Distribution and marketing plan

what is the marketing plan?
what is the distribution plan?

The difference between a distribution and marketing plan is that marketing is how you advertise your film, what sources of media will you use to to sell the film?, what could you use to promote the film? and a distribution plan is when are you going to distribute the film? and how many cinemas to distribute to? To sum up marketing is how you promote the film and distribution is how you can sell the film to hit your target audience.

Every film has a different distribution plan customised to itself. The distribution plan is developed in cosultation between both distributor and producer or studio. The vital element discussed in the meeting is when and how to release the film to give it the best chance of making a profit. Distributors estimate the films profit it could potentially make and with this they prepare a budget to release it and the main goal for this is to earn back the money spent. When planning a release, for distributors relying on what they know is not an option.

Market research is conducted on audiences at a test screening to test their reactions. If a new horror film is coming out, the film may be tested on 'die hard' horror fans to see which bits appealed and which bits did not. After test screening the audience fill in questionaires which can help the distributor to be confident of the expected audience and box office prospects. When planning to release a film distributors try to avoid 'pre-conceptions and 'assumptions' which may be aroused.

Focusing on the audience is important trying to understand the age and gender group its aimed at and what media pattens or even lifestyles they might share, know this can help you appeal to a largeer audience. Its important to never to forget the films core audience, the common people who come too see particular movies. People ages 15 - 25 most frequently go to see new releases, and is their 'favourite' out of home activity. The 15-25 age catagory visit the cinema at least once a month but a quater of the overall population do the same. Competition is a big concideration in when to release films as you dont want to come up against the 'summers biggest blockbuster' as this will result in falling ticket sales.

'Star Power' is especially important the bigger nmaes tend to attract a larger number of movie fans due to past experiences with them. Utilising the cast is also important, encouraging stars to do interviews and attend premiers therefore promoting the film. This could lead to good press and media reviews speculating the film. The holiday period is a good time to release comedy or animated films for kids as this is when people will most likely vist the cinema in the 6 weeks school summer holiday! The award season, december to febuary, is not such a good time to release a film due to a congested release schedule, also if you produce a film before hand and it does win an award it pretty much is gaurenteed to make more money. other factors effect a films chances of sucession are the buzz created, does it have a positive buzz making poeple want to go see it after all, word of mouth is the best type of marketing. Is the film a franchise of sequel or even a prequel? if the the first film is a sucess it is more than likely that the next ones will be too, look at Harry Potter or Star Wars for example! The certificate is another factor affecting this as if the certificate is too high maybe not enough people will be able to get in to go see it or if its too low it might not entice people to go see it. The woman in black recieved a rating from the bbfc of 12a which enticed more kids to see it making it the UK's highest grossing horror film of all time making - £14,598,813 from 457 screens which is around £5300 per cinema!

The ammount of prints produced can affect the cost to a distributor. specialised films normally have around 25 prints of fewer yet most films released in the uk are on fewer than 100 prints. Like distributing, very film has its own detailed marketing plan.

Social networks are key to marketing a film and can be the most powerful stimulous when selling a film, it is hard to get back from having a negative word. When creating a campaign distributors often try hit as much of their target audience as they can but still keeping the costs low. A poster in the UK is a traditional size of 30" x 40" in landscape. Months before the films release a teaser poster is special made to create a buzz before release. Distributos have a select range of audio and visual including clips from the producers. Local distributors are given a breif and a task to create a trailer from available material. Trailers have to contain the dramatic sequences but as the editing and special effects havent been finished, many concider trailer making its own art.

Online is a good wy to sell your film especially when aiming at teenagers giving you options to put adverts on social network sites such as facebook or twitter. Most films have an official website and can help build awareness of the film before photography, to interestpeople like with woman in black online competitions may get people involved or even keeping blogs on twitter for people to follow and towards the end of shooting the post may gradually increase the flow. It is a good idea to put the trailer on the internet as film clips 'are the webs most searched-for content'.

The best marketing is word of mouth and this can create the biggest buzz. each social networking site contains millions of users ready to be subjected to trailers and posters and whom are mostly in the target audience.

The UK has aproxamatly 250,000 roadsite billboards and posters and 100's of TV channels like sky or freeview to advertise on! advertising on channels and press is the biggest chunk of the p and a budget. TV is traditionally the best way to advertise reaching a mass audience quickly and teenagers averagely watch around 3 hours of tv a day giving ample opperytunity to create a buzz around the film. With limited budget producers try find new inivative ways in order to reach their target audience. Older audiences tend to watch adverts and read papers so its best to advertise there but with teens the best way to advertise to them would be on bus stops and online as this is the method to attract most teens.

A specially hired photographer - possibly free lance is drafted in to take pictures in production for posters and such, in the photographs they try to establish, 'what are the key themes of the film?' and 'what will get people talking about it?' A publicity team supported by specialist brought in, get the interviews and media from the cast to promote the film.

Depending on the films target audience and theme, the distributor will try its hardest to create promotional partnerships such as McDonalds selling the toys and promoting the film.

Family films are often the target for the co-operation between promotion products with characters to collect. Manafactures producte the toys for collect using the logo in exchange for a small royalty fee. The toys can create large revenues just by theirselves.

publasists organise premeiers  to launch the film. Photo oppertunitys with the cast and even interviews can be done on the red carpet futher promoting the film, fans can enjoy getting autographs and pictures with the celebs. Star filled premiers are oftern shown on major channels along with the interviews which promotes the films even further.The main goal of a premiere is to create a buzz and a high profile around the film at the launch.