“Successful media products depends as much upon marketing and distribution to a specific audience as they do upon good production processes.” To what extent would you agree with this statement, within the media areas you have studied?
I do agree to an extent with the statement that within the media and film industry the distribution and marketing strategies heighten the economic success of the film as a whole. Marketing is one of the most important factors within the success of the film industry today because to make the revenue and box office placement desired, effective distribution is key.
Looking at the success economically with box office hit Prometheus, you can see instantly how marketing and distribution had a huge part to play. On the marketing side of things in Prometheus, prior to and after its release it was very heavily marketed mostly taken in the viral form. Examples of this are its interactive website (ProjectPrometheus.com), its collection of official pre-release viral clips (TED talk, David 8 and Quiet Eye, all featuring the leading characters in the film in non-fiction circumstances), teaser trailers, the Twitter trending hashtag #Areyouseeingthis and their 15m Twitter followers (which created a huge buzz on social networking sites during the anticipation before its release), TV Spots, Mark Kermode interview clips (BBC film critic talking about the release and reception of Prometheus) and the Alien films that Prometheus is thought to be linked with (helped to create a larger fan base for the film before it was released). All in all the mass of viral marketing created huge anticipation before the film’s release, people who had watched the Aliens films were raring to see the first viewing and it even attracted an audience of people who hadn’t seen any of the Alien films, all due to its heavy marketing that was almost infectious and impossible to escape whether you were a sci-fi fanatic or an all-round film watcher. The distribution within Prometheus was also something I thought was key to its success. Working with a distributor like 20th Century Fox through vertical integration (working on their own to distribute the film through a large network and audience base), a worldwide renowned distributor also part of the big six it was almost inevitably set up for success in the box office (approx. $400 million) and its anticipated DVD sales. Also with a budget of approximately $130 million its production process was hardly going to be bland. The production companies involved in the making of Prometheus were Scott Free Productions (Ridley Scott- Director and Producer’s own company), Brandywine Productions and 20th Century Fox all set up a huge synergy and helped to also create the success of the film. Having a well-known, respected and experienced Director and Producer such as Ridley Scott also helped to heighten the publicity and anticipation of the film through its marketing because an audience of avid Ridley Scott fans would be excited about a huge new release of his. Although the critical reception of the film wasn’t as great as originally thought due to its production, it had already received the box office success from its marketing and distribution triumph which conclusively lead to its profitable box office of over $400 million.
Secondly looking at the film Kickass which was also significantly marketed prior to its release and from its economical success you can see how important distribution and marketing really is was with this film in particular. Kickass was very heavily marketed before its release on 26th March 2010 because of its surrounding controversy in production (violence, drug use and explicit language involving a child) the distributors were worried it would not be received well and therefore released four TV Spots and four trailers (which some thought was a bit excessive and gave too much of the film away) but it still went on to make a box office of $96 million from its $28 million budget. The success of the film I think was due to its marketing and distribution not only did it have all the TV post and trailers but film magazines Empire and Total film covered the films journey from page t screen. Kickass was also pitched at San Diego Comic-Con, test screened in the UK (where it had mostly positive reviews and criticism from fans, journalists, distributors and film critics. The fan base Kickass had also created a huge marketing campaign virally and through word of mouth. Because some of the comics had already been released prior to its cinema release, fans had caught on with the storyline and fell in love religiously. They wrote reviews of the film and comic books and made their own posters, all in support of Kickass’ marketing. All of this conclusively lead to a heavy marketing campaign, a large fan base (before the film had even been released) and therefore a profitable film all in all. The distributors involved with Kickass also played a massive part in its economical success and appeal to a specific audience. Its UK distributor was Universal Pictures who are part of the big six distributing companies in the film industry and Lionsgate was the US distributor, although Lionsgate are not part of the big six, they are still a fairly successful and prestigious distribution company. This set Kickass up for success in the UK and the US, and it was shown worldwide on over 5000 cinema screens worldwide. The production side of Kickass was dealt with by Marv Films (Director & Producer Matthew Vaughn’s company, he funded $10m into the film out of his own money) and Plan B Entertainment (owned by Hollywood actor Brad Pitt). The production of the film Kickass was seen to be really successful as its DVD sales was significantly successful (unfortunately I couldn’t find an exact figure for this but plenty of articles stated that its figures were plentiful).
In conclusion, I feel even though during film making the production, actors and directing play a significantly big part in the success of the film it is still hugely reliant on the marketing and distribution factors. Because an audience can only really know about the production of the film itself once they have watched it and to want to spend their money and watch it they must persuaded through marketing and distribution campaigns/methods (the exception being if they are already avid fans of the actors or film topic in production) to do so. Also from studying Prometheus and Kickass you can see an international audience is vital to the film’s success when marketing and distributing and is a vital element to create a successful film both in profit and critically.
Working Title produces feature films and several television productions.
