Wednesday 26 March 2014

Marketing Hollywood Movies - Big Game Spots

It is likely that in any question for Section A: Producers and Audiences on the FM2 British and American Film paper, you will want to discuss marketing. Look again at the posts on trailers, posters and viral marketing - and have some specific examples to use.

Often for big-budget Hollywood movies, the distribution companies tasked with marketing the film will produce short teaser trailers (roughly 30 seconds long) to be shown during the breaks in the Superbowl. These are known as Big Game Spots and the anticipation they create ahead of being broadcast is huge, in turn creating a buzz ahead of the release of the film.


The 2014 Superbowl attracted a record 111.5 million viewers - a phenomenally large audience, and TV networks charge approximately $4 million for a 30 second slot. The major Hollywood Studios, owned by huge multimedia conglomerates, are able to pay these kinds of sums for a one-off advert; British and independent films simply cannot afford these sums of money (the price of a 30 second slot is often considerably more than the entire production budget of these kinds of films).



Hollywood Studios are prepared to pay this much because of the amount of people that they know are watching - in many ways, the buzz of seeing the premiers of these trailers rivals the anticipation of the Superbowl itself. Ahead of the game, the internet is awash with posts, reports and articles on which trailers will be shown - all of which massively helps market the movies in question.


The distributors of Captain America: The Winter Soldier even produced a teaser advertising the fact that the full trailer for the film would be shown during the Superbowl - essentially an advert promoting and advert!




Below are the Big Game Spots for some of the movies advertised during the Superbowl this year, with other links to these films (which may be useful if you want to use one of these films for your case study) - just remember that the cost of broadcasting the trailer during the game is often more than the total production and marketing budget of many low-budget British and independent films!












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