Marketing

Films can be marketed in a variety of different ways. In the past, posters and billboards where the only possible way to create a buzz for a film and to attract an audience. A film targeted for a mass audience would be able to put up posters in mass public places, like tube stations, big tourist attractions and city centres where huge amounts of possible audience walk through everyday. More specific films to a niche market would have to be more precise in where they put their posters, and would have to target certain area's, for example a thriller film would do well to target in a typically adult area, like Camden.



Iron Man 2 Billboard in Times Square



More modern ways of marketing are through the media. Advertisements through television are very effective. Trailers are the most common way of TV advertising and will give the viewer a snippet of the film to promote and intrigue the viewer. In a thriller the trailer will give a very brief outline of the film and will raise suspense and dread towards the plot. They may even offer an enigma to the film to entice the audience to go to the see the film. Radio advertisements are also effective and can target to a niche audience much easier than television, for example a Gothic thriller would be able to advertise to a large part of its audience through a Gothic radio station.

A new way of advertising that is recently becoming very effective is Internet and viral advertising. Fan pages on Facebook can generate massive hype to a film and by posting updates to the film and exclusive trailers through the page would be very effective, as advertising through Facebook gives people the option to share with friends easily, creating further buzz for the film. Viral advertisements could include a series of video's posted on YouTube or through the official film website. In thrillers, these could very easily present an enigma and get their audience to interact and answer the question, but not give them the answer so they feel even further enticed to see the film.

A recent film to be virally advertised is the upcoming Limitless. A video posted on YouTube showed a man hacking into the large screens in Times Square. The advertising here is that the film trailer he had taken over from was Limitless, so effectively every viewer to watch this video is also watching a trailer for the Limitless film. An advertisement had also been set up in public transport showing the star of the film Bradley Cooper advertising a pill to "unlock your potential", which is the main basis of the Limitless film.

We have many possible ways to market our thriller film and will design a series of posters and will hope to be able to edit from out footage a trailer for the film.

By Thomas Beal