Movie Marketing Research Articles

An Mediated Effect Analysis of Purchasing Intention Under Social Media——from the Chinese Motion Industry

In recent years, with the development of online social media and motion industry, online social media has more and more influence on movie marketing. How to improve consumers' purchase intention and purchase behavior through social media has been becoming a research hotspot among the scholars. Based on the Chinese market movie data from the product information, marketing interactive information, internet word-of-mouth, respectively, to verify the intermediary role of purchase intention, and then put forward the corresponding film marketing strategies according to the empirical results. The results showed that there was significantly positively correlated between the online word-of-mouth, marketing interactive information and purchase intention, among which the number of comments and topics had the greatest influence on purchase intention. In addition, the purchase intention could significantly affect the purchase behavior, verifying the purchase intention played a partial intermediary role in the overall consumption decision.

“Selling movies to the common man-A case analysis on marketing strategies adopted in the Indian film industry”

The Indian film industry has been going through a sea change in its attitude. Multiplexes are fast dotting up the metros and are slowly realizing the potential of even the smaller areas. Today, there are far more avenues to make money out of a movie than just its box office earnings. DVD releases, music launch, merchandise, overseas distribution rights etc., all form a part of the earnings. This has been a slow process which has taken off only recently. For a long time, film producers had been inconsequential in the marketing of films to consumers, which often resulted in many good films failing to do well. But with the entry of satellite TV and foreign films into the domestic Indian entertainment market, it is becoming increasingly difficult for Indian films to earn the numbers it used to. A well developed research, marketing and feedback system can be beneficial to a film throughout the entire process-from generation of ideas to post release period of the movie. The concept of movie marketing may not be new but it is definitely making its present felt with a lot of force lately. This paper aims at focusing on the emerging trend of movie marketing that is adopted by Indian film makers.

Identifying the causal relationship between social media content of a Bollywood movie and its box-office success - a text mining approach

Movie marketing strategies have undergone a rapid metamorphosis over the years with the progress in technological innovations and advent of social media. Social media gives a two way interacting platform and such interactions generate voluminous textual content which can be a source for deriving new insights into the customer behavioural dynamics and can also act as a handy tool for revenue enhancement. This study is designed to understand whether the polarity of the social media content of Bollywood movies can essentially reveal any insights about the potential box office revenues. The initial steps involved data collection from social media, followed by text mining to identify the sentiments about a movie. Furthermore, the relationship between the sentiments captured from social media and total revenue generated was explored in both pre-release and post-release scenarios and linear regression models were built. The model can be further improved by incorporating additional metrics.

Making global audiences for a Hollywood ‘blockbuster’ feature film: Marketability, playability and The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)

Abstract This article interprets two key concepts in movie marketing (marketability and playability) through an empirical examination of the effects of commercial interpellation of audiences for a Hollywood ‘blockbuster’ fantasy film, Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012). The article reports results of two online surveys of Hobbit audiences, one in November 2012 in the weeks preceding theatrical release, and one in February–June 2013 among post-viewing audiences, employing a mixedmethods approach that includes Q sorting and a questionnaire. We identify and describe five main pre-release and five main post-viewing audience groups, showing that the film had greater marketability than playability. Three of the pre-release audience groups expressed a high degree of anticipation to see the film, but only one post-viewing audience group expressed a high degree of enjoyment, while the others expressed various degrees of disappointment. We discuss the attributes of the film that most affected the film’s marketability and playability for each of the audience groups during the interpellation process from prefiguration to reception.

Get Classy: Comparing the Massive Marketing of Anchorman 2 to the Non-marketing of Beyoncé’s Beyoncé Album

IntroductionWhen Beyonce released a new album to an unsuspecting public on December 13, 2013 she was widely praised for the lack of marketing that accompanied the record. Out of the blue, it was there, available worldwide on iTunes. Singles, the popular configuration on Apple's store, were not made available. Instead, those wanting Beyonce's new music had to purchase the full album for US$15.99. This harkened back to an era when record labels made of their money from sales of full-length CDs. Because Beyonce included seventeen new videos, this visual album1 included enough value that neither fans, critics, nor the greater music industry complained. The headlines were supportive:The Brilliant Business Strategy Behind Beyonce's Record Breaking Weekend.2Beyonce Broke The Music Business: Release Of Her New LP Changes Everything.3By the following week, this surprise release was the number-one album on the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart and breaking iTunes sales records around the world.Five days later a movie began playing in theaters around the country that was anything but a surprise. Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues, a comedy starring Will Ferrell, Steve Carell, and Paul Rudd, had been announced with great fanfare a full twenty months earlier. The marketing and promotion that followed became what one writer considered the most content-rich marketing campaign in history.4 From social media to unique corporate partnerships, in addition to traditional marketing elements, Anchorman 2 beat the first movie's box office internationally by more than eight times while breaking the domestic $100 million tally, something its predecessor could not do.How did Beyonce do it? In an industry built on tried and true prerelease marketing tactics, what did she and her team do differently? How did the Anchorman 2 team do it? What made their marketing campaign so different from traditional movie marketing campaigns? This paper describes the background behind each brand and then highlights the different aspects of each operation. Then it examines the key techniques and characteristics the two teams shared to see what young filmmakers and unsigned, do-it-yourself musicians can leam to achieve their own successes.Anchorman Background (2004-2013)On Friday, the ninth of July in 2004, Paramount Pictures released a film with a $26 million budget5 titled Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. By Sunday evening, the film had earned back its production budget with receipts of $28.4 million.6 By the time the film left theaters on October 7, it had earned over $90 million worldwide.7Anchorman, as the film came to be known, was not a massive hit. Even with international ticket sales, the movie couldn't break the film industry's $100 million benchmark for hits. It was a success, but not the kind of success that spawns sequels and prequels. The director/co-writer, Adam McKay, star/co-writer Will Ferrell, and cast members, including Paul Rudd, Steve Carell, and Christina Applegate, carried on with their careers creating and acting in other projects. Anchorman was in their rearview mirrors.Paramount spent $40 million on prints and promotion for the film.8 While the theatrical box office didn't break any records, the film did take on legendary status upon its home video release on December 28, 2004. Rather than package the film with the customary single DVD, Paramount took extra steps. In addition to the original theatrical release, it also made an unrated version of the film available. Also, what has been coined a spiritual sequel9 or alternate film companion,10 Wake Up, Ron Burgundy: The Lost Movie was included. This additional film was made up of scenes edited out of the finished theatrical release. Enough content existed to create this standalone film. Because of the film's eventual airing and re-airing on pay and basic cable stations including HBO, TBS, and TNT, plus the growing influence of video social-sharing networks like YouTube, Anchorman's shelf life persisted for years. …

Targeting American Women: Movie Marketing, Genre History, and the Hollywood Women-in-Danger Film

By concentrating on elements of film content and the cultural politics of feminist activists, scholars have suggested that Hollywood’s women-in-danger films of the early 1980s represented the greatest misogynist trend in the history of American cinema. However, by focusing on the marketing of such films as Dressed to Kill (Brian De Palma, 1980), He Knows You’re Alone (Armand Mastroianni, 1980), and The Fan (Ed Bianchi, 1981), it is clear that Hollywood distributors consistently framed these thrillers less as celebrations of violent misogyny than as cautionary tales of a backlash brewing against American women. Accordingly, this article suggests that Hollywood’s women-in-danger films were part of an industry-wide effort to retain older moviegoers, especially mature women. The author argues that Hollywood companies used marketing materials to differentiate their women-in-danger films from sensationally promoted exploitation fare such as Snuff (Anon., 1976) and Maniac (William Lustig, 1980). This practice crystallized in the late 1970s following a controversy over Paramount’s mis-marketed rape-revenge opus Lipstick (Lamont Johnson, 1976), and the promising returns of Columbia’s Eyes of Laura Mara (Irwin Kershner, 1978) and When a Stranger Calls (Fred Walton, 1979). Approaching women-in-danger film marketing as a dynamic historical process reveals that Hollywood’s greatest successes involved emphasizing female participation in the production of the films, spotlighting similarities to other female-oriented production trends, and invoking the figure of the female spectator.

Movie Marketing by Showbox

In the summer of 2008, the movie Dachimawa Lee: Villain, Get on the Express to Hell is waiting for its first release. This movie is based on a short film which was tremendously popular when it was first introduced on the internet in 2000, and the director Ryu Seung Wahn is expecting a mega hit of the movie this summer. Showbox is one of the leading movie distributors in Korea. After a series of blockbuster hits such as Welcome to Dongmakgol, The Host, and The Chaser, Showbox is now in stagnation. Along with sluggish economy in Korea, most of recent movies distributed by them didn`t even reach the break-even. However, expectation on the upcoming movie, Dachimawa Lee, is higher than ever. Marketing department of Showbox has to decide what kind of media channel to choose and which marketing strategy to apply. It needs to make a decision about whether to target the so-called mania group or the general public of much bigger size. In this case study, the distinctiveness of the movie marketing and its process will be discussed. Moreover, the marketing strategies for Dachimawa Lee`s success will be examined in the Showbox`s point of view.

The Day the Gay Cowboy Broke Up with McCabe & Mrs. Miller: Brokeback Mountain’s Love Affair with Consumerist Conformity

The Day the Gay Cowboy Broke Up with McCabe &Mrs. Miller. Brokeback Mountain*s Love Affair with Consumerist Conformity Brittany R. Powell U N I V E R S I T Y O F S O U T H C A R O L I N A Todd Kennedy T U L A N E U N I V E R S I T Y On March 5, 2006, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences pro¬ duced the 78th Annual Academy Awards. From the moment the evening began and certainly before it was over, the night largely belonged to Brokeback Mountain (Ang Lee, 2005). Heralded by critics as a“landmark film” (Travers, par. 1), nominated for eight Academy Awards, and winning three,i the film dominated the telecast, which opened with the host, John Stewart, making sexually ambiguous gay cowboy jokes. Also included that evening was alengthy tribute montage to the Western genre that showed classic shots from films by the likes of John Ford and Sergio Leone. One portion of the ceremony that was not specifically devoted to Brokeback Mountain or the Western, however, was the academy’s bestowal of an HonoraryAward for Lifetime Achievement upon Robert Altman, the critically acclaimed director who never won an Academy Award for his work. During amontage celebrating his achievement in film, almost ominously absent was specific mention by title of Altman’s own attempt at the Western genre: McCabe & Mrs. Miller {1971).^ Ignored in 2006 much as it had been overlooked in the 1970s,3 Altman’s film, and most importantly its subtle exclusion from his body of work by the academy, proves interesting considering that the West¬ ern, or at least Ang Lee’s interpretation of it, was aprimary focus of the tele¬ cast. Yet, even asuperficial examination of these films reveals that each direc¬ tor possesses asingular vision of how the genre of the Western should be used in filmmaking. Furthermore, looking at the Oscars as amarketing machine ultimately reveals the manner in which Brokeback—despite the vehement desire on the part of its director and producers for it to not be thought of as the “gay cowboy” movie—comes to epitomize that very dis¬ tinction by conforming to Western film archetypes. Comparing it to McCabe., afilm that works to defy the Western genre, ultimately allows us to show how Brokeback's supposed status as a“landmark” film becomes over¬ shadowed by its conventional views about gender and its performance; film and politics; and capitalism and movie marketing. Thus, the subtle and brief Intertexts, Vol. 10, No, 22006 ©Texas Tech University Press 1 1 1 1 4 I N T E R T E X T S coexistence of these two Westerns at theAcademyAwards begins an analysis ofBrokeback Mountain that will situate it within its genre and examine both the filmic and sociopolitical implications that this association suggests. An important point of departure for such an examination of Brokeback Mountain is the way it has been perceived by critics versus what the film’s directorsandproducersclaimtobepromoting.ThroughoutBrokeback’s reviews,“landmark,”andothersuchwords,areamongthemostcommonly usedcatchphrases.Forexample,StephenHoldenwroteinhisreviewforthe NewTorkTimes,“Thismovingandmajesticfilmwouldbealandmarkif only because it is the first Hollywood movie to unmask the homoerotic strain in American culture that Leslie Fiedler discerned in his notorious 1948PartisanReviewessay,‘ComebacktotheRaftAg’in,HuckHoney (par.6). AlthoughcriticswerequicktoseeLee’sfilmasasociallyconscious commentary on homosexuality that identified an already-homosexual ten- i dencyinU.S.culture,thedirectorhimselfshunnedsuchadistinctionwhen{ hesaidatapressconference,“Forme,Brokebackisn’trebelliousatall.It’sa very ordinary movie. People call it ‘groundbreaking’ or what not. It puts a lotofpressureonme....thisisthewaygaysare.It'sjustmattneynave beendistorted.Whentwopeopleareinloveandarescared,that’stheway| they are” (“Lee,” pars. 5, 6). | Theapparentconflictbetweentheresponsethefilmgarneredandwhat tedirectorclaimedtoachievehelpsusexaminethemannerinwhichthe I®conformity to, and idolization of, standard Western archetypes actualycontradictboththeideathatitisgroundbreakingandLee ’sclaimthatitis anordinarymovie”depictingrealisticlovers.Instead,wediscoverthatthe m,bothinformandcontent,largelymirrorsclassicWesternswhilecon-, vertingthehomosexualmanintoanarchetypeofruggedindividualismthat pigeonholeshimintoawidelyacceptedfilmicmyth,thusmakingtheaudi¬ ence acknowledge, but not necessarily accept, these characters. In other words,inboththediscoursecreatedbyreviewersaswellasbyLee,thereis analbeitimplicitsuggestionthatthefilm’svirtuelayinthefactthatitis, above all, the gay cowboy movie. In this regard, Brokeback becomes an | exampleofhowhomosexualitycaneasilyfitwithintheWesternfilmarche-| type, but it also demonstrates how both the Western and homosexuality ecomeintertwinedinafairlystaticapplicationofgenretoaseeminglyuni-| versal, tragic love story of the ill-fated romance between Jack Twist (Jake i Gyllenhaal) and Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger). What we suggest, furthermore, is that Brokeback Mountain's status as the gay cowboy movie reveals itself in the fact that the...

Merchandising in the Major Motion Picture Industry

To help guarantee a profit in a very risky industry, major motion picture studios have dramatically increased movie production and marketing budgets. While advertising is the traditional emphasis in the movie marketing mix, in recent years the budget for promotion has equaled the advertising budgets. This essay discusses two areas of movie promotion that studios have increasingly turned to for additional revenues: merchandising and promotional/partner tie-ins. These two elements of the promotion mix generate billions of dollars in revenue for studios each year, but they are generally overlooked by the general population and academic researchers.