Audience and Institution Practice Essay

Assess the importance of marketing in the media area you have studied

                Year after year billions and billions of dollars in revenue is made from the film industry. Many people wonder how such an abundance of money is made. Marketing is the simple answer. The number of media outlets owned by companies has become less and less in recent years. Instead of thousands of small companies, there is multiple conglomerates dominating the scene through effective marketing strategies. These conglomerates use a variety of methods to market their films such as: cross promotion, merchandise, and home exhibition. 

            Various big-time companies come together with similar interest to promote their products using cross promotion. Toy companies, food companies, and department stores are all in interaction with film corporations. For instance, Jurassic World partnered with famous toy company, The Lego Group, creating dinosaur action figures. Additionally, Jurassic World also partnered with prominent candy company, Mike and Ike, producing Jurassic World themed candy boxes. Another example of this, is when the creators of multibillion-dollar corporation, Universal, released one of their most popular projects, Furious 7, and teamed up with the video game creators of Forza, to make Forza 2, which was based on the Furious 7 movie. In Furious 7’s first weekend of being released, it accumulated a whopping $143.6 million, and continued to collect $384 million worldwide later that week. The utilization of simple market strategies, strategies as easy as cross promotion, can lead to major success, and an amazing outcome.

            Hundreds of well-known film companies around the globe almost always distribute their movies through home exhibition. Famous enterprises like Walt Disney Pictures, Mandeville Films, which was previously a subsidiary of Disney, and Universal, have all brought their movies to households globally. The audience can finally watch the movies they love so much from their own tv screen. On September 15, 2015, Furious 7 was released on Blu-Ray and DVD. Likewise, on June 6, 2017, a couple years after the home exhibition of Furious 7, Walt Disney Pictures and Mandeville films brought one of their most renowned movies, Beauty and the Beast, to homes everywhere via Blu-ray, DVD, Digital HD, and On Demand. To add on, in 2018 the distinguished film was later released on one of the biggest streaming platforms in the world, Netflix. The extensive marketing of Beauty and the Beast led to a vast stream of revenue; the movie is ranked 76 all time, and collected approximately $1.3 billion worldwide. The amount of profit earned was tremendous, and could not have been done without substantial marketing, not to mention an immense portion of the earnings was ancillary revenue.

            Merchandise is most likely the most common and frequent form of marketing due to its success. World renown businesses such as Columbia Pictures, Marvel Studios, Disney and Universal all create merchandise for their newly released films. Most recently, Columbia Pictures and Marvel Studios came up with a Spider-man Homecoming video game for the ps4 to raise their revenue stream. This game is familiar to kids and teens throughout the world that own a ps4 because the amount of sales blew through the roof, making it a definite topic of discussion. Furthermore, the two major organizations created action figures and games to get kids to want to watch the movie. Another prime example of this is Jurassic World; after the movie became a huge hit, many Lego sets, video games, and even an app were created to further market the product. Limited DVD sets were even being distributed with the addition of toys, figurines, and posters. Moreover, Disney is one of the best merchandise distributors on the planet. When their Beauty and the Beast film released, ornaments, clothes, dolls, etc. were also added to the Disney shop. Disney even teamed up with Target to create costumes, Hallmark to release Beauty and the Beast themed mugs, and Hot Topic released film inspired shirts, accessories, etc. The ancillary revenue of all these films is absolutely massive. Without merchandise companies can lose about half or more of their revenue from the film. Without a doubt, marketing is the most crucial part about making money in the film industry, without it there would be no profit to be made.

            In retrospect, the film industry is one of the most challenging industries to thrive in. The use of different types of marketing all contribute to the success of sensational film companies world-wide. Continuing to use effective marketing strategies like home exhibition, cross promotion, and merchandise will all be vital to a film conglomerates survival. Companies persistently pursue new approaches to marketing, to assist them in thriving in today’s demanding economy.