How do companies use Cross-Media Convergence and Synergy to promote media products and to what extent does that cause a film to be successful?
Cross media convergence and synergy are two very important ways to promote any aspect of media, and because of fragmentation, this makes them two very vital ways of marketing in order to make a film successful.
A good example of a conglomerate who uses cross media convergence and synergy is Disney. However, Disney does have an advantage over other companies because it is so much bigger, and has so much more money to afford having marketing and advertising- this would make it much easier for them to do as opposed to independent films, or even smaller conglomerates and subsiduraries. Disney also has branches of vertical and horizontal integration. An example of vertical integration is in how Disney owns over three hundred retail stores that sell merchandise based on Disney characters and movies. This allows Disney to retain profits that would otherwise mostly go to other retail stores like walmart and target. A good example of horizontal integration for Disney is when they bought Pixar Animation Studios in 2006 for $7.4 billion dollars. From buying Pixar, they received Pixars cutting-edge technology and an innovative vision.
An example of synergy for Disney would be Toy Story 3 and Dancing with The Stars. The show featured a dance from Toy Story 3, and this is an example of synergy because Disney owns Pixar which made all of the Toy Story movies. An example of cross media convergence from Disney would be the development of the Avengers Alliance Facebook game is an example because the Disney interactive division developed the game to promote the film through social media, and since their Facebook and Instagrams 46 million followers, this reaches lot of people.
Cross media convergence and synergy is a lot harder and has more limitations for smaller companies and independent film makers. However, the rise of internet is helping to level the playing field slightly as its easier to advertise and get the word out about a new independent film without spending bucket loads on billboards and TV ads. This means that attention can be attracted to smaller companies and indie films by making a website, an Instagram or face book page, advertising through your actors etc.
The Dark Knight rises is a great example of how a company with heaps of money to spare can really raise awareness and draw attention to their film.The Dark Knight Rises had a very unique way that they advertised and raised awareness for their film. called 'Why So Serious" where people at cosplay events were given clown make-up and walked the streets holding signs for the presidential campaign in the movie. They got notifications on their phones with when to go and where, and armies of Joker fans showed up to play this game in around 75 countries- each with different places in their country to gather. This raised major awareness for the film as people would see these clowns marching the streets, and they were even covered on several news agencies which also raised massive awareness for the movie. On the last night of the game, people gathered where the website told them to and a bat signal appeared on a massive building- however, the joker then made the bat signal disappear and instead it was his face on the building.
For small companies and independent films, the opportunity to be put up onto Netflix and Hulu and other VOD sites have really helped with the amount of people who have watched their films. If an independent movie was on Netflix, its way more likely that a person would watch it that way as opposed to if the only way it could be watched was by renting or buying, because even with big films, people are reluctant to buy and rent on top of having Netflix. So the chances of them ever branching out to rent an Indie movie and not a Marvel or Martin Scorsese film that have been proven to be well made movies is very unlikely- the amount of viewers will increase because of VODs.
The New Zealand Film Commission would benefit massively from cross media convergence and synergy. This is because it would help especially to raise an awareness of films that are made in New Zealand. Even in NZ, people are reluctant to watch an NZFC movie over a Hollywood one because the quality of NZ movies is not always up to the quality of Hollywood. If the NZFC did use more cross media convergence and synergy to promote NZ movies in other countries, there is a high possibility of increased tourism, local economic growth, and it would show off the local talent and hopefully encourage others to step forward and show their talent to work for and make New Zealand films. Its harder for New Zealand to gain a large audience because New Zealands population is a mere 4 million compared to the United States' population of 328 million people, and this puts NZ on a severe disadvantage. However, New Zealand films do have a chance to make it big- this is shown by the total amount of money that i said What We Do In The Shadows made, and how now, there is going to be an adaption of the film that is being made by Hollywood in New York. Another film that did well to increase tourism for New Zealand was The Hobbit. Since the film was filmed in New Zealand, 400,000 tourists came over to visit Hobbiton. Air New Zealand also used some of their actors and the landscape used in the film to make a safety video that was shown on every single plane ride. In addition to everyone who watched it on the planes, it has over 21 million views on YouTube, and showed how creative New Zealand could be when it came to media. Since there is several free streaming services for the New Zealand TV, such as TVNZ and Three Now (which not only show New Zealand shows, but also world famous shows like Friends, Killing Eve, The Resident etc) The NZFC has the chance to play their ads during the shows on the streaming services, and on normal TV which covers more people. This helps because because of fragmentation some people might not watch the scheduled TV anymore, but if the ads are on TVNZ, they'll see it their and not miss it.
In my opinion, people watch big block buster movies because of the name the studios have made for themselves through advertising and years of offering quality in their movies. They have been working on their branding for years and have made conglomerates because they started earlier, which is why it is harder for indie films and smaller film corporations to enter the market. in 2019, Box Office hit a record of making a total of 42.5 billion off of their movies whereas independent movies made a total of $24 billion in comparison BUT saying this, you would have to take into account that the box office releases only 600 movies a year in comparison to independent film makers making 4000. So, the total amount of money made on an individual independent film is around $600000-$800000, whereas a box office film makes around $11.4 billion a movie.
Cross media convergence and synergy have been majorly affected by the rise in the Internet and web 2.0. This is because media companies have begun to market their movies by using the internet rather then just relying on the ads they put in the cinema, or the billboard they payed for on the motorway. This helps to level the playing field for independent films and Hollywood, because it is a platform in which indie film makers can easily market their films for not too much money. Hollywood uses these to market their films as well because they understand if they don't, they'll suffer because of lack of marketing because they would miss key markets that were created because of fragmentation of media. Some of the key ways in which they often market their films is by making a website, sometimes with a fandom which often attracts people from websites like Tumblr and then they take it and talk about it on their social media sites which helps to increase the number of people who see information about the films. Fan pages are also a great way to attract users from those social media sites and people in general. YouTube is also a great, free place to post up previews, and even interviews and the writers talking about the film to give the audience a piece of the film and to excite them for the movie. Online competitions like what I mentioned previously with the Dark Knight gets the audience hyped up for the movie and keen to watch it because they feel like they have been involved in someway with the movie, and so want to watch what they have invested themselves into. The online competitions also attract heaps of people who just want to win something- at first they might not even know what they are signing up for, but then they see what it's about and so are drawn into the group of people who are waiting for this movie. Making an Instagram or Facebook or any other social media account is also really important for the films, because there is 3.81 billion social media users in the world, which is 49 percent of the whole words population, so by making accounts on different platforms, you could hypothetically reach almost half of the world with your marketing and advertising. The last advantage for web 2.0 that I'm going to mention is only usable to films that have A-List actors, or famous Directors and producers- That is reaching people via Instagram or Facebook lives etc, with Q+As and online interaction. The reason it really only works for famous people is because they already have their own following for social media- like for the marvel franchise Robert Downey Jr has 46.3 million followers on his Instagram, so when he posts on his Instagram, he's reaching over 46 million people. The same goes for other actors like Dwayne 'The Rock Johnson' who has 183 million followers and Selena Gomez who has 176 million followers.
One of the disadvantages of having a lot of the money your movie is going to make resting on your A-List stars is shown through what happened with A Rainy Day In New York which starred Timothee Chalamet, Selena Gomez, Elle Fanning, and Jude Law. A Rainy Day In New York was set up to be released in 2019 in all countries after having finished filming in 2018. However, the film had been directed by Woody Allen, and as the release date came closer and closer, a lot of hate was thrown on Woody Allen because of the Me Too movement, and so not only was the films release stopped, Timothee Chalamet and Selena Gomez along with multiple other of the actors involved publicly denounced the film and Timothee donated all the money he made to charity, and Selena donated large sums to charity also. By the act of denouncing the film it lost almost all of the people they expected to watch the film. The only countries that can watch it legally are a select few in Europe, if you want to watch it in countries like New Zealand or America the only way to is illegal downloading, so even if people do watch it, no profit goes towards the actual film, so the movie lost out on possible millions of dollars because of the public image. This doesn't happen often however, and the same effect can happen in reverse- The Rock posted about his film Jumanji on his Instagram, and his 183 million Instagram followers would've been a large factor in the $962.1 million that the film made as he influenced and impacted those people while he was joined with Kevin Harts 90.9 million followers, Nick Jonas's 29.9 million followers, and Karen Gillans 7.2 million followers they impact approximately 311 million people just by Instagram which shows the massive market that can be reached just by one social media site.
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An example of synergy for Disney would be Toy Story 3 and Dancing with The Stars. The show featured a dance from Toy Story 3, and this is an example of synergy because Disney owns Pixar which made all of the Toy Story movies. An example of cross media convergence from Disney would be the development of the Avengers Alliance Facebook game is an example because the Disney interactive division developed the game to promote the film through social media, and since their Facebook and Instagrams 46 million followers, this reaches lot of people.
Cross media convergence and synergy is a lot harder and has more limitations for smaller companies and independent film makers. However, the rise of internet is helping to level the playing field slightly as its easier to advertise and get the word out about a new independent film without spending bucket loads on billboards and TV ads. This means that attention can be attracted to smaller companies and indie films by making a website, an Instagram or face book page, advertising through your actors etc.
Another way that has proven successful in the past has been crowd-funding. This is where the directors, actors and producers etc get the word out about their movie by advertising in unique ways and ask people who find out about it to pay money to help fund the film.
This has proven to work by New Zealands Mocumentary 'What We Do In The Shadows' that was created by Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement. They had some very unique ways to advertise their film. They showed up at a cosplay, in character and full costume with umbrellas to protect them from the light, and proceeded to answer questions as their characters. They set up TradeMe accounts, and sold vampire paintings they had done themselves and put the proceeds towards the movie, asked people to do fan art with the reward of posters being put up in theaters of their fan art, and the chance to got to the premiere. They also used a crane and changed the sign at New Zealands capital that says Wellington to 'Vellington.' They let anyone who wanted to interview them interview them, went on the ten o'clock news and made face book and dating profiles all in character. The movie was majorly sucessful, and ended up making $6.9 million on a $1.6 million budget.
This has proven to work by New Zealands Mocumentary 'What We Do In The Shadows' that was created by Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement. They had some very unique ways to advertise their film. They showed up at a cosplay, in character and full costume with umbrellas to protect them from the light, and proceeded to answer questions as their characters. They set up TradeMe accounts, and sold vampire paintings they had done themselves and put the proceeds towards the movie, asked people to do fan art with the reward of posters being put up in theaters of their fan art, and the chance to got to the premiere. They also used a crane and changed the sign at New Zealands capital that says Wellington to 'Vellington.' They let anyone who wanted to interview them interview them, went on the ten o'clock news and made face book and dating profiles all in character. The movie was majorly sucessful, and ended up making $6.9 million on a $1.6 million budget.
For small companies and independent films, the opportunity to be put up onto Netflix and Hulu and other VOD sites have really helped with the amount of people who have watched their films. If an independent movie was on Netflix, its way more likely that a person would watch it that way as opposed to if the only way it could be watched was by renting or buying, because even with big films, people are reluctant to buy and rent on top of having Netflix. So the chances of them ever branching out to rent an Indie movie and not a Marvel or Martin Scorsese film that have been proven to be well made movies is very unlikely- the amount of viewers will increase because of VODs.
The New Zealand Film Commission would benefit massively from cross media convergence and synergy. This is because it would help especially to raise an awareness of films that are made in New Zealand. Even in NZ, people are reluctant to watch an NZFC movie over a Hollywood one because the quality of NZ movies is not always up to the quality of Hollywood. If the NZFC did use more cross media convergence and synergy to promote NZ movies in other countries, there is a high possibility of increased tourism, local economic growth, and it would show off the local talent and hopefully encourage others to step forward and show their talent to work for and make New Zealand films. Its harder for New Zealand to gain a large audience because New Zealands population is a mere 4 million compared to the United States' population of 328 million people, and this puts NZ on a severe disadvantage. However, New Zealand films do have a chance to make it big- this is shown by the total amount of money that i said What We Do In The Shadows made, and how now, there is going to be an adaption of the film that is being made by Hollywood in New York. Another film that did well to increase tourism for New Zealand was The Hobbit. Since the film was filmed in New Zealand, 400,000 tourists came over to visit Hobbiton. Air New Zealand also used some of their actors and the landscape used in the film to make a safety video that was shown on every single plane ride. In addition to everyone who watched it on the planes, it has over 21 million views on YouTube, and showed how creative New Zealand could be when it came to media. Since there is several free streaming services for the New Zealand TV, such as TVNZ and Three Now (which not only show New Zealand shows, but also world famous shows like Friends, Killing Eve, The Resident etc) The NZFC has the chance to play their ads during the shows on the streaming services, and on normal TV which covers more people. This helps because because of fragmentation some people might not watch the scheduled TV anymore, but if the ads are on TVNZ, they'll see it their and not miss it.
In my opinion, people watch big block buster movies because of the name the studios have made for themselves through advertising and years of offering quality in their movies. They have been working on their branding for years and have made conglomerates because they started earlier, which is why it is harder for indie films and smaller film corporations to enter the market. in 2019, Box Office hit a record of making a total of 42.5 billion off of their movies whereas independent movies made a total of $24 billion in comparison BUT saying this, you would have to take into account that the box office releases only 600 movies a year in comparison to independent film makers making 4000. So, the total amount of money made on an individual independent film is around $600000-$800000, whereas a box office film makes around $11.4 billion a movie.
Cross media convergence and synergy have been majorly affected by the rise in the Internet and web 2.0. This is because media companies have begun to market their movies by using the internet rather then just relying on the ads they put in the cinema, or the billboard they payed for on the motorway. This helps to level the playing field for independent films and Hollywood, because it is a platform in which indie film makers can easily market their films for not too much money. Hollywood uses these to market their films as well because they understand if they don't, they'll suffer because of lack of marketing because they would miss key markets that were created because of fragmentation of media. Some of the key ways in which they often market their films is by making a website, sometimes with a fandom which often attracts people from websites like Tumblr and then they take it and talk about it on their social media sites which helps to increase the number of people who see information about the films. Fan pages are also a great way to attract users from those social media sites and people in general. YouTube is also a great, free place to post up previews, and even interviews and the writers talking about the film to give the audience a piece of the film and to excite them for the movie. Online competitions like what I mentioned previously with the Dark Knight gets the audience hyped up for the movie and keen to watch it because they feel like they have been involved in someway with the movie, and so want to watch what they have invested themselves into. The online competitions also attract heaps of people who just want to win something- at first they might not even know what they are signing up for, but then they see what it's about and so are drawn into the group of people who are waiting for this movie. Making an Instagram or Facebook or any other social media account is also really important for the films, because there is 3.81 billion social media users in the world, which is 49 percent of the whole words population, so by making accounts on different platforms, you could hypothetically reach almost half of the world with your marketing and advertising. The last advantage for web 2.0 that I'm going to mention is only usable to films that have A-List actors, or famous Directors and producers- That is reaching people via Instagram or Facebook lives etc, with Q+As and online interaction. The reason it really only works for famous people is because they already have their own following for social media- like for the marvel franchise Robert Downey Jr has 46.3 million followers on his Instagram, so when he posts on his Instagram, he's reaching over 46 million people. The same goes for other actors like Dwayne 'The Rock Johnson' who has 183 million followers and Selena Gomez who has 176 million followers.
One of the disadvantages of having a lot of the money your movie is going to make resting on your A-List stars is shown through what happened with A Rainy Day In New York which starred Timothee Chalamet, Selena Gomez, Elle Fanning, and Jude Law. A Rainy Day In New York was set up to be released in 2019 in all countries after having finished filming in 2018. However, the film had been directed by Woody Allen, and as the release date came closer and closer, a lot of hate was thrown on Woody Allen because of the Me Too movement, and so not only was the films release stopped, Timothee Chalamet and Selena Gomez along with multiple other of the actors involved publicly denounced the film and Timothee donated all the money he made to charity, and Selena donated large sums to charity also. By the act of denouncing the film it lost almost all of the people they expected to watch the film. The only countries that can watch it legally are a select few in Europe, if you want to watch it in countries like New Zealand or America the only way to is illegal downloading, so even if people do watch it, no profit goes towards the actual film, so the movie lost out on possible millions of dollars because of the public image. This doesn't happen often however, and the same effect can happen in reverse- The Rock posted about his film Jumanji on his Instagram, and his 183 million Instagram followers would've been a large factor in the $962.1 million that the film made as he influenced and impacted those people while he was joined with Kevin Harts 90.9 million followers, Nick Jonas's 29.9 million followers, and Karen Gillans 7.2 million followers they impact approximately 311 million people just by Instagram which shows the massive market that can be reached just by one social media site.
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