Media Convergents

Q: How is media convergence important for audience and institution? 

Media convergence is important to audience and institution because they need to advertise the company and film that they have made to the public so it encourages them to come see the film so that they can make a high gross (Profit) from the film. They do this by making Posters, Tv Adverts, Radio Adverts, Word Of Mouth, Internet Adverts, Previous Films, Websites, Trailers and Teaser Trailers ect. They use these methods because they are the most common methods of advertising and they are also low cost or very effective with the public when trying to advertise a film.

When advertising a film it is important that you get people talking about it and knowing about it or you would make a low gross and not be able to pay everyone who helped produce and make the film. Thankfully technology today allows us to use media in a way where its hard not to know about an upcoming film or event because the wide range of methods used to get people to see or look at what the film is about. 

As you can see the film industry relies on the media a lot and they will use all the methods they can and make new methods of advertising to make sure that their film gets noticed by lots of people, if the methods of advertisement are successful then they already know that people are going to come see the film and have sold it to them before they have watched it just because they have seen posters and trailers for the film, this is also good for the company because they have also created word of mouth between friends and family who will advertise it to them and bring them along to see it and they will tell their friends and so on... . Here are a few films and how they used media to advertise their films -

Kick Ass: Universal Pictures (UK) and Lionsgate Films (US) used simple but creative media to advertise their film to the public because the film is based on the comic book series and they would have a large audience who would want to see the film and compare it to the comic book series, this was good for them because they knew that they would make some money for the film. In their advertising they made individual posters spelling out Kick Ass, which was a type of interactive media where people would have to try and collect all the posters and spell out Kick Ass. They also used trailers and Teaser Trailers to advertise their film to the public, the film used a Uk as well as a US company that helped advertise world wide and helped with publicity. I don't think that they advertised the film as well as they could have because they gained a low gross, but i think that might of been because they only had a budget of $28 million. ( they made $96, 188, 903 from the film and most of this was from DVD and Blue-Ray sales.) 

Attack The Block: StudioCanal, UK Film Council, Big Talk Pictures, Film4 Productions used some technology with advertising their film because they made a website that you can go on and interact with, you could do this by reading about the individual characters and watching the trailers to the film as well as looking at the posters. They also used posters to advertise their film, they made 3 different posters altogether with some or all of the characters on the poster with a little description about what the film was about. They also used Trailers to advertise their film and aimed the adverts toward teenagers and adults because its meant to be a scary film and its also has bad language and lots of blood/gore, and its aimed at teenagers because the film was rated as a 15. They had a premier for the film that also helped to advertise the film.

Quantum Of Solace: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Columbia Pictures Had a budget of $200 million so their adverting campaign was big for Quantum Of Solace but it didn't have to have lots of different media coverage like websites, Apps Ect. Because they have already established a loyal audience from the previous films, they only needed to get people talking about the film and they had posters and trailers. They suspected that they would gain a large audience because of the previous films and because of word of mouth. also it is aged 15+ and they are targeting a large audience where it will get spoken about regularly.

Synergy Marketing: Synergy marketing is where two companies team up together to make a product that will sell but also advertise too. for example The producers of Quantum Of Solace Teamed up with PS3 and Xbox to make a game that appealed to teenagers and adults to make them want to see the film and play the game, also it helps gain more word of mouth and more people will buy the game and be tempted to watch the movie too.