Product Placement

In our group we decided to focus on the genre of action. Further into our research we decided to look into the sub genres of thriller/adventure. We found that this had the largest audience that we could cater for. Going into research for product placement we decided to individually look into different advertising methods that companies may use to draw the maximum attention to the film, some of the categories would be:

Advertising using still image e.g.: Newspaper averts, Magazines, Billboards, Posters

Advertising using moving image e.g.: Film Previews, TV trailers

E-commerce (The Internet)

I focused on the still image but we then came together as a group and combined all of our information into one set
Our research showed that a lot of Film Corporations’ promoted their new film using free third party websites such as YouTube and social networking sites such as Facebook and twitter. These methods exist and can be free advertisement for the film, but they can also pay to have their film promoted through trailers which would be displayed before someone else’s video. So there is a potential of having millions of people view adverts for their film.
Using The TV to advertise is a great tactic as a huge amount of people watch this, and often are forced to watched adverts in-between programs, as well as this if you were to see a film at a cinema the previews and trailers are often related to the genre of the film, so you would be directly advertising to your target audience. Using trailers is a brilliant technique because it can tease the audience and show them what to expect and get them hyped up for the film, making them want to go see it.
When a company wants to advertise their film using still image, a common goal is to put it where they believe there target audience would see it, for example. Action films would be based around the age of mainly 15-30 and maybe older people, and predominantly a male audience. Music magazines often contain small articles on movies, but also these smaller articles may be found in motoring magazines. Another technique would be to display a large image on a billboard would be leased to them for a limited time, but it would be in a place that everyone would see it, although it would not be directly aiming at their target audience it would get a lot of publicity. As well as large billboards displaying an advertisement, you often see them on busses or bus stops, which would be constantly moving and advertising the film around a busy city centre would get widely noticed.
As a group we have decided to incorporate a lot of the ideas above. We have decided to advertise on channels such as ‘Dave’, ‘channel 4’ and ‘ITV2’. Our research shows that these channels play a lot of similar genre films so we can advertise to our target market. Also Dave is considered more of a male channel because it hosts motoring shows. Our film is aimed more at males, so advertising on this channel we found will be effective. If we were to advertise we would probably have previews on films of a similar genre (action) on channels such as Sky Action, Movies for Men Film 4, or even the Box Office previews. As well as this free advertisement is available using websites such as YouTube to host the trailers, and for a price have it advertised as a banner on other websites, such as IMBD. Also advertising on a bus or a billboard in a main city centre would draw a lot of attention and be noticed by a large amount of people.