The King's Speech Questions

Who distributed the film in the UK and USA and what were the issues associated with the film’s distribution?

·         Weinstein Company, The (2010) (USA) (theatrical)

·         Anchor Bay Entertainment (2011) (USA) (DVD)
·         Anchor Bay Entertainment (2011) (USA) (DVD) (Blu-ray)
·         Momentum Pictures (2011) (UK) (all media)

• Was the campaign a grass roots or mainstream big event? How was word spread about the film? Virally on the Net? Mass advertising campaign with poster, trailers, etc?

The King's Speech was originally an independent film/arthouse film, but due to it's success at the various film festivals, listed below, the interest immediately increased and the film was turned into a mainstream film.

·        Telluride Film Festival
·        Toronto International Film Festival
·        Mill Valley Film Festival
·        Hamptons International Film Festival
·        London Film Festival
·        Leeds International Film Festival
·        AFI Film Festival
·        Bahamas International Film Festival
·        Dubai International Film Festival

There were a variety of posters as well as a few different trailers for the UK and America which were intended to interest the respective audiences. The King's Speech official trailer has 895,399 views onYouTube. The trailer was put up on YouTube on 28 Sep 2010, while the release date was three months later. This enables a large audience to watch the trailer and wet their appetite for the film which is to come out in a few months.

On the video description, it gives the following information:
Release Date: 10 December 2010
Genre: Drama | History
Cast: Helena Bonham Carter, Colin Firth, Guy Pearce, Michael Gambon, Tim Downie
Director: Tom Hooper
Writer: David Seidler
MPAA: R
Studio: The Weinstein Company

It then goes on to explain the plot and a link to subscribe to the YouTube channel.

• How was “the talent” used to publicize the film? For instance,
TV and radio interviews with members of the cast, director, etc.

Colin Firth was interviewed on Piers Morgan’s American chat show: Piers Morgan Tonight. Show averages 978,000.

Colin Firth was also on The Late Show with David Letterman to promote The King’s Speech. Show averages around 914,000.

The main stars of the play are the subject of interviews just before and just after the realease of the film, with journalists taking turns to have a one-on-one interview with them as they sit in front of a advertising poster for the film. The interviews are shown on all different types of channels all over the world for different networks, which immediatley raises the profile of the film again.

Interviews like these were conducted with the stars; Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush and Helen Bonham-Carter, as well as the director, Tom Hooper.

• Who was the main target audience for the campaign? Why?

The target audience for The King's Speech has a lot in common with its other target: the members of the Academy, who are set to cast their ballots for this year's Oscars. According to statistics compiled by The Hollywood Reporter, the average age of Oscars voters is 57.7 years old. With $180,443,023 collected worldwide so far on a $15 million budget, the film has been a definite hit, and if my theatre experience is anything to go by, that 57.7 age range is being reflected in the vast majority of the people who are seeing this movie. You can see, then, why this movie has suddenly started to dominate this awards season.

Continue Reading

Movie Marketing Key Words

Awareness
 what marketing seeks to create - when audiences know something about the content of a film (stars, plot premise etc) and when it is going to be released
 
Buzz
 Positive word-of-mouth

Distributor
 Business entity that buys the rights to sell a film to the cinema, video and TV markets. All blockbuster movies are made with the distribution rights pre-sold or arranged as big studios have their own distribution arm. Smaller, or independently produced movies often have to wait till they are completed before anyone will buy the distribution rights

Exhibitor
 Cinemas - usually large chains of cinemas (eg UA in Hong Kong, Cineworld or Odeon in the UK)

Merchandising
 The process of manufacturing, distributing, licensing and sale of T-shirts, toys, posters, key-rings etc that contain characters or designs from a movie
 Platform release  A limited opening at key cinemas to develop word of mouth. Once a good buzz has been achieved, the movie will open at more cinemas (wide release)

Press kit
 The pack given to journalists containing such things as still photos, press release, biographies of main personnel. Some press kits are unusual and inventive, and contain small gifts as a not-very-subtle persusasive tactice to get the journalist to be nice about the film

Primary Audience
 The main target audience of a film, those who are likely to go and see it on its opening weekend, or even start queuing up six months before it is released

Secondary audience
 The audience who will only go and see a movie after they have heard about it - either from friends or from reading reviews - and have been persuaded that it is worth seeing. They will not risk it on its opening weekend

Tagline
 The one-liner summing up the story which appears on posters ("Same planet. Different scum" etc)

Teaser Trailer
 A short trailer which does not give very much at all away about a film. It is designed to arouse curiosity and may appear a long time prior to the release of a movie (6-8 months)

Tie-ins  Promotional campaigns (Happy Meals, car tvcs - you name it) where another company gets together with the film company and they promote their products jointly
 
 
Trailer 
A 'sample' of the best points of a film which works to create awareness in audiences. Can be anything from 30-180 seconds long

Twitter bombing 
Moviegoers now tend to tweet the moment they leave a theater, and the mass of their opinions can have an instant, harsh effect on ticket sales. This effect is noticed when early screenings on the opening day for an anticipated movie sell well, but later screenings are empty. 
Viral 
use of pre-existing social networks (E.g. YouTube) to "spread the word" about a movie. Like a virus, a short video clip can pass from one consumer to another. This UK Cadbury's advertising spot became a global viral phenomenon, thanks to YouTube.
Word-of-mouth 
The general public attitude to a movie - what people tell each other about it. This is thought to be the most important ingredient for box office success

Continue Reading

AS Media Key Words

Horizontal Integration
A company's ownership of radio, television, newspapers, books and magazines. News Corp is a good example of this, as Rupert Murdoch who owns the company also owns 20th Century Fox, and various popular newspapers.
This helped with the creation of the Hollywood 3-D blockbuster Avatar.


Another example of Horizontal Integration in simpler terms is if a hot-dog seller decides to sell burgers as well as hot-dogs. 


Vertical Integration
Vertical integration is when a company can produce, distribute and exhibit a film as it owns various forms of media. Vertical integration is when a company expands its business into areas that are at different points of the same production path.
An example of this could be Apple, as they have created various versions of the iPod as well as the iPad. 


A car company that expands into tire manufacturing would be an example of vertical integration. A company such as this is often referred to as vertically integrated.


Above the Line Marketing
(ATC)  advertising which has to pay for the space eg TV, Press, Print, Cinema  or radio space, all of which costs money. Refers specifically to advertisements related to things people can see. 


Below the Line Marketing
(BTL) Below the line refers to things that happen in the background. Flyers, email marketing, word-of-mouth, inner circle marketing, etc. that is not easily detected by your competition. 


In other words, ATL has a higher public branding effect, BTL does not have that much of a public branding effect - ATL is often used to generate mindshare, BTL is used to generate loyalty and repeat readership.


Above the Line & Below The Line Summary


In a nutshell, while ATL promotions are tailored for a mass audience, BTL promotions are targeted at individuals according to their needs or preferences. While ATL promotions can establish brand identity, BTL can actually lead to a sale


Synergy Marketing
Cooperative interaction among groups, especially among the acquired subsidiaries or merged parts of a corporation, that creates an enhanced combined effect.


Basically it means that a team effort will produce a better result overall than if the individual members of the team are working singly or where different individuals work cooperatively to produce a single outcome. This has been taken from the premise that the whole is more than the sum of its parts.


Viral Marketing

Marketing phenomenon that facilitates and encourages people to pass along a marketing message.

Viral marketing depends on a high pass-along rate from person to person. If a large percentage of recipients forward something to a large number of friends, the overall growth snowballs very quickly. If the pass-along numbers get too low, the overall growth quickly fizzles.

The King's Speech generated a lot of buzz and excitement due to the showings in various film festivals.

Smaller institutions, and especially independent films like the King's Speech depend on this kind of marketing, as it is far cheaper, and sometimes a lot more effective than the big companies marketing campaigns. 

Conglomerate

A corporation that is made up of a number of different, seemingly unrelated businesses. In a conglomerate, one company owns a controlling stake in a number of smaller companies, which conduct business separately. Each of a conglomerate's subsidiary businesses runs independently of the other business divisions, but the subsidiaries' management reports to senior management at the parent company.

By participating in a number of unrelated businesses, the parent corporation is able to reduce costs by using fewer resources.

By diversifying business interests, the risks inherent in operating in a single market are mitigated.

Subsidiary

A company whose voting stock is more than 50% controlled by another company, usually referred to as the parent company.

As long as the parent company has more than 50% of the voting stock in the subsidiary, it has control.

DSN - Digital Screen Network

Digital screening cuts the cost of releasing films (a digital copy costs around one tenth of a 35mm print). That's why UK Film Council and the Arts Council England have created the Digital Screen Network – a £12 million investment to equip 240 screens in 210 cinemas across the UK with digital projection technology to give UK audiences much greater choice.

HD - High Definition

Better quality of film and sound.

Continue Reading