Final

Alex Dee

Period 2

Prompt #5

AICE Media Final

Assess the importance of marketing in film

Over the past decades, marketing has become more and more of an asset for success in the film industry. As can be seen in multiple scenarios, movies with more marketing create more revenue. Marketing gives films exposure, and makes the audience excited for the release of that film. Marketing can take multiple forms in the film industry from cross media convergence, and merchendice.

Starting off, the first form of marketing in the film industry is cross media convergence. When the producers use this marketing strategy, they are exposing as many people as possible to the film. This is such an effective method of marketing because it can be seen before the film has premiered, as well as during the film’s arrival to the audience. As can be seen throughout multiple films, the ones with more cross media convergence, end up making more sales than those without. One perfect example of this is when Beauty and the Beast outsold Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. When looking at the cross media convergence of both the films, it can be seen that Beauty and the Beast had five forms of cross media convergence whereas Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 only had three. Beauty and the Beast’s cross media convergence consisted of a soundtrack being released, special imessage stickers that can be used, exclusive twitter stickers that can be added to photos, playing the original Beauty and the Beast more frequently on TV, and Cosmopolitan keeping the fans updated with articles about the film. Guardians of the Galaxy’s three uses of cross media convergence appeared in the blizzard cup sold at Dairy Queen, appearance of the actors on BBC news, and a monopoly game that was sold for marketing. After analyzing the cross media convergence and the gross income of the movie, it is obvious that there is a relation. Whereas Guardians of the Galaxy produced just $863,756,051 in it’s lifetime gross, Beauty and the Beast who utilized more forms of cross media convergence produced a whopping 1.3 billion. This just proves my point in saying that marketing is a key asset for a movie to perform well in the box office.

Furthermore, another form of marketing that is often used in the film industry is merchandise. Merchandise gives people something to remember the movie by. After getting excited over the movie, and watching the movie, what’s the next step? The answer to this, merchandise. Merchandise gives the film it promotes a lot more exposure, and it makes people more invested in the film as now they own something that has to do with that film. With the help of merchandise, some of the biggest grossing movies of all time have been given birth to. One great example that represents just how essential merchandise for a film's success is Black Panther and Ugly Dolls. In the movie Black panther, there are a plethora of merchandise being sold from toys for kids, to shirts and clothes for adults. This film uses merchandise to connect with a vast range of audience, and through doing this became one of the highest grossing films of all time. Whereas this was the case for Black Panther, Ugly Dolls had a rather disappointing turnout, they used no merchandise. No merchandise means less hype around the film, a smaller range of audience, less publicity for the film, and ultimately makes the film underperform. Whereas Black Panther, using multiple forms of merchandise, produced 1.2 billion dollars, Ugly Dolls using no merchandise came out with a total of 55.7 million. As can be seen there is a drastic difference between box office results of films that used merchandise, and films that have not.

As I have clearly presented, marketing is essential for a film to perform well. The benefits of marketing are endless, some of these benefits include: Cross media convergence which increases the exposure, and Marketing gives the film exposure, draws in a wider range of audience, and creates interest around the film. Through marketing, one can truly give birth to a high grossing film. With lack of marketing, one can only experience the downfall of that film. Therefore, after analyzing all the facts, it can bee seen that marketing is clearly vital.