4.2.2. Survey Results

The purpose of the survey was to identify the most popular release and post-release strategies in the film promotion among moviegoers in Russia. The questionnaire was posted on the most popular website Kinopisk.ru. One hundred people returned it, some with useful comments, for example, Eugene Bazhenov, creator of the popular show BadComedian on YouTube, who gave additional information to the author.

66% men and 34% women replied. The age range was 9% between 12-17, 29% between 18-24, 28% between 25-34, 14% between 35-44, 12% between 45-54 and 8% over 54. 71% live in big cities, such as Moscow, Saint-Petersburg and Novosibirsk, 24% in small towns, for example Irkutsk, Mytischi and Kaliningrad and 5% from villages located near cities and towns, for example Pushkino, Zelenograd and Balakovo.

Chart 4. Gender distribution of the survey (Russia) Chart 5. Age distribution of the survey (Russia)

61% said they watched one to two domestic films in the last three months, 29% watched three to five films in the last three months and 10% saw more than six in the period.

55% think that film marketing in Russia is weak and they pay no attention to domestic promotion campaigns. 11% of respondents disagreed and 34% remained neutral.

Famous actors and actresses attract 9% of people and film director attracts only 7%. Interesting storylines attract 37% and trailers 47%. This statistics demonstrate the importance of film promotion at the stage of release.

The most common way to find information about new films is the Internet according to 76%, television according to 15%, cinema promotion according to 6% and magazines and journals according to 3%.

Chart 6. Common ways to find information about new films among moviegoers (Russia)

Among all proposed promotion tools 39% voted for word-of-mouth, 35% for social media, 18% for television, 5% for radio and 3% for posters and billboards. There were comments that some people prefer to see new trailers and teasers in breaks between football matches.

20% bought DVDs and Blu-rays of Russian films. Among them 65% were over 25 years old, while 80% do not buy DVDs and Blu-rays and 93% of them were under 24 years. 50% of participants bought American films on DVDs and Blu-rays.

93% answered that they watched films on the Internet and social media websites and downloaded films via Torrent client. 64% were under 24 years.

9% answered that they bought merchandise associated with their favourite films, while 91% said that they did not.

95% of Russian moviegoers agreed they wanted to see promotion campaigns or take part in competitions with winning opportunities. The ones, who did not, were over 45.

Eugene Bazhenov who is a 25 year old professional film critic and sees at least six films every two month agrees that promotion campaigns contribute to box office success of films. The weakness of the Russian film industry is not to place importance to this. Bazhenov is not fan of Russian films therefore he never buys any on DVD but he has an extensive foreign film collection. In his opinion, the primary problem of the Russian film industry is not the lack of promotion but the lack of professionals making the film.