The Film Marketing Handbook

Book on film marketing

This book gives street-level instruction and real-world examples on how to promote, distribute, and sell a production.

The author goes right to the source and provides data, quotes, and insights from high profile industry professionals and information on market research that the major studios don't want the moviegoing public to know. This book provides practical data, such as templates for advertising campaigns of different sizes, solutions, and an insight into the complicated movie marketing process. Armed with the strategies that Hollywood professionals would prefer not to share, film professionals and marketing professionals alike will have a leg up in this complicated business.

While Hollywood executives spend millions of dollars making movies, even more money is poured into selling those films to the public. In the third edition of his comprehensive guidebook, Marketing to Moviegoers: A Handbook of Strategies and Tactics, veteran film and TV journalist Robert Marich plumbs the depths of the methods used by studios to market their films to consumers. Updates to the third edition include a chapter on marketing movies using digital media; an insightful discussion of the use of music in film trailers; new and expanded materials on marketing targeted toward affinity groups and awards; fresh analysis of booking contracts between theaters and distributors; a brief history of indie film marketing; and explorations of the overlooked potential of the drive-in theater and the revival of third-party-financed movie campaigns. While many books have been written on the business-to-business aspect of film promotion, Marich’s volume is one of the few that focuses on the techniques used to sell motion pictures to those in a position to truly make or break a film—the public. A highly navigable handbook that breaks down a complicated process into manageable strategies in an easy-to-read style, Marketing to Moviegoers is a must for all professionals and students in today’s rapidly evolving film industry.

Create an irresistible brand image and build an audience of loyal and engaged fans... Guerrilla Film Marketing takes readers through each step of the film branding, marketing and promotional process. Tailored specifically to low-budget independent films and filmmakers, Guerrilla Film Marketing offers practical and immediately implementable advice for marketing considerations across every stage of the film production process. Written by leading film industry professional Robert G. Barnwell, Guerrilla Film Marketing teaches readers how to: Master the fundamentals of guerrilla branding, marketing and promotion; Create an integrated marketing plan and calendar based on realistic budgets and expectations; Develop internet and social media marketing campaigns, including engaging studio and film websites and powerful, marketing-centric IMDb listings; Assemble behind-the-scenes pictures, videos and documentaries; Produce marketing materials such as key art, posters, film teasers, trailers and electronic press kits (aka "EPKs"); and Maximize the marketing impact of events such as test screenings, premiers, film festivals and industry award ceremonies. Guerrilla Film Marketing is filled with dozens of step-by-step instructions, checklists, tools, a glossary, templates and other resources. A downloadable eResource also includes a sample marketing plan and audit, a test screening questionnaire, and more.

The role of the film marketer is both vital and challenging. Promotion is one of the industry’s biggest costs, with the campaign of a large film costing up to half its production budget. Box office results, however, are wildly unpredictable: relatively few films a year make a profit. These market conditions make this a unique industry and film marketing a specific and demanding skill set that requires attention early in the career of any marketing student looking to progress in the industry. This new edition of Film Marketing is a thorough update of the first textbook in film promotion. Like in the first edition, Kerrigan takes a socio-cultural, as well as a business view of film marketing and its impact, covering different approaches to promotion according to different aims and audiences internally and externally, and across the world. This book addresses all areas of film marketing from the rigorous perspective of someone with first-hand knowledge of the trade. This new edition also includes: Additional pedagogy and visual examples to reinforce key points A more international range of cases and coverage of non-Western markets to give a global overview of film marketing across the world New and expanded sections on social media, digital promotion, transmedia and crowdfunding This is the original film marketing text which no engaged film or marketing student should be without.

Creative strategy -- Market research -- Paid media advertising -- Promotional tie-ins and product placement -- Licensed merchandise -- Publicity -- Distribution to theaters -- Exhibition -- Major studios -- Independent distributors -- Foreign-language films -- Prints and advertising funds