How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

One of the roles of a Distributors job is to make sure the media product becomes well known. They have to produce a compelling marketing campaign for a media product which covers advertising, publicity and promotion: All three of these aspects must be covered in enough depth to enable the media product to be successful and to have a good revenue stream. The advertising of a film includes the theatrical and teaser trailer for the product; this is a great way for enticing the target audience with the audiovisual content. A trailer should be gripping and easy to watch from the audience’s perspective; the trailer is the most high valued piece of advertising which comes with the highest price but also has the most effective outcomes, it gains the most awareness as it reveals the most about the media product. The distributor will get to know the target audience very well before producing any advertising campaigns they will consider their demographics and psychographics such as: Do they go on the internet and if so what sites do they go on? What is their favourite channel? They can then use the convenience of media convergence and place their advertisements on websites where they will see it and on Television- trailers have the potential for a very high level of exposure. A poster usually accompanies the trailer to gain visibility from the audience; the job of the film poster is to enable even more awareness of the media product. Posters can be put on the internet as well as mobile internet, they can be put on billboards, on the sides of buses, in shops – the possibilities are endless. Of course, this advertising comes at a price and it becomes the distributor’s job to realise the best places to advertise to maintain high levels of exposure. Alongside advertising, the key to success is also publicity. The distribution company discusses their marketing plan with various media forms such as the radio, television and magazines- it is the distributor’s job to try to get the best levels of exposures for the film. For examples, having a long in depth interview on the radio or on the television to gain awareness would help as well as getting full exposure on the front cover of a magazine. Other components such as interviews with the cast are held to also ensure high levels of exposure- production values can help with this, and test screenings to improve the product even more whilst making the audience feel as if they have had a positive impact on the product. I feel my poster would be suitable for this type of exposure, I have included high ratings at the top of the poster which will make the audience feel as if they should go and see it due to the positive response. Positive word of mouth is also a great way to create hype over a media product- the distributor needs to make sure the consumer feels positively about the film so will therefore tell friends and family how good it is so they will be more likely to go see it which creates more of a revenue stream. This type of publicity can however go wrong easily- if at first the media product has negative views and the word of mouth conveys this the hype will go down from the beginning. A theatrical trailer is one of the main components which help to get the film recognised and for opinions to be set. A theatrical trailer indicates a lot more of the plot compared to a teaser trailer and more often than not shows the orders of the main events in the film. A teaser trailer’s main job is to create anticipation for the film which will come out a few months later or in the next season. Alongside the teaser trailer, film posters are often made for publicity. They are put in places where people can see them e.g. on large billboards along roadsides and in advertising spaces on websites such as Facebook and YouTube.

 

Mine and my groups Horror teaser trailer and my magazine cover and poster are all types of which make up a ‘package’ of promotional advertising. The purposes of my poster and magazine are to help generate a revenue stream from helping to advertise my teaser trailer which is also a form of publicity for the theatrical trailer (If it existed!). The poster and magazine cover are there to accompany the trailer, the poster is supposed to echo and help indicate what the film is going to entail. I feel my poster, inspired by the Blair Witch Project official poster, has done this as the female protagonist is the main focal point and therefore the audience will know she is the lead character. I really like the picture I have chose to use. Even though one of the conventions is for the model in the picture to make eye contact with the audience so they focus more and it can help them relate to the model, I feel my shot of my model with her eyes closed connotes a peaceful feel which is something we wanted to connote within our horror teaser trailer. I liked how, in our trailer, we had two main female protagonists but I feel as the film would be about the protagonist in 2011 I felt it was best to use her. At the end of the trailer is a cliff hanger and I feel by using the female character in the second half it helps to create more interest in her role and lets the audience know that she will be the leading lady. I wanted to keep the poster as simple as I could, as I feel if a poster is too busy it averts the attention from the most important information such as the name of the film, slogan, and when it is coming out. I decided to stick to the three colour scheme like it tends to be on magazine covers. I chose typical horror film related colours; black, red and white. I feel by sticking to a limited amount of colours creates a professional look. I then felt the picture should also link with this so I changed the colour to black and white and placed a grainy filter on top of the pictureNext, I changed the contrast to create a more tonal and interesting look. I came up with the slogan “What would you do if the past came back to haunt you?” I liked this as it is simple and has a ring to it. By having a rhetorical question as a slogan can create interest from the audience as it leaves the audience thinking about it as the question is remained unanswered. I chose a simple, bold font which would be easily read from a distance away as if my products were to be advertised for example, alongside the road, they should be easy to read and bold looking to grab the audience’s attention. I then placed a billing box along the bottom; I tried to keep with the traditional look of the thin, long writing and in the traditional shape. I found this quite challenging as I had trouble downloading the font from an internet site and I found the shape hard to look effective. After researching in depth into the look of magazine posters I have noticed that quite a few of them have a website at the bottom, normally written in a different colour to attract the interest from the audience. I chose to write mine in the same font as the title and write it in red so it stands out from the billing box. The magazine cover is there to spread ‘the word’. Before seeing the film the audience may wish to read up about it and get to know the actors more, so by creating interest with a magazine cover can enable them to do this. I looked on good images at previous magazine covers and ‘Empire’ caught my attention due to the bold choice of title. I based my magazine cover on this as stuck to the same three colour scheme, red white and black. I feel by keeping to this it helps to make the media product look neat and professional. I took a studio shot of the same female protagonist again but this time I had her looking directly into the camera and connoting a ‘seductive’ look to help grab the attention from the audience. As demographically, males tend to take more interest in horror films. Magazine covers tend to have studio shots as it instantly makes the picture look professional. The magazine covers purpose is to help the audience have a clear understanding of what the film is about as well as them warming to the main protagonists because of interviews. I feel my magazine cover does this as I have written on the front about interviews which would be inside if it was a real magazine. I wanted the magazine, like my film poster, to look simple and to have a similar look to the poster so the audience can associate the trailer with the poster and the magazine cover.