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

1. Evaluation Question 2: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts? Rebecca Bloomfield

2. The Importance Of marketing Marketing films to an appropriate audience is important to ensure that money is not wasted on trying to sell the media product to people who are unlikely to want to invest their time or money into it. Usually, the key goal when making a film is to sell it to as many people as possible in order to create a large profit. All advertising has to be put in places where it will attract the target audience. For this reason, it is vital to know who the promotional material needs to be aimed at. For example: if you were advertising for a children’s Disney film you are unlikely to find a poster for it in a men’s health magazine. A detailed understanding of the target audience is often required in order to market effectively. This includes knowing their age, gender, lifestyle, ethnicity and social class.

3. Strategy’s Target Audience The target audience for our film and trailer is young adults with interests in other dystopian films as well as comics, graphic novels, and other similarly related media products. Typically between the ages of 18-35, they are likely to be both female and male and employed. Advertising is going to be towards Western cultures in the UK, Europe and the U.S.A, however should the film prove to be popular we could then consider marketing it towards Asia.

4. The internet is a big influence to this audience, and for that reason a lot of our promoting is going to be pull marketing which revolves around Web 2.0. With a lot of technology being used to connect with the rest of the world, linking people up via social networking sites, this can help spread information about Strategy by word of mouth, helping to create a buzz around the film. It is also relatively cheap compared to using billboards and printing lots of posters.

5. The Promotion of Strategy Due to the fact that our film isn’t linked with any large, Hollywood production companies or distributors, it is likely that it would come under the classification of indie. We want to harness the opportunity of free advertising via social network sites rather than spend a lot of money on elaborate promotional schemes. Our production company – Vertigo Films – are a British film production and distribution company based in London. Their films span a wide range of audiences, with the most notable being Monsters. Whilst considerably well known here in England, they remain small in that they only produce and distribute approximately four films a year. This year sees the release of their films Kill Command and Monsters: Dark Continent; two futuristic sci-fi movies that could be considered of a similar genre to our own.

6. Other Film Marketing Strategies I have been looking at Cloverfield’s marketing campaign due to the fact that theirs very much revolved around Web 2.0 social media and word of mouth. Their plan worked in various stages: Stage 1:In July 2007 a trailer showing a huge New York explosion and the severed head of the Statue of Liberty crashing to the ground was first shown before screenings of Transformers. It had no information on it apart from a date and a link to a website which seemed to be about conspiracy theories and alien/monster/kaiju attacks. The site also had pictures of characters and explosions with timestamps and the same date (01-18-08). Stage 2:The producers tricked the audience by frequently changing the name for their upcoming film, making it difficult to figure out what genre it was going to be. This is a very postmodern idea and could have been risky as it would have made it difficult to track the movie’s progress. It eventually adopted the working title Cloverfield, giving nothing away and adding to its mystery.

7. Stage 3:MySpace profiles were created for some of the characters, containing pictures, videos, blogs, etc. This created a huge buzz as well as mre confusion as to whether this was simply a film or something real. Stage 4:JJ Abrams revealed that he was behind the project, but an information blackout continued. Film fans were forced to try to find out about the movie and ended up at a series of fake websites set up containing cryptic clues to other websites. Stage 5:Following a proper theatrical trailer with a title and release date, we later find out that the film was so shrouded in secrecy that scripts were watermarked to prevent anyone copying them, and that a cast of unknowns were hired for the film but were not told what they were signing on to, or auditioning for.

8. As Strategy involves a narrative set in the future, it is possible that we could undergo a similar promotional campaign that uses key plot details - such as cryogenic facilities freezing a select population of elite people - to create some form of conspiracy theory around our narrative and characters. This could be spread across social media, using fake articles and blogs in a similar way to The Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield’s campaigns , and later be revealed as part of our film.

9. Festivals After giving it much consideration, our group decided that it was most likely that our film would be showcased at film festivals such as Sundance – where the range of genres is often diverse, concentrating on the more unusual indie productions – as well as the British Film Institute’s London Film Festival. This will help generate interest for Strategy, as well as giving us feedback from critics. Interviews from the director and cast members could follow, enabling more promotion via magazines and blogs as well as chat shows that focus on upcoming films (e.g. BBC Two’s Culture Show).

10. Social Media Web 2.0 social media marketing will also used to promote Strategy, with accounts on various sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr to help aid with pull marketing which leaves it in the audience's hands to help distribute information. Mobile phones will also be used, concentrating on creating a game app which could use synergy by associating Strategy with a gaming company to help with profile. Twitter will allow us to promote our film, with links to Strategy's website and Facebook page, photos, videos and even competitions, giving our followers the opportunity to spend more time interacting with the film's online marketing.

11. Pre-Release Screening A test screening is a preview of a film shown before its general release in order to gauge audience reactions and opinions. Diverse preview audiences are selected from the population, including a range of demographics, and are usually asked to complete a questionnaire or provide feedback. Using the BFI website, I have found the exit poll data for Vertigo Films’ Monsters. It can be seen that most were watching because of the genre and the fact that it had an original plot. I feel as though this would be a similar outcome for our film. However, unlike with Monsters, we wish to increase our Facebook and online advertisements rather than relying on TV reviews.

12. Strategy marketing package All three of our marketing products will be brought together to form one cohesive marketing package. They work together by using similar imagery, all containing at least one of our characters, with the overall dystopian theme and narrative of cryogenics being seen in the blue-ish colours and the reoccurring steam. We’ve also used a similar font for all three products to ensure that, when they re seen, they are instantly recognisable as being linked to one another. The purpose of our ancillary products are to generate awareness and excitement for our film, reaching a wider audience than the trailer as both posters and magazine covers can be seen by a more diverse range of people. Billboards and bus shelter advertising spaces can be utilised to promote Strategy to a less niche audience than the trailer (which requires people to use web 2.0 and visit the sites on which it's shown), with magazine covers being seen by anyone who walks past them in the shop where they're sold.

13. Strategy trailer From what I have discovered, using research from similar film trailers, dystopian films are shifting from previously being aimed at a mostly male audience (The Matrix, Sin City) to becoming more diverse by including strong  female protagonists (The Hunger Games, How I Live Now). For this reason, we chose to have a lead female character, Lilith, to help appeal to all genders and to make our film more postmodern. We did not, however, make her a 'hero' due to our USP: that our main character – thought to be the protagonist - is actually a false hero. The dystopian genre frequently revolves around a protagonist who has begun to question society and is looking or a way to improve their way of life by bringing the political system down, and for this reason we built our plot and trailer around this to ensure it could be identified easily as being dystopian. Our editing used black and white for the cityscape scenes, inspired by Oblivion and The Day After Tomorrow (two trailers we analysed when researching the genre), with hand-held, shaky shots to amplify the drama and chaos inspired by Cloverfield. A blue tint gives scenes a futuristic, technology-based feel, with fast-paced editing reflecting the action all taken from The Matrix.

14. Strategy poster The main image of our poster attracts the audience by including both genders, using characters of a similar age to those that the film is aimed at. It fits in with the research that I carried out on film posters, similar to that of The Matrix and Equilibrium, using blue tones and dystopian colours. We have used the same font for our title to ensure that the poster is easily linked to the trailer and are seen to be of the same promotional package, choosing it due to its sci-fi/modern feel, being simplistic and linking in with our genre. Strategy's tag line "Welcome to the new order" establishes the narrative and genre, “new” linking to things changing - perhaps not for the better - and “order” linking with the fight for power and control between the government and the rebels.

15. Strategy magazine cover We used Total Film as our chosen magazine due to the fact its audience gender ratio is more equal compared to some of the other magazines we looked at, plus a large percentage of its target audience falls in the same category as our film's. Strategy's cover focuses largely on the film's male protagonist, showing him to be a key character in the film. We chose to use Nova rather than Lilith as we don't want to give away our USP (that our main character, Lilith, is a false hero) too early whilst promoting. He is of a similar age to our target audience, with a yellow and blue colour theme used to attract attention to the cover.

16. Total Film Reader Statistics Gender Ratio: 51 females to 70 males 89% of readers are between the ages of 15 to 44 Circulation per issue: 60,912 Readership: 471,000 Uses of Digital Media Website, Youtube, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Reddit, LinkedIn and Tumblr. Linked with Future PLC Our cover is part of a winter issue, again linking with the cold cryogenics plot, helping to set up our dystopian genre by linking it with other notable films such as the Matrix. Web 2.0 social media marketing will also be used, with accounts on various sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr to help aid with "pull" marketing which leaves it in the audience's hands to help distribute information. As Total Film use a variety of digital media, it is possible that the magazine cover could reach a wider audience if an online version was created. Social networking sites could also help to promote our film if Total Film’s Twitter and Facebook accounts were to post links to Strategy’s website and own accounts.

17. Further marketing ideas Other marketing techniques we could use include Guerrilla Marketing. As our film isn't connected to well-known Hollywood companies, gaining awareness for it may be more difficult. Guerrilla Marketing is an advertising strategy that focuses on low-cost and unconventional marketing tactics that yield maximum results. The following text [source] explains how this style of advertising lead to the success of the Blair Witch Project: As Strategy involves a narrative set in the future, it is possible that we could undergo a similar campaign that uses key plot details - such as cryogenic facilities freezing a select population of elite people - to create some form of conspiracy theory around a similar situation. This could be spread across social media, using fake articles and blogs, and later be revealed as part of our film. One of the most famous examples is The Blair Witch Project, a film that was promoted using guerrilla marketing efforts. The duo created a website devoted to the Blair Witch to help support the case for this fictitious woods-based spectre. They ran with the tagline, “In October of 1994, three student filmmakers disappeared in the woods near Burkittsville, Maryland, while shooting a documentary. A year later, their footage was found.” In April 1998, the preview aired on Bravo and it drew a lot of attention. The producer of the Bravo show Split/Screen asked the duo to build a stand-alone website, because Blair Witch comments were dominating its own site and discussion board. There were people interested in this and the film wasn’t even done.”

18. marketing campaign Our products will work together to sell our film in a similar way to Cloverfield, using stages to release each promotional material so as to not give away too much about the plot too early in advance. As we have decided that our film should be released in winter at the start of the new year, its marketing campaign would need to start approximately nine months before. Stage 1 would be to begin our guerrilla marketing, setting up conspiracy theory websites in a similar way to the Blair Witch Project. Stage 2 would involve a short teaser trailer, perhaps one that makes it look like a documentary or real life event in order to help create a buzz around it. Stage 3 is when we would release more information, including the poster and release dates. Stage 4 involves the magazine cover and pre-release interviews, as well as character posters that give a better insight into Strategy’s characters. Finally, Stage 5 would be the release of our film in cinemas .