Advertising in the film industry

Without advertising, the film business would not achieve nearly the success that it does for the movies that are released. Although some movies are able to depend upon word-of-mouth to get viewers, that is not the norm. Movie advertising is the key to success. People who work in the movie advertising business must understand a variety of marketing practices in order to be successful in promoting a wide variety of films. "The making of the new and re-arranging of the old" Bentley (1987)

To create a market successful product you need to look at existing and similar media projects, and take inspiration from the way they target their audiences.

This shows that movie advertisers need to know how best to take advantage of their target audience through the success of existing advertising techniques that have been used on similar films to successfully advertise their movies.



Movie theater advertising is one popular method used to promote future movies. What better opportunity is there for movie advertising than in movie trailers? There is already an audience available who are present to watch a movie, and so the previews that run before films can be a great way to reach out, inform and draw in. Movie advertising specialists can also take advantage of movie rentals and provide valuable previews to advertise future videos or movies on DVD movies.



Digital movie advertising is one of the most exciting new venues for promoting films. It can be a great way of capturing the interest of viewers and priming them for future movies. Multi-media websites are being built for new movies, which provide clips and cast information, as well as games and other interactive features. Another popular way to use the Internet is purchasing pop-up ads that appear when relevant sites are visited. Film advertising methods can also include placing a small clip of the movie in an advertisement so that it begins playing as soon as a site loads.



In terms of my film, I doubt that a short like mine would have sufficient funding to achieve some of these methods of advertising, although websites such as Lovefilm will use a film each month on their website design, which could be a good means of advertising for my short. The design on my poster would be suited directly for online advertising on websites, or a cut down version of my film for a trailer.