How important is marketing to a films success or failure at the box office?

Marketing is largely important to a films success or failure at the box office as it creates a perception and a certain expectation of the film in the minds of its audience sometimes as far as a year before the film is due to come out and if the campaign is successful it will convince its audience to see it, even if the movie is not that good. Avatar is an example of a film with widely successful marketing campaign and a less than amazing, compelling or gripping storyline. FOX spent $223,000,000 on marketing alone so trailers and posters where everywhere so Avatar was all anyone could talk about months and months before its release meaning that it was always in the minds of the public and they has already decided if they wanted to go and see it.

The posters for Avatar had repeated images of the main characters, repeated colours, a consistent use of font and the same logo and the tag line meaning the audience was fully aware that these posters were all advertising the same film and there is no confusion about the genre or the story as it creates and reinforces a clear message and perception of the film. Avatars trailers did the same, they highlighted the key generic conventions and presented a clear image of what the film was about, it also highlighted the star director James Cameron by mentioning some of his best and more successful films which appeals to the audiences expectations and guarantees them a certain level of quality from the film as by showcasing his best work the trailer is suggesting that if they liked Titanic or Aliens they’re obviously going to like Avatar.

Avatar had a huge interactive viral marketing campaign and it was probably a main factor in its success. The audience could go to websites and were provided with backstory for all the characters and the world they were about to be introduced to which was more than the trailer could provide them with meaning they could create a greater connection with these characters and. The website also had regular competitions which would keep existing customers while attracting new ones. The campaign also engaged audiences through many social media websites like facebook and twitter in which they are encouraged to re-tweet and share posts made by them to get the word out to a larger audience and turn the audience into active participants of the films promotion.

Disney’s John Carter however is an example of a movie with an awful marketing campaign as when it was due to be released hardly anyone had heard of it or were sure what it was about. The trailers and posters sent out mixed messages about the film as they did not seem to belong to the same film, each having a different font and colour scheme meaning he name of the film was the only thing to tie them together and all seemed to portray the film as a different genre (some looked like horror, others fantasy and others action) than the last did, this meant that the audience had no clear idea of what to expect from the film. Disney also failed to take advantage of the horizontally integrated business they were in charge of as before the release of Avatar the audience was bombarded with toys, games, clothes and almost anything else they could make to promote the film while John Carter had none of this, they didn’t even advertise in their own chain of stores or on their tv channels to promote the film.