Analyse how media institutions are using different platforms to engage with their audiences.
This essay is a fun one to tackle with a bit of adventure and research for you to do, exploring FB, Twitter, Instagram and film websites. Be adventurous!
The question is about how distributors 'engage' audiences by using a variety of platforms (like social media or other online platforms).
Audience engagement means how distributors reach audiences and interest them.
The mark scheme is below but it is not particularly helpful so I have a suggested ways through.
- State "I have studied the film industry" (or similar).
- Define the scope of the essay - "Distributors engage different audiences using a variety of platforms, including film websites, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, trailers, film posters". Engaging an audience means... / By 'engaging an audience', I understand...
- By the term ‘engaging an audience’, I understand it to mean the process of connecting with an audience, (=involving the audience, inviting the audience to identify with the characters & themes, drawing them in); competing for their attention, triggering audience interest and feedback, offering experiences that the audience want (through social media, facilities, incentives, interactivity); understanding & retaining existing audiences (franchises) whilst attracting new audiences (younger audiences, female audiences for traditionally ‘male’ films; being more inclusive with different kinds of screenings)
- Explain which audiences respond most to online marketing - the trend for younger audiences to be online which even older audiences are taking up.
- How do distributors create an engaging campaign? It's a lot about strategy and a timeline, picking the right release date, creating an initial buzz with a teaser trailer, following it up with individual posters on FB and Twitter, then official trailers, interspersed with other exciting drops, inviting interactive responses. The key to success in your essay is knowing your case studies.
- Decide which case studies best fit here: pick films that have engaged audiences differently through, for example, Twitter (Captain Marvell), trailers (Avengers: Infinity War), viral publicity (Legend). Rogue One: A Star Wars Story engaged audiences with Uber apps + Twitter + augmented reality with Nissan; other partnerships with Lego, Gillette. Ads made with Target engaged female audiences: Target’s “There’s A Rebel in All of Us” ad features three females and one man, each relating how Star Wars makes them feel like they can accomplish anything.
- Unlike Hollywood studio films which benefit from the synergy available from vertical distribution with its multiple platforms enhancing the distribution's advertising strategies, independent films in the UK film industry works on a smaller scale with different strategies across some similar platforms. A film like I, Daniel Blake, for example set out to appeal to audiences that valued social realism through grassroots marketing. The film's trailers were slower in pace and used tracking shots that followed the characters so that audiences got a 'real life' feel for the harsh realities of life for the troubled characters caught in the benefits system. The use of natural lighting and close-ups showed the characters' emotions and harnessed audience's sympathy. The trailer included praise by Variety and Time Out, lending it the approval of a trusted source. Social media played a part: its FB page had 70,000 likes and the Twitter page 12,500 followers and the hashtag #wearealldanielblake circulated on the internet. The Twitter page retweeted fan messages and reviews, promoting further enagement and making the film feel more personal.
- eOne distributed Ken Loach's I, Daniel Blake. eOne harnessed the news agenda via Trinity Mirror's titles to promote it, generating conversation around socio-political themes and positioning it as a must-see film. Typical to Ken Loach's style, I, Daniel Blake contains potent social messages. The challenge was to raise awareness of the release and encourage audiences to go to the cinema by aligning the film’s topical themes with current affairs. Knowing that the film would resonate with Trinity Mirror's editorial news agenda and left-leaning readership, Zenith and eOne embarked on a multi-platform campaign with the publisher. The plan involved giving the main character, Daniel Blake, a voice across Trinity Mirror's many platforms, in contrast to the film where he gets lost in the benefits system and feels his identity fading. In print, masthead and front cover takeovers captured the attention of readers and directed them to a one-off column 'My Britain' – based on the Mirror's weekly series 'Real Britain' – where the character Daniel Blake talked frankly about the issues raised in the film. Digital content included disruptive display advertising to continue the theme across the publisher's multi-platform portfolio. In addition, the campaign also laid on preview screenings around the UK with Trinity Mirror's regional titles giving away 10,000 tickets. According to Trinity Mirror's reader research, nearly 60% of readers recalled seeing the features and said that they would see the film, making this a successful platform for this particular audience and film.
- The distributors used the 'platforming' method with a festival run prior to release including screening at Cannes with the accolade of the Palme d'Or positioned it as worthy; its premiere in Newcastle attended by Jeremy Corbyn (as opposed to London) gave the message that the film was authentic. It also had over 1,000 screenings in a grass roots marketing movement. Thus word of mouth was built up. A 'guerilla' projection campaign had quotes from the film beamed onto buildings in Newcastle as well as the House Of Commons to grab the attention of both news media and passers-by.
- Studio Canal, the distributors of the film Legend, exploited social media using viral marketing when they seized on a poor 2 star review by The Guardian film critic Benjamin Lee and on the posters positioned the figures of the Kray twins so that visually it appeared that the film had swept the boards with 5 star reviews. Benjamin Lee tweeted the story and it went viral. His unimpressed review has actually helped Legend go viral just as it received its UK release. His tweet was shared over 11,000 times and seen by over 1.4m people. The “story” was covered by sites including the BBC, Buzzfeed, TIME and Mashable.
- Use your own experiences to support your explanations about current trends. You have made a start on this paragraph.
- Disruptors to the film industry include Netflix who have largely bypassed traditional cinema exhibition by delivering films directly to audiences without a distributor. To read more see this written in 2017 when Netflix was less likely to create individual profiles for a movie. This is because instead of working to drive the very specific action of selling tickets on a particular day, the goal for Netflix is a bit fuzzier: to provide an attractive enough overall catalog of content that maintains current subscribers and converts new ones. Equally, with Netflix there is no place for a poster to be displayed. Because Netflix’s movies, for the most part, aren’t distributed theatrically (the major point of differentiation between Netflix and rival Amazon), these won’t appear in theatre hallways - Netflix have just acquired a cinema, so this may change - and these movies are not released on DVD, there’s no need to create something that can be translated to box art.
- “Netflix have disrupted the usual distribution system and engage their audiences through subscription with an internal system of advertising and a stream of emails to existing subscribers advertising their latest addition to their catalogue. I receive notifications on my smart phone as well as recommendations through the algorithms that Netflix uses on their platform.”
- Roma also had a film website www.romathemovie.com (with trailers, social media links, ensemble and individual character posters including those proudly announcing Golden Globe nominations which would engage prestige audiences, Cuaron interviews and Q&A sessions, interactive invitations to 'share your memories of Roma #MyRoma'),
- Roma also had a FB presence, Twitter #ROMACuaron
- The exam board expects us to draw on theory. Henry Jenkins (who writes about the role of fan production and consumption in the online age, and about participatory culture) emphasises the positive effects of the digital revolution - digital media cultivates online communities and allows audiences to express themselves in positive & creative ways through fan engagement. This could be illustrated by the hilarious fan video for Captain Marvell
- Clay Shirky argues that that everybody makes media and that the media industry is increasingly driven by audience feedback systems. Thus YouTubers can make and distribute content as never before; Instagram and Twitter users can create followings that rival established media broadcasters. Think of all the fan sites and fan versions of films. As digital distribution enables audience feedback with 'likes' and 'shares', viral marketing can be a curse or a 'golden ticket' as Ben Lee found when his 2 star review of Legend went viral for the wrong reasons and 'was spun into movie marketing gold'.
- Shirky: the effects of the digital revolution on film marketing
