Homework: Film Marketing Research Task

'Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows' marketing campaign

I chose to look at this film because it is part of a massive franchise and I think, when it was released, it was one of the most hyped-up film I've ever experienced. So I will look at some of the marketing techniques that helped to create this hype and ultimately make the film rake in $125,017,327 in the opening weekend in the USA alone.

Posters

     

A large range of posters were exhibited during the campaign and they were saturated across the country (In the run up to the film, I could'nt leave my house without seeing loads of them).
They are all incredibly enigmatic and ambiguous, especially the ones which show a close up of the main characters with high contrast lighting. They rely on the audience being familiar with the franchise and, altogether, give the audience an indication of the sinister tone and main characters of the film, but they raise more questions than answers. Some of them also contain the setting of central London in the background, which makes the London audience feel alot more connected and involved with the film.

Trailers

The trailers released were all conventional trailers, again highlighting the sinister tone of the film. They also emphasize how important the film is by describing it as a 'worldwide phenomenom'. The trailers were very successful virals, with just one of them reaching over 24 million hits on youtube. Also, many fans posted the trailer on their facebook page, increasing the word-of-mouth.

Merchandising

  

There is also alot of Harry Potter merchendice out there, which allows fans to get more excited about the film. Also, wearing a Harry Potter T-Shirt can act as free advertising and it will geberate word-of-mouth and they may get a profit from the sales.

Word Of Mouth



This film generated masses of hype through fans getting carried away and interviews with the stars, such as Daniel Radcliffe appearing on 'The Grahem Norten Show'. I think that overall, for this particular film, the word-of-mouth was the most effective advertisment as many people were excited about it, as they had seen, or even groen up with, the franchise.