A2 Advanced Portfolio Brief - Film Marketing Campaign

September 15, 2024

A2 Advanced Portfolio Brief - Film Marketing Campaign

For my A2 Advanced Portfolio I will be producing a marketing campaign for a film from a particular genre which will include the following:

two trailers
a social media page
a film poster

Before I decide what genre my film will belong to, I am going to do some analysis of different types of trailers (theatrical trailers, teaser trailers and TV spots) from different genres to see if they share similar conventions. I will also look at a range of film posters from different genres to identify consistent conventions of posters regardless of genre, before analysing film social media pages for Instagram, Facebook and X (formerly Twitter) for a number of films from different genres.

Below is an example of the wide range of materials (including trailers, posters and social media pages) created for a recent successful marketing campaign for 'Barbie' directed by Greta Gerwig.

Trailers

There were a number of different types of trailers promoting 'Barbie', starting with an eye-catching teaser trailer released months before the film came out. This made an intertextual reference to Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey', but gave very little away in terms of the narrative or characters. This was followed some months later by theatrical trailers which were far longer than the teaser and primarily focused on developing the narrative of the film and introducing the key characters. In the final ten days or so before the film's release a number of TV spots appeared online, each thirty seconds long and focusing on an individual aspect of the film (a character or theme).

'Barbie' - Teaser Trailer

'Barbie' - Theatrical Trailer

'Barbie - TV Spot - 'Real World'

'Barbie' - TV Spot - 'Get In'

'Barbie' - TV Spot - 'Not That'

'Barbie' - TV Spot - 'Hi'

'Barbie' - TV Spot - 'Weird'

Posters

As is typical with mainstream films produced in Hollywood, a range of posters were produced including teaser posters (released months before the film, and featuring little in the way of conventions typically found on theatrical posters), theatrical posters, a huge number of character posters, posters in a landscape format which were displayed on billboards and even posters specifically marketing the film's IMAX release.

'Barbie' - Teaser Poster

'Barbie' - Teaser Poster (Variant)

'Barbie' - Character Posters

'Barbie' - Theatrical Poster

'Barbie' - Landscape Billboard Posters

'Barbie' - IMAX Poster

Social Media

As is common with any film released today, conventional forms of marketing were combined with viral marketing across a number of social media platforms. These included Instagram, Facebook and X accounts marketing the film, all of which were used to showcase any new posters or trailers for the film, alongside appearences by the stars and production information and featurettes in the form of short videos. Much of this viral marketing - like the seflie generator, for example - encouraged fan interaction creating a personalised buzz around the film's release.

'Barbie' - Social Media