2.2. Comparison of us and Russian Film Promotion Tools

The most powerful country in the film industry nowadays is the USA, in the light of statistics. According to Screenvillie (2009) cinema attendance exceeds more than 1.5 billion viewers per year. In comparison, cinema attendance in Russia is less than 500 million viewers per year. It is not a good result for a country with such big population as Russia.

One of the reasons for the low numbers is the poor quality of films. Another reason could be that potential viewers in Russia are not informed well enough about films in general because of the lack of film promotion campaigns (Barraclough, 2013). In his article Barraclough analysed the problems of Russian film promotion and he concludes that the Russian film market is still in its infancy.

According to Chapron (2012, cited in Barraclough, 2013) it is the Hollywood films that dominate the Russian box office, taking 15% of the total box office revenues. Barraclough’s research clearly demonstrates the problems of Russian film promotion, which are in line with the views of the author of this dissertation, namely that Russian film industry should adopt some of the US release and post-release film promotion strategies in order to become more profitable.

The next paragraphs will be following the way promotional tools are structured by Broderick and Pickton bringing in cultural-political aspects that have an influence on Russian filmmaking.

Advertising: According to Marich (2013) Hollywood film distributing companies spend between $30 to $50 million for domestic promotion campaigns alone. US promoters use a large number of strategies and tactics to promote new films in a creative way, such as displaying posters with attractive women and exciting movie trailers. Teaser campaigns are used at large national events, such as Super Bowl championship events which are held only once a year and attract huge audiences. Marich also formulated the promotion slogan that creativity generates interest. And it could be added that interest generates profit.

Most of the time Russian film promoters use only basic advertising techniques, such as print advertising, trailers and others, as they generally have a small budget. In Russia there is also a cultural-political element that we should consider. In her work Van Gorp wrote about the government’s involvement in promoting and favoring and financially supporting some directors over others (Van Gorp, 2011). The Russian government and the Ministry of Culture organise a free promotional campaigns for these directors and their works on prime-time television advertisements, print advertisements and popular Russian magazines and journals.

Sales promotion: American promoters use “high concept” marketing most frequently, which is a plan for promoting films successfully (Wyatt, 1994). An example is the musical called Grease, featuring John Travolta, which was promoted before its first showing at movie theatres through famous stars who played in this film and who were known by the audience of all ages. This was supplemented by a merchandising campaign for items, such as CDs with music from the film, special products with pictures of film stars on it and other similar items. The “high concept” of film promotion nowadays is used by many film promoters but in a completely different way because all films are unique in their own way.

According to Barraclough (2013) the problems of Russian film promotion are closely tied with the monopoly of favoured directors financed by the state. Most of the film companies in Russia cannot afford good sales promotion for their films because of a limited budget. Moreover in Russia the funds available for film promotion and distribution are small, and therefore the number of viewers is low as a result. Internet advertising and social media should be used more regularly by Russian promoters, although they do include different online platforms, projects and websites for promoting films.

Public relations: Advertising can be complemented by using sponsorship schemes. US film promotional campaigns are generally sponsored by multinational companies, for example, Pringles who teamed up with Lucasfilm production to create a promotion campaign for the last episode of Star Wars. There were lightsaber stickers inside the Pringles cans with prizes attach to them, such as a chance to visit Lucasfilm studio. The campaign was supported by $1 million television advertising. It was a successful promotion campaign for both parties with large profit margins (Marketing Week, 2005).

For Russian filmmakers product placement on popular goods is a widely used method of promotion. International companies spend a lot on placing their products into films while only Russian companies sponsor Russian films with focusing viewer’s attention on their own products (Puchkov, 2009). American studios such as 20^th Century Fox open affiliated companies in Russia, so that they can distribute their films without having to pay any foreign taxes. This can be a good example to follow for Russian film industry because of the Americans’ long history of successful film promotion. Another way of promoting films is to organise different competitions through social media websites in the release or post-release stages (Morgan, 2008). Russian film promoters have not yet this cost effective way of promotion.

Personal selling: As discussed above American films dominate the Russian film market and they have affiliated companies in Russia. US film promoters do effective direct sales and their films are often featured in international exhibitions (Puchkov, 2009).

Russian film promotion is largely limited to festivals such as the one in Cannes, where only those Russian films are featured which were funded by the Ministry of Culture or by the Cinema Fund (Barraclough, 2013). According to Romanova (2012, cited in Duvernet, 2012), director of the state organisation responsible for the Russian film promotion, domestic films should be made available to wide international audiences by providing financial incentives to Russian filmmakers. Yakovenko (2011) also wrote about the importance of international film festivals in the promotion of Russian films abroad. She misinterprets the status quo because those Russian films that are not recipients of Ministry of Culture or Cinema Fund funds are not represented on foreign festivals at all. Russian film promoters therefore should follow the Hollywood film promotion techniques as much as possible.

According to Bachurin (2012, cited in Duvernet, 2012) Russian promoters do not need extra funds, only more skills in promotion. The other author Plakhov (2012) said that one of the biggest problems of Russian film promotion is the absence of clear government policy.

As a result of comparison of the US and Russian ways of film promotion it could be concluded that American film promotion has shown a continuous development because it is creative, interesting and unique. Russian film industry does not seem to value the importance of promotional tools which could be effectively used.