A) Distribution channels
Hello, I'm back again. And this time I'm here to talk to you about advertising, distribution and promotion.
First off, Distribution. This is when something is shared to
its audience. 20th Century Fox are very good at distribution because as a
conglomerate they have an enormous amount of revenue and can use various
subsidiaries such as The Fox Broadcasting Company or 21st Century Fox's subsidiaries such as Sky here in the UK.
There are various ways to watch a film, all of which I'm
sure you're familiar with. You can now watch films at the Cinema, own them on
DVD, use streaming services such as Netflix, or watch them on TV. Illegal download sites such as PirateBay and torrent sites such as Putlocker were proved very popular choices of watch Avatar after Torrentfreak put the film at the top of their list of 'Most pirated movies' back in December 2010. The film was downloaded from torrent sites over an estimated 16.6 million times and whilst I do not recommend either of latter two choices, it does show how many ways there are to no watch a film and this is partly to do with the introduction of technological convergence.
Technological Convergence is when technologies come together
to provide new services, for example an iPhone (or any smartphone) is no longer
just a phone, it's now a computer, a portable games console, a camera etc. This
is incredibly useful to distributors because it is more cost effective and
makes them more accessible to their audience This is incredibly useful to ditributors as social media is arguably the most effective form of marketing. 20th Century Fox took advantage of social networks on December 3rd 2009 (just a week before it's London premiere) MTV.com made a webcast called 'Avatar Live' which was hosted by Facebook, this was an interview where questions were submitted by fans. This not only allowed the producers to connect with their audience but gained them nearly 1.3 million fans!
B) Advertising
As mentioned social media is incredibly useful to distributors when promoting the film prior to the film's release but social media also enables fans to promote the film even after the film has been released. As Avatar's target audience are 'digital natives' they are likely to have their own blogs, video blogs (or Vlog if you want to be 'down with the kids'), podcasts, forum memberships etc. Which they would use to promote and/or review the film. Roger Ebert took straight to his website on December 11 2009 when he gave Avatar a 4/4 and stated that "Once again, he [James Cameron] has silenced the doubters by simply delivering an extraordinary film."
Another way James Cameron's Avatar was marketed was through creating 'Avatar Day' on the 21st August 2009. On this day 100 IMAX cinemas worldwide showcased 16 minutes of footage from Avatar, Mattel revealed action figures based on the characters in Avatar and Ubisoft released the trailer for the game based on the film. And on August 20th Avatar broke records when the teaser trailer became the most streamed thing on Apple.com in it's first day. This is an incredibly clever marketing technique because it makes the target audience interact with Avatar before and after the film's release.
All the ways in which Avatar was marketed involve some form of new media, an incredibly important part of Avatar's marketing success was the rise of Web 2.0. Web 2.0 is "the change in the internet being a static, one way form of communication to a two way interactive medium" as described by David Gauntlett (2002). This means that upon the release of teasers, film trailers etc. fans were able to access forums, blogs and social media networks to discuss what they had seen and get more involved in the film.
The official Avatar website was essential to promoting the film in 2009, and is now an essential part of promoting the film's future sequels (through the 'News' section). On the website the audience have access to the film's soundtracks, exclusive wallpapers and much more. But most importantly the audience can contribute to the website through the 'Pandorapedia' which is a wiki dedicated to Avatar, as well as hosting a blogging community. This is another example of the importance of Web 2.0.
James Cameron himself, in my opinion, was possibly the most effective piece of marketing overall. As stated at the 'Den of Geek' "the assumption that people went in [to the cinema] with was that James Cameron had come up with something truly spectacular." And this is simply due to James Cameron's reputation and the long awaited release since his last film (Titanic) was released 12 years previous.
Another thing that I think affected Avatar is it's enormous amount of positive reviews after it's release. Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a rating of 89% based on 292 reviews. Richard Corliss of Time magazine, like many other critics, paid particular homage to the films special effects and even went as far as calling the film, "the most vivid and convincing creation of a fantasy world ever seen in the history of moving pictures." Obviously all these methods of marketing worked as MTV estimate that 59 million people in the US alone have seen Avatar (as of January 2010) and they managed to rake in a record-breaking $2.7 billion.
Because the Fox Broadcasting Network is also owned by 21st Century Fox, this means that through using cross media ownerships they would have been able to advertise Avatar on all of the networks channels relatively free, 20th Century Fox also went into joint venture with Mattel to release a series of action figures based on the characters from Avatar prior to the film's release.
And that is all you need to know about distribution, marketing and how it relates to James Cameron's Avatar. Remember to keep returning to this blog if you would like to know and until then, goodbye.
Another way James Cameron's Avatar was marketed was through creating 'Avatar Day' on the 21st August 2009. On this day 100 IMAX cinemas worldwide showcased 16 minutes of footage from Avatar, Mattel revealed action figures based on the characters in Avatar and Ubisoft released the trailer for the game based on the film. And on August 20th Avatar broke records when the teaser trailer became the most streamed thing on Apple.com in it's first day. This is an incredibly clever marketing technique because it makes the target audience interact with Avatar before and after the film's release.
All the ways in which Avatar was marketed involve some form of new media, an incredibly important part of Avatar's marketing success was the rise of Web 2.0. Web 2.0 is "the change in the internet being a static, one way form of communication to a two way interactive medium" as described by David Gauntlett (2002). This means that upon the release of teasers, film trailers etc. fans were able to access forums, blogs and social media networks to discuss what they had seen and get more involved in the film.
The official Avatar website was essential to promoting the film in 2009, and is now an essential part of promoting the film's future sequels (through the 'News' section). On the website the audience have access to the film's soundtracks, exclusive wallpapers and much more. But most importantly the audience can contribute to the website through the 'Pandorapedia' which is a wiki dedicated to Avatar, as well as hosting a blogging community. This is another example of the importance of Web 2.0.
James Cameron himself, in my opinion, was possibly the most effective piece of marketing overall. As stated at the 'Den of Geek' "the assumption that people went in [to the cinema] with was that James Cameron had come up with something truly spectacular." And this is simply due to James Cameron's reputation and the long awaited release since his last film (Titanic) was released 12 years previous.
Another thing that I think affected Avatar is it's enormous amount of positive reviews after it's release. Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a rating of 89% based on 292 reviews. Richard Corliss of Time magazine, like many other critics, paid particular homage to the films special effects and even went as far as calling the film, "the most vivid and convincing creation of a fantasy world ever seen in the history of moving pictures." Obviously all these methods of marketing worked as MTV estimate that 59 million people in the US alone have seen Avatar (as of January 2010) and they managed to rake in a record-breaking $2.7 billion.
Because the Fox Broadcasting Network is also owned by 21st Century Fox, this means that through using cross media ownerships they would have been able to advertise Avatar on all of the networks channels relatively free, 20th Century Fox also went into joint venture with Mattel to release a series of action figures based on the characters from Avatar prior to the film's release.
And that is all you need to know about distribution, marketing and how it relates to James Cameron's Avatar. Remember to keep returning to this blog if you would like to know and until then, goodbye.
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