finished magazine article
Article Itself:
The Hunger Games Promotional Strategy
The use of social media in creating buzz and trilogy momentum
RELEASED: March 2012
DIRECTOR: Gary Ross
CAST: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Elizabeth Banks and Woody Harrelson
PLOT: In what was once North America, the Capitol of Panem maintains its hold on its 12 districts by forcing them each to select a boy and a girl, called Tributes, to compete in a nationally televised event called the Hunger Games. Every citizen must watch as the youths fight to the death until only one remains. District 12s Tribute Katniss Everdeen has little to rely on, other than her hunting skills and sharp instincts, in an arena where she must weigh survival against love.
The Hunger Games franchise includes four blockbuster movies to be globally released over the course of four years. As a film adaption of a book series, The Hunger Games has an ardent fan base with clear expectations. Within this article I will be focusing on what The Hunger Games’ (2012) promotion strategies were.
The main distribution company for the film was the well-known company Lionsgate Films. It is the largest and most successful mini-major film studio in North America, thus far producing more than 1,300 movie and TV titles. It focuses on foreign and independent films and has distributed various commercially successful film series. In 2012, Lionsgate acquired
Summit Entertainment for $412.5 million, hoping to reach more young adult followers. The company is using this new subsidiary to help release The Hunger Games.
The Hunger Games book series targets a wide demographic audience across all ages and genders, and the films attempted to reach this same segment. 56% of the film’s audience was over 25, and 39% was male. The current marketing campaign of The Hunger Games has targeted consumers in their early teens to early 20s, due to the largely online nature such as active online social media users. A large portion of this comes from a younger generation that actively shares content and enjoys being the first in their social circle to discover content. Lionsgate cleverly generated viral campaigns to target this group of customers,
which were made to be shared and replicated. For example, fans could post a user-generated “district identification pass” to their social media accounts.
Audiences could access this pass through the one-minute teaser trailer (released in August 2011). The footage contained a Twitter prompt for the website thecapitol.pn. The site allowed visitors to make digital ID cards as if they lived in Panem (hence why the registered domain name was “.pn” to represent the government there). More than 800,000 people created them. In October 2011, Twitter then allowed those ID makers to campaign online to be elected mayor of various districts of Panem.
Furthermore, Lionsgate built a consistent message across multiple social platforms where users were immersed into a highly stylised world that invites them to engage and share with others. This was an easy way for a wide range of fans to be constantly updated on the progress of the film and thus build momentum for the release of the film. In May 2011, Lionsgate started methodically releasing info about the casting on Facebook and Twitter. These accounts are still active to this day. The company actively used cross-media convergence, in the sense that the film industry worked with the online media one, to promote the film.
The Hunger Games had a much larger production budget of $80 million, but a relatively small marketing budget of only $45 million. Using inexpensive marketing in comparison to the traditional movie marketing, they were able to offset some of the advertising costs with online promotion. The producers, however, will not be able to maintain such a low budget for the sequels, because of the rising costs for special effects and higher salaries for the upcoming actors.
In the entertainment industry, if other movie releases conflict with their own it could impact how well the film does. Fortunately, the initial movie release was during a quiet period of the year, when there weren’t blockbusters to steal potential moviegoers. This explains the strong success of the first movie in the franchise. Now that the brand is established and a fan base already exists, The Hunger Games might be in a position to compete with other popular films.
In addition, showing trailers (a form of audio-visual marketing) before a film screening at a cinema or a worldwide event is another important way to reach a younger demographic audience. The main trailer was released in November 2011 and received 8 million views in its first 24 hours. In February 2012, Lionsgate revealed a new trailer for the film during the Super Bowl. Another event that Lionsgate took advantage of was the July 2011 Comic Con, here they gave out copies of a never before seen poster to fans.
Lionsgate used a unique strategy to execute their online media campaign to promote the film. The distribution company leveraged social platforms to deliver content to millions of users through a: Tumblr, Capitol Twitter account, Facebook, YouTube “Capitol TV” and a competition to put together puzzles pieces of the new movie poster.
The world of Panem was further personified with the Tumblr site, Capitol Couture, which updated fans on the latest fashions for characters in the film and held contests for outfit recommendations. The site reached a niche segment of young consumers interested in fashion and the Hunger Games. In addition to the site, Lionsgate created a Twitter and Facebook account to release updates from the Capitol. In July 2011 the first look at photographs of the cast on set were released over Twitter. It also published the official release date of the film. In July 2011, the first official poster was released via Facebook. In addition, The Hunger Games had 12 different Facebook pages to match with each district. An official YouTube channel was created in February 2012. It was made to look like the official network of Panem called Capitol TV. The channel combined sneak previews of film footage and user-generated hunger games videos. Finally, to push customers’ interest, 100 days before the movie's release, the studio created two new posters and cut it into 100 puzzle pieces, then gave digital versions of those pieces to 100 websites. Fans then had to
search through Twitter to put together the poster. It trended worldwide on Twitter within minutes, generating more than 3 million conversations on social websites.
These interactive sites and social media profiles allow fans to have an active role in the online community. By re-posting on their own pages and re-tweeting official messages, fans join the online conversation and become active brand ambassadors. Lionsgate expanded beyond the use of traditional promotion channels for feature blockbuster films by launching a massive digital marketing campaign. It included the distribution of 80,000 posters, 50 magazine cover stories and advertising on 3,000 billboards and bus shelters. In January 2012, theatrical posters featuring the main characters in the film were released. By generating online hype and promoting the film across platforms, Lionsgate maximised its advertising potential for the Hunger Games.
Synergy was another key factor of the films marketing campaign. Lionsgate Films used this technique when promoting 'The Hunger Games Adventures' an app that was released on the same day as the film and took the form of a social networking platform. Another way they used this technique was by collaborating with barbiecollector.com to announce the arrival of The Hunger Games Katniss Everdeen (the main protagonist of the film) doll.
To conclude, the marketing campaign for The Hunger Games was extremely successful. All of the current social media platforms and viral marketing were hugely popular and pay homage to the overall success of the film.
The Hunger Games Promotional Strategy
The use of social media in creating buzz and trilogy momentum
RELEASED: March 2012
DIRECTOR: Gary Ross
CAST: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Elizabeth Banks and Woody Harrelson
PLOT: In what was once North America, the Capitol of Panem maintains its hold on its 12 districts by forcing them each to select a boy and a girl, called Tributes, to compete in a nationally televised event called the Hunger Games. Every citizen must watch as the youths fight to the death until only one remains. District 12s Tribute Katniss Everdeen has little to rely on, other than her hunting skills and sharp instincts, in an arena where she must weigh survival against love.
The Hunger Games franchise includes four blockbuster movies to be globally released over the course of four years. As a film adaption of a book series, The Hunger Games has an ardent fan base with clear expectations. Within this article I will be focusing on what The Hunger Games’ (2012) promotion strategies were.
The main distribution company for the film was the well-known company Lionsgate Films. It is the largest and most successful mini-major film studio in North America, thus far producing more than 1,300 movie and TV titles. It focuses on foreign and independent films and has distributed various commercially successful film series. In 2012, Lionsgate acquired
Summit Entertainment for $412.5 million, hoping to reach more young adult followers. The company is using this new subsidiary to help release The Hunger Games.
The Hunger Games book series targets a wide demographic audience across all ages and genders, and the films attempted to reach this same segment. 56% of the film’s audience was over 25, and 39% was male. The current marketing campaign of The Hunger Games has targeted consumers in their early teens to early 20s, due to the largely online nature such as active online social media users. A large portion of this comes from a younger generation that actively shares content and enjoys being the first in their social circle to discover content. Lionsgate cleverly generated viral campaigns to target this group of customers,
which were made to be shared and replicated. For example, fans could post a user-generated “district identification pass” to their social media accounts.
Audiences could access this pass through the one-minute teaser trailer (released in August 2011). The footage contained a Twitter prompt for the website thecapitol.pn. The site allowed visitors to make digital ID cards as if they lived in Panem (hence why the registered domain name was “.pn” to represent the government there). More than 800,000 people created them. In October 2011, Twitter then allowed those ID makers to campaign online to be elected mayor of various districts of Panem.
Furthermore, Lionsgate built a consistent message across multiple social platforms where users were immersed into a highly stylised world that invites them to engage and share with others. This was an easy way for a wide range of fans to be constantly updated on the progress of the film and thus build momentum for the release of the film. In May 2011, Lionsgate started methodically releasing info about the casting on Facebook and Twitter. These accounts are still active to this day. The company actively used cross-media convergence, in the sense that the film industry worked with the online media one, to promote the film.
The Hunger Games had a much larger production budget of $80 million, but a relatively small marketing budget of only $45 million. Using inexpensive marketing in comparison to the traditional movie marketing, they were able to offset some of the advertising costs with online promotion. The producers, however, will not be able to maintain such a low budget for the sequels, because of the rising costs for special effects and higher salaries for the upcoming actors.
In the entertainment industry, if other movie releases conflict with their own it could impact how well the film does. Fortunately, the initial movie release was during a quiet period of the year, when there weren’t blockbusters to steal potential moviegoers. This explains the strong success of the first movie in the franchise. Now that the brand is established and a fan base already exists, The Hunger Games might be in a position to compete with other popular films.
In addition, showing trailers (a form of audio-visual marketing) before a film screening at a cinema or a worldwide event is another important way to reach a younger demographic audience. The main trailer was released in November 2011 and received 8 million views in its first 24 hours. In February 2012, Lionsgate revealed a new trailer for the film during the Super Bowl. Another event that Lionsgate took advantage of was the July 2011 Comic Con, here they gave out copies of a never before seen poster to fans.
Lionsgate used a unique strategy to execute their online media campaign to promote the film. The distribution company leveraged social platforms to deliver content to millions of users through a: Tumblr, Capitol Twitter account, Facebook, YouTube “Capitol TV” and a competition to put together puzzles pieces of the new movie poster.
The world of Panem was further personified with the Tumblr site, Capitol Couture, which updated fans on the latest fashions for characters in the film and held contests for outfit recommendations. The site reached a niche segment of young consumers interested in fashion and the Hunger Games. In addition to the site, Lionsgate created a Twitter and Facebook account to release updates from the Capitol. In July 2011 the first look at photographs of the cast on set were released over Twitter. It also published the official release date of the film. In July 2011, the first official poster was released via Facebook. In addition, The Hunger Games had 12 different Facebook pages to match with each district. An official YouTube channel was created in February 2012. It was made to look like the official network of Panem called Capitol TV. The channel combined sneak previews of film footage and user-generated hunger games videos. Finally, to push customers’ interest, 100 days before the movie's release, the studio created two new posters and cut it into 100 puzzle pieces, then gave digital versions of those pieces to 100 websites. Fans then had to
search through Twitter to put together the poster. It trended worldwide on Twitter within minutes, generating more than 3 million conversations on social websites.
These interactive sites and social media profiles allow fans to have an active role in the online community. By re-posting on their own pages and re-tweeting official messages, fans join the online conversation and become active brand ambassadors. Lionsgate expanded beyond the use of traditional promotion channels for feature blockbuster films by launching a massive digital marketing campaign. It included the distribution of 80,000 posters, 50 magazine cover stories and advertising on 3,000 billboards and bus shelters. In January 2012, theatrical posters featuring the main characters in the film were released. By generating online hype and promoting the film across platforms, Lionsgate maximised its advertising potential for the Hunger Games.
Synergy was another key factor of the films marketing campaign. Lionsgate Films used this technique when promoting 'The Hunger Games Adventures' an app that was released on the same day as the film and took the form of a social networking platform. Another way they used this technique was by collaborating with barbiecollector.com to announce the arrival of The Hunger Games Katniss Everdeen (the main protagonist of the film) doll.
To conclude, the marketing campaign for The Hunger Games was extremely successful. All of the current social media platforms and viral marketing were hugely popular and pay homage to the overall success of the film.