Marketing Campaign

With the creation of my teaser trailer, promotional poster and magazine cover for Sight and Sound all made and planned out, it is all so that my movie can get as much publicity as possible so the whole gross revenue of the production can be as high as possible.

Before I started to actually plan out my marketing strategy I did research in finding out how other productions used ways in promoting there film. For example, when I looked at the marketing strategy for the film 'The Dark Knight' I found out that there budget was 150 million dollars. This was spread across a number of different posters, trailers, the website and theme parks.

The marketing campaign for the film first became viral 14 months before it was actually available for release. It started with the film's " Why So Serious?" tagline with the launch of a website featuring the fictional political campaign, from the film, of Harvey Dent, with the caption, "I Believe in Harvey Dent". The site aimed to interest fans by having them try to earn what they wanted to see. This is a very good way of creating a marketing campaign because it allows the people to be more involved with the film and it keeps them more anticipated about it. I think that this primarily works well because the film is a sequel at Batman is known by many people already.

If I were to do this, so early on before the film is released, it may not attract that many people as it is an independent film with a low budget and unknown actors and actresses. The website would be quite limited compared to 'The Dark Knight', however it would send a bell ringing in peoples minds as my film is based on the classic snow white fairy tale. plus the fact that I have a tagline could work in my favor when attracting audience interests.

The marketing budget for 'The Dark Knight' is much more then mine. To attract more audience Warner Bro's had theme parks Six Flags Great America and Six Flags Great Adventure create

'The Dark Knight roller coaster' which opened in May 2008. Mattel (a toy company) produced toys and games for 'The Dark Knight', action figures, role play costumes, board games, puzzles which began commercial distribution 1 month before the films release.

As a horror movie I doubt that any of these merchandise would be created to help the promotion of my film.

Although I don't have a website to help with my marketing campaign, I do have a promotional poster. It contains some of the contents from my film and the tagline. 'The Dark Knight' has many posters to promote the film but the first one that was released was in early December 2007. It doesn't really contain footage from the film but still allows itself to be identifiable with the movie and the audience. The poster image relates to the face of 'The Joker' who is the villain in the movie. Plus the audience will be able to make the connection with the marketing usage from the website and the poster. One of the taglines 'Why So Serious?' used on the website is also what is placed on the promo poster.

With this in mind, I've decided to release my promotional poster before anything else. Possibly 6/7 moths before the release date of the magazine cover. This will help to establish the movie towards the audience. The tagline on the promotional poster is there so it can be used as a way of engaging the audience with the idea of the movie.

After the promotional poster is out I would release the teaser trailer soon after so the audience can still be engaged with the film before it is even in theaters. In order to help sustain the established audience, a certain trademark would be the white masked people and the bloodied apples which are seen in the promo poster and throughout the teaser trailer. Also the tagline used in the promo poster is also used in the teaser trailer so the connection between the two products are strong.

In order to create maximum impact for my marketing campaign, my magazine cover on the issue of Sight and Sound will be released in October as part of a Halloween special edition so the audience can be hooked on the film about a month before it's release. Once again there is a connection between the three products. The white masked people are seen throughout all three of the marketing strategies.

When Heath Ledger (The Joker) died, in January 2008, Warner Bros had the promotional focus on the Joker from the film. They used an event to for there promotional advantage.

Even though its not the same concept I used the fact that a number of films that could be related to mine are released around the same time together and that could be when I release my promo poster and teaser trailer. Red Riding Hood, Beastly and Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs Evil are all films that are based upon fairy tales. If I release the two of my products around the dates that these films are released, it may put people who the state of mind for fairytale inspired films. Especially with Red Riding Hood as it relates more to my target audience.

As it is an independent film it won't be released through a theatrical way. Like most low budgeted independent movies, it will released through film festivals such as Dead by Dawn or FilmFest which focuses on showing horror movies.