What is the importance of cross-media convergence and synergy in the film industry?
Cross-media convergence and synergy are very important to the film industry companies will often use these to promote their films in order to make revenue. In my essay I will be exploring how Warner Bros and Belstone pictures used cross- media convergence and synergy to promote their films and discuss how efficient these techniques were for their product. I will go into detail about how Warner Bros and Belstone Pictures promoted Wonder Woman through TV, radio, social media, print/ billboards and how the difference in the companies budgets affected their promotion campaigns.
Warner Brothers used several cross-media techniques to promote their film. For example, they manufactured Wonder Woman merchandise to promote their film. They produced merchandise varying from toys and lunch boxes to bed sheets and clothes. This not only increased their sales by having more products to buy, but it also helped their Wonder Woman franchise target a wider audience by having a larger age span of products. The toys were directed at children and adults such as Wonder Woman dolls and adult action figurines, as well as all of their products like clothes and posters. There was also news, in late 2018, that Warner Bros were working with Montreal to create a Wonder Woman video game. However, this was rumoured and is yet to be confirmed. Despite Wonder Woman not having her own video game, she stars in several other games such as Lego villains, the Lego batman series, Lego universe, Injustice: Gods among us and DC Online. Although these games aren’t directly made or related to Wonder Woman’s character, they promote her franchise and spread the awareness of her character to young and old audiences through the games targeted age groups e.g. Lego batman- E10+, Injustice: Gods among us- 12+ (teens). On the other hand, the small studio Belstone Pictures couldn’t afford to create all of these products to promote their film and wide span their audience. Instead, due to their very small budget, they held a toy competition on their social media of a ‘Lego like’ toy tank. This was without a partnership to the toy company and had a very small impact to promote their film as their social media following is just under 300. With their small following and lack of budget, Belstone Pictures desperate attempt to promote their film with an unbranded toy tank, without a synergetic partnership, led to a sluggish response from the public and didn’t help spread awareness of their new film ‘Tank 432’.
Another cross-media convergence technique used by Warner Brothers was their use of traditional media. Traditional media is an effective way of spreading awareness of a film as it targets the older audience who are still buy magazines or read newspapers and don’t use online social media. Warner Bros had $300 thousand budget to market and distribute their film. This means that they were able to print posters of ‘Wonder Woman’ and place them on the sides of busses and bus stops, the side of buildings, have them on the walls of the underground and release their trailer to cinemas and YouTube. Warner Bros released their trailer for ‘Wonder Woman’ on the 3rd of November 2016 and scored millions of views within the first few days and created a massive fan base before the films release. The cinema trailers helped target die-hard fans of the DC Universe who were watching other films such as ‘Deadpool’ and ‘Batman vs Superman’. Warner Brothers huge marketing/ distribution budget also allowed them to buy air into Tv adverts and the radio to attract an older audience (possibly targeting elderly women who want to see a strong female character star in a film). Warner Bros being incredibly wealthy meant that they could distribute their own film and not need to hire a separate company to market their product, unlike Belstone Pictures who couldn’t afford to distribute their own film. A benefit to distributing your own film is that you claim 100% of the profits, but you could take a huge loss if the film doesn’t do well. Warner Brothers also printed big billboards of ‘Wonder Woman’ to spread awareness of the upcoming movie months before its release to the general public to create anticipation leading to the films cinema release to attract more audiences on premiere event or cinema release day. On the other hand, Belstone pictures had a small budget of only £12,000 pounds to market and distribute their film ‘Tank432’. As Belstone Pictures aren’t wealthy enough to distribute their own film, they hired a distribution company called ‘Kaleidoscope’ to promote and release their film. An advantage of having a separate distribution company rather than distributing your own product is that if the film is a flop, you only have a partial loss. However, if the film is successful you must share the profits with the partner company. A disadvantage to hiring Kaleidoscope was that the name of the film was changed from ‘Bely of the Bulldog’ to ‘Tank432’. Kaleidoscope, being the distributers, have the ability to change the cover or name of the film if they feel it would benefit the product sales. They believed that ‘Belly of the Bulldog’ was to directed at English audience members and that they had to have a global audience to sell as many units as they could. This managed to help Belstone Pictures as most of ‘Tank432’s’ sales were in Poland. Had the name not changed, they might not have had a larger Polish audience as they did. Belstone pictures couldn’t afford to get their film trailered in cinemas, so instead they released the trailer to ‘Tank432’ on YouTube for free. This targets a fairly younger audience as it is using the internet to advertise the film and most elderly audience members view advertisement material in the newspaper or on TV. Despite YouTube having a somewhat limited audience, it is completely free and supplies the has an algorithm that recommends the film to horror/ sci-fi fans. This gave Belstone Pictures a self-targeting market campaign that automatically finds their audience members for free to greatly improve the anticipation of ‘Tank432’ as well as spread awareness of the film.
Another very modern cross-media convergence technique that many companies across the world use is social media. Warner Bros use their huge, and ever growing, social media following to promote latest films. In the case of ‘Wonder Woman’, Warner Brothers posted their trailer, several iconic images from the film and reviews about the film. With their social medias having a total of 43.2 million followers, sharing ‘Wonder Woman’ related posts spread awareness to all of their followers as well as the re-tweets/ shares it received. Using social media not only directly contacts their audience but shares their trailers, posts and reviews globally for free. This greatly benefits film studios, big or small, as most of the world’s population use the internet and have free access to the ‘Wonder Woman’ page. Not only did Warner Brothers share their ‘Wonder Woman’ related posts to their fan following, but also got Gal Gadot (Wonder Woman actress/ model) to re-post and post her own ‘Wonder Woman’ images. This increased their audience by a maximum of 70 million followers (Gal Gadot’s total social media following). Belstone Pictures also used their social media to promote their film ‘Tank432’. However, as they are a much smaller and not as well-known studio as Warner Brothers, their social media didn’t have much of an impact in increasing the sales of their film. In fact, creating a social media for ‘Tank432’ actually backfired as most of the reviews about the film were negative and lots of audience members left negative comments on their social media. A positive aspect to advertising their film on social media is that it is completely free. Belstone Pictures being a very small, independent film studio, weren’t able to afford any other advertisement scheme besides posting their content on social media. One of the actresses in the film, April Pearson, had built up a small following of a few thousand followers on social media due to her role on a famous tv show called ‘Skins’. Being the most influential social media figure, Belstone Pictures were also able to promote their film through her social media and increase their audience.
Synergy in the film industry is a very important method to promote a studio’s product as well as mutually benefit their partner company/ companies. For example, Warner Brothers had several brand deals with companies such as Dr Pepper, Lego and streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime and Spotify. Warner Brothers collaboration with Dr Pepper meant that more members of the public would watch ‘Wonder Woman’ in cinemas as they saw advertainment on can of Dr Pepper. A great example of both companies benefiting the effects of synergetic partnership is between Lego and Warner Brothers. For years Warner Brothers and Lego have been manufacturing toys and videogames to promote their products and make money. Wonder Woman merchandise, such as toys, targets a younger audience member and causes more ticket sales as parents take their children to see the film whilst Lego make money by selling Wonder Woman Lego characters to fans of the film. As Warner Brothers have a history of making Blockbuster films and a good reputation amongst the film industry, getting deals with streaming services like Netflix is fairly easy. Netflix purchase the film knowing it will bring more subscribers to the streaming service which benefits Warner Brothers as they can charge a high price for their product. A negative impact to Warner Brothers releasing their film to digital streaming services was that Wonder Woman was pirated to such an extreme extent that it caused a $1 billion profit loss for Warner Brothers. However, independent film studios that are new are unreliable and don’t obtain good deals with services such as Netflix to stream their movie. Belstone Pictures persuaded Netflix, after 12 weeks of planning, to stream their film for 2 years. Despite the film being on Netflix for 2 years, Belstone Pictures weren’t paid a large sum of money like Warner Brothers as the film wouldn’t bring new subscribers to the streaming service.
In conclusion, cross-media convergence and synergy can benefit a film and the production studios to some extent, depending on the budget of the studios. The extent of the use of these methods can bring positive and negative effects to both small and large film studios.
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