interviewees will have a time limit for answering questions. Since the interviews are not face-to-face, the author will get only limited information with regards to the research question and its objectives. Face-to-face interviews would convey more useful information not only verbally but also through non-verbal communication. Moreover, conducting only two interviews with two film professionals is not sufficient enough to gain thorough understanding of the research objectives.
Questionnaires have also their limitations, such as limited time and the fact that it is an online questionnaire. Another limitation of the research is that quota sampling is not a type of random sampling but it is used to sample large populations without giving 100% accuracy. The main purpose of using this method of sampling is to get information quickly and economically. Also questionnaires will be available through the Internet using popular film websites; therefore it is not representative of the population as a whole. Questionnaires and interviews will be made available in two languages English and Russian and information will be collated accordingly.
In order to avoid some of the limitations which are listed above different techniques will be applied, such as follow up questions via Skype or distribution of additional questions to some of the respondents. To prepare good questionnaires and interviews a draft questionnaire will be first composed and tested with the supervisor and native speakers of both languages, English and Russian. The final version of the questionnaires will be received by four people, who will be asked to evaluate the questions for clarity.
For online questionnaires there will be an additional field available where respondents may invite anyone they choose to participate in the survey. It is a kind of snowball sampling which can positively affect the final results. There are some limitations which will be hard to avoid but all efforts will be made to minimize their effects. The questionnaires were completed by two hundred American participants, while only a hundred people responded from Russia. To create a balance between the American and Russian results the same number of American answers were used by not considering any answers after the first hundred.
It is not possible to evaluate the reliability of the whole research process. Participant bias or errors could take place but the structured manner of interviews and questionnaires will help avoid these problems. The importance of film promotion could be viewed differently by respondents because of their lack of experience with the film industry. Respondents will not be under any pressure to fill in the questionnaires, they could answer freely and tell what they think. All the answers will be scrutinised and conclusions will be drawn to evaluate all opinions. To prevent any bias in the evaluation results will be compared to secondary sources.