Evaluation Question 2: How effective is the combination of your product and ancillary texts?

A film distributor is a person or company who arranges who will show a film once it comes out in the cinema (Hollywood cinemas, Odeon, Cinema City), and who sells a film once it is out on DVD (Asda, Tesco, HMV). There are various different techniques used when it comes to advertising and promoting films, including things such as TV adverts, which are often shown during prime time TV to get the maximum viewership, posters on the sides of buses and on the tube, Billboards, strategically placed to be seen by the maximum amount of people, and often near cinemas. Websites are often also used in marketing for film, as adverts or clickbait on other sites such as facebook. These websites include links to social media which audiences can follow to keep up to date on the film, interactive quizzes and competitions.
The marketing for a film varies depending on the audience and demographic for a film. For example, you wouldn't show an advert for Hollow Graves during an ad break on Ceebeebies, and you wouldn't show an advert for 'Inside Out' on late night BBC 3. This is where audience research comes in handy. From audience research, you can work out 1) who your ideal target audience would be and 2) what the most effective way to make them aware of your film would be. So for example, you could target your film at 19- 23 year old women, so using a questionnaire you could find out what they would ideally like to see in a film, but also what they currently like, like TV shows. So an example of an effective advertisement would be a film aimed at 50 year old males shown in the ad break during countryfile, or an animated film aimed at 9-12 year olds could be shown in the ad break on Nickelodeon.

This is a poster for despicable me, which is a PG rated film. You can tell that this is obviously a children's film because of the cartoon yellow character on the front, and the big, easy to read fonts (as children will probably have a lower reading ability than adults). This film would've been advertised on children's TV channels such as Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network and CITV. It may have also been shown on things like buses for children going to and from school, or places with their parents. It is also possible that it would've been shown before other children's films, so the kids are aware of what else is on at the cinema that they can nag their parents to take them to.

This is a poster for 'Smiley' which is rated as an 18 film. You can tell immediately that this poster is not appropriate for children due to the main photo. It is a face that has had its eyes and mouth stitched up, which is a bit to gory for young children. This would be less likely to be put on things like billboards and the sides of buses because the distribution companies couldn't risk a younger child seeing this, and their parents complaining because of it. A trailer for this would be shown before other films of a similar genre in the cinema, and could be shown as adverts on late night TV on certain channels.









One of the most recent ad campaigns that have been successful is the viral campaign ran for The Woman in Black. There were lots of different ways that this film was advertised, not only by the production company and film distributors, but also by the actors. Daniel Radcliffe wanted to get away from the purely Harry Potter image that he had, so he put a lot of effort into advertising this film to make sure it was a success. He filmed lots of interviews for various magazines, news sites and TV channels, and even ran a Woman in Black twitter page.


There is also a stage show for The Woman In Black that was marketed the same way. These two play off each other in increasing the others publicity.

The Woman In Black's marketing campaign appeals really well to its target audience. It is aimed at the younger generations, but over the age of 15, so using the social media and the internet is the best way to do this as people of this age basically live on the internet.

A unified identity is really important for a film and its marketing, as you don't want to mislead people into what they're going to watch. It needs to be a continuous theme in several elements - the plot you reveal to the audience, the age rating it is for and the genre of the film. You don't want to advertise a film as a children's film that is suitable for 4 year olds, but when they get in there its a slasher horror. This follows through to things after the film is released such as DVDs and film reviews. the DVD cases should feature images similar or the same as the posters to help people put two and two together, and are clear that it is the same film they were scared by at the cinema.