- •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
2.1.2. Promotions Specific to the Film Industry
As a way of introduction to the promotion tools specific to the film industry, first we will look at a set of views about the nature of success, then we will move on to a variety of promotional methods that can lead to success.
According to Addis and Holbrook (2008) motion-picture success includes five key variables, which are industry recognition, popular and critical buzz surrounding the film, marketing clout, critical and popular evaluation and market performance. These variables should be considered when film companies release new films in order to make satisfactory profit.
All these variables are important, but as the focus of the dissertation is marketing, and within it promotions, one variable will be emphasised only; the marketing clout. The main purpose of marketing communications, that is promotion, is to raise awareness and make the film attractive to wide audiences.
According to Kerrigan (2010) film marketing begins already at the stage of product development, continues through the formation of the project idea and goes into the distribution and exhibition stages. Film marketing incorporates the role of the actors and filmmakers including directors, screenwriters and others, as well as the script and genre of the film, age rating, release and post-release strategies. When films are finally released, marketing them is necessary at first in the pre-release stage, which is identifying the target audience, then a release strategy should be set up which is followed by a post-release strategy. This dissertation will focus on the last two stages, namely the release strategy and post-release strategy. These two are the most important to making the film a box office success.
The most widely used tools for film promotion are the press, the Internet, television, radio and billboard advertisement (Elliott and Simmons, 2011). Internet is a key tool no marketer can do without. Nowadays more and more people prefer to look for information on the Internet. According to Zufryden (2000) a film’s success at the box office can be predicted by monitoring the film’s website activity.
According to Duan et al. (2008) one of the most popular techniques of promotion is the word-of-mouth advertisement, which stimulate the sale of a product. In the film industry the role of the word-of-mouth promotion is of key importance since it directly influences the financial success of any film. Duan et al. also emphasises the importance of online reviews of professional critics, wikis, blogs, film websites and many others.
Brand is also important in attracting consumers, both as film audiences and as customers of certain products, and its success could be connected to techniques used by the promoters (Ailawadi et al., 2006). For example 20th Century Fox and other film studios use logos on posters, on merchandise and movie trailers. This is done to create an association between product and producer in the viewer’s mind. According to Lindstrom (2012) a large number of companies not associated with films use films and their stars to promote their products. For example, the cosmetic brand Sephora used the film The Runaways to promote their products on the stars of this film. Works of Ailawadi et al. shows that consumers identify products by brand while Lindstrom says that people identify brands by celebrities.
Film marketing can be a very risky business. Film promoters can spend millions and get little in return. Often film promoters are faced with the pitfalls of film marketing. Sometimes the advertising campaign can be characterised by a lack of focus, which means that a large amount of money which was spent on advertising gets wasted on audiences who will never see the film. Another pitfall is underestimating the audience, for example advertising could be only hype and audiences will avoid falling prey to this (Discovery Channel, 2011). This all point to the fact that promotion tools need to be very carefully selected.