“ I like ideas, especially movie ideas, that you can hold in your hand. If a person can tell me the idea in twenty-five words or less, its going to make a pretty good movie.” Steven Spielberg.’
For this essay I intend to discuss how Hollywood as an industry has used the marketing strategies of blockbuster films to significant advantage in film merchandising. Along with the use of mass merchandising as a form of marketing films, with the hope of creating awareness among the public.
As merchandising has become one of the most lucrative ‘arenas’ for Hollywood Studios to earn a profit. Many blockbuster films today come with novelisations of the films story to toy action figures. This is because the contemporary Hollywood blockbusters, in industry terms are high concept films. These are movies that have a striking, easily reducible narrative, which offer a high degree of marketability. This marketability might be based upon stars, the match between a star and premise or a subject that is fashionable. For these movies to earn more money in other merchandising, they are normally easily reduced to a single image. Such as a man flying for Superman (1978), or the two robots, R2D2 and C3PO from Star Wars(1978). This reducibility of narrative to a single image lends its self to the tactile representation of the film, that is, the licensed products constructed around the films characters. These licensed products extend the ‘shelf life’ of the movie by replicating the film’s characters, action and settings through the products. Brad Globe, who was the head of Licensing and merchandising for Amblin Entertainment had this comment to say on the phenomenon:
‘Licensing is not just about generating revenues. We’re really very concerned that the licensing program have a positive impact on the movie and create some consumer awareness for the film.’
Although Films have been merchandised since Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), merchandising has become increasingly influential within the past two decades as a form of marketing. Within the last decade have the studios initiated in-house merchandising units within their marketing departments.
Looking back through film history, there are several films from the early 1970’s that advanced the influence of film merchandising as a market force. Love Story producer Robert Evans suggested to Erich Segal who had wrote the screen...
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... it has to be answered yes and no. As stated in this essay, merchandising for films creates a high sense of awareness among the public, but also serves as a means for the Studios to generate more money through product placement and various movie tie-ins, from the face of C3P0 on the cups at Burger King to Star Wars comics and toys found in your local shops.
Bibliography.
Ali MacGraw “ Moving Pictures” Bantam Books, 1991
Cliff Rothman, “Disney: A Merchandising World Leader” Hollywood Reporter, June 10, 1986
Dale Pollack, Skywalking: The life and films of George Lucas, Harmony Books, 1983
Janet Wasko, “Hollywood in the Informaton Age”Polity Press 1994
Martin A. Grove, “Special Report: Licensing and merchandising” Hollywood Reporter, 1986
Olen J. Earnest, “ Star Wars: A case study of motion picture marketing,” Current research in film: Audiances, economics, and law, vol. 1, ed. Bruce A. Austin. Ablex Publishing Corporation 1983
Steve Neale, Murray Smith, “Contemporary Hollywood Cinema” Routledge 1998 www.cfq.com www.hollywoodreporter.com www.marklitwak.com/movmerc.html www.nytimes.com www.Time.com www.variety.com
Movies today are extremely expensive to make and are typically financed through either film studio contracts or from investors willing to take a risk. In order to be successful, movies need to be marketed and distributed either under contract by the film studios or by companies that specialize in such services. The aspects of financing, marketing and distribution of films have changed between the studio and independent systems over the years as the evolution of the film industry took place.
Beginning the mid 1920s, Hollywood’s ostensibly all-powerful film studios controlled the American film industry, creating a period of film history now recognized as “Classical Hollywood”. Distinguished by a practical, workmanlike, “invisible” method of filmmaking- whose purpose was to demand as little attention to the camera as possible, Classical Hollywood cinema supported undeviating storylines (with the occasional flashback being an exception), an observance of a the three act structure, frontality, and visibly identified goals for the “hero” to work toward and well-defined conflict/story resolution, most commonly illustrated with the employment of the “happy ending”. Studios understood precisely what an audience desired, and accommodated their wants and needs, resulting in films that were generally all the same, starring similar (sometimes the same) actors, crafted in a similar manner. It became the principal style throughout the western world against which all other styles were judged. While there have been some deviations and experiments with the format in the past 50 plus ye...
As can be seen in exhibit to solution 2, we have estimated the per-film value of each production company. MCA Universal, Warner Brothers and Walt Disney Co are the only production companies that provide a positive per film value, with values of 9.89, 1.92, 12.56 million respectively. This value is calculated by dividing the net present value of all the movies by the total number of movies. We also calculated the average value of each production company based upon their share of the total number of movies produced. The companies with positive values were MCA Universal, Warner Brothers and Walt Disney Co is also the only production companies that provide a positive per film value, with values of 1.40, 0.37, 1.40 million respectively. These values are based on the average value per film multiplied by the company's average share of the industry.
Motion Pictures have always had a strong influence in today’s culture, but maybe none as prevalent as Star Wars. Originating with Episode 4 A New Hope, the series boomed from 1977 to 2005 with yet another addition coming in 2015. The strongest of the series was the original trilogy episodes 4, 5, and 6, all generally released in the 1980s. As one of the strongest film francaises still today, it’s impact within the 1980s was only the tip of the iceberg. Children and adults alike still anticipate the new edition of this seemingly endless journey. If any singular film series still holds prevalence in its future decades it is Star Wars: Original Trilogy.
The Walt Disney Company and Pixar Animation Studios Inc. were two of the largest movie and entertainment studios. Disney owned and operated an unparalleled portfolio of theme parks classic movies and characters. Pixar was the leading creative and technological computer generated imagery (CGI) studio but lacked extensive product offerings and distribution channels. At the time of the merger agreement, Disney’s traditional hand-drawn animation films were declining in popularity with the introduction of CGI films. Meanwhile, Pixar possessed the creative and technical resources that Disney lacked, but was unable to profit from characters and films after movie ticket and DVD sales, which were typically one-time purchases. Additionally, the production and distribution contract between Pixar and Disney was rapidly approaching its expiration. Instead of renewing the contract, the two companies decided to merge with the intention of capitalizing on ...
A new edition to the course lineup, this week's film classic, Sunset Boulevard. This film will focus on the culture and environment of the Hollywood studio system that produces the kind of motion pictures that the whole world recognizes as "Hollywood movies." There have been many movies from the silent era to the present that either glamorize or vilify the culture of Hollywood, typically focusing on the celebrities (both in front of and behind the camera) who populate the "dream factories" of Hollywood. But we cannot completely understand the culture of Hollywood unless we recognize that motion pictures are big business as well as entertainment, and that Hollywood necessarily includes both creative and commercial
Jackson, K.M. (1996). Walt Disney: It’s Persuasive Products and Cultural Contexts. Journal of Popular Films and Television, 24(2) 50-52
In this essay I will look at the Film Company and distributor Universal Studios, also known as Universal Pictures. I will analyse the logo, branding, and marketing within the corporate company. Overview of Universal Studios. With a long history in the film making industry, Universal Studios is the largest film studio in the world, with 9000 employee’s. The company produced ‘ET: The Extra Terrestrial’ and ‘Jurassic Park’ which are two of the highest grossing movies of all time.
The nine Star Wars films produced from 1977 to 2016 netted the franchise over $7.48 billion in worldwide box office revenues (Nash, Star Wars), while the thirteen Star Trek films produced from 1979 to 2016 brought in only $2.27 billion (Nash, Star Trek). Recognition of success by peers and industry professionals is measured by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences with Oscars. To date, Star Wars movies have earned 27 Academy nominations and won nine Oscars. In contrast, Star Trek movies have garnered 15 nominations and only one Oscar. Based on these two measures of franchise achievement, it’s evident that the Star Wars franchise has outperformed the Star Trek
Wiles, M. A., & Danielova, A. (2009). The worth of product placement in successful films: An event study analysis. Journal of Marketing, 73(four), 44-63.
Stanley, Robert H. The Movie Idiom: Film as a Popular Art Form. Illinois: Waveland Press, Inc. 2011. Print
Barsam, R. M., Monahan, D., & Gocsik, K. M. (2012). Looking at movies: an introduction to film (4th ed.). New York: W.W. Norton & Co..
It has a huge impact on popular culture that people feel obligated to go see the films. Star Wars movies are shown and promoted nearly worldwide. In addition, Star Wars is one of the first films to have the most successful merchandise franchise. “These movies began building buzz long before they opened and commanded coverage in magazines and the emerging genre of infotainment television” (Bordwell and Thompson 683), basically Star Wars is a mega picture. It is everywhere and all over people’s faces, for example Episode VII has been promoted in the past year all over the world. The movie tickets in many theaters have sold out because people feel obligated to see it. On the other hand, films in the 1890’s did not have the type of promotion Star Wars has received, but a lot of people went to see the short silent films. Due to a few reasons: for entertainment, escape reality, popular culture, and going out to the movie theater to watch a film was a social norm at the time. When it came to merchandise, Disney was doing it for years, but merchandise did not make a huge impact until Star Wars. As a result, Star Wars changed and inspired new promotion and money-making strategies for all the Hollywood
film can make or break a movie. Marketing a film takes up a great deal of the money that is
Maria G Mackavey. Journal of American Academy of Business, Cambridge. Hollywood: Sep 2006. Vol 9 iss; pg244 6pgs