ABSTRACT
Given the competitive pressures of the entertainment mass market discussed in the previous chapters, marketing presents an all-encompassing and ever-present challenge at every stage, starting with a film’s inception and all the way along its journey towards finding an audience. Marketing in the film business has historically suffered from a tendency to be approached and viewed from a tightly drawn and narrow perspective. The standard, traditional assumption is that marketing stands for a set of elements created and executed by a department at a certain stage of a film’s life – most often restricted to the theatrical release. Whilst later sections of this chapter focus on the strategies and tools specific to film product, many of the issues and techniques are relevant to wider business strategies. Issues of how to sell, place, brand and differentiate a product start all the way back at the inception of an idea. These challenges might, for example, include the initiation of a company; the start of a brand; the impetus behind a filmmaking team; the placing of a product by a sales company into the international distribution market; and the positioning of all associated media materials and spend – now dominated by online activity – not just at the theatrical stage, but during the video/net download, pay-TV, free-TV and even library re-packaging stage. This chapter directly asks: how can we best define marketing as it mainly relates to the film business? Marketing offers a range of communication tools and strategies that connect product with buyers (aka distributors) and audiences. Each film is different, and hence each film requires a different specific marketing strategy. The chapter includes case studies on The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and The Safety of Objects, exploring how the former achieved considerable worldwide success with Fox Searchlight, and the latter missed the board with IFC in North America.
