PR3 Producer and Audience: Analyse the Marketing Campaign of Iron Man 3

Different audiences are targeted by film producers through the use of advertising and marketing, this is done in a number of ways. One of these ways is through posters, the reason that posters work is that they are all over the place, people will see them wherever they go. Furthermore this will spark the person’s interest in the film; furthermore this can lead to my next point, trailers. Trailers are another way to advertise the film because it gives the person a glimpse of what is going to happen in the film and what it is going to be like. There are other ways in which films can be marketed, through social networking sites and “guerrilla” advertising (e.g. The Blair Witch Project marketing). The reason in which different audiences are targeted is because different films appeal to different audiences, for example a film like The Croods will not appeal to people who love to go and see films like Saw or Hostel, but people who like to go and see films like Monsters Inc. will be more inclined to go and see it. The main reason in which these different audiences are targeted is because they will be the ones that bring in the most profit for the films as they will be the ones that go and see them, therefore it is the most logical thing to do, to appeal to these audiences.

In the film Iron Man 3, we start off with an insomnia plagued Tony Stark, still reeling from the shock of encountering Gods, aliens and a Hulk. As he tries to rid himself of his PTS (Post Traumatic Stress) a new threat reveals itself in the form of the enigmatic and deadly man known as The Mandarin, the leader of the terrorist group, The Ten Rings. And with the arrival of Aldrich Killian, the director of A.I.M and his Extremis virus, things take a turn for the worse for Tony and Pepper.

The target audience of Iron Man 3 is the type of people that like superhero films/action fantasy and Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man. The genre of the film is action-fantasy/superhero, the film was released in 2013 and was directed by Shane Black, produced by Kevin Feige and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. The film took $1,079,820,220 (over one billion dollars) with a budget of two

hundred million dollars. It was released in the UK on the 25th April.

There were many different ways in which Iron Man 3 was marketed, in bullet points these are how.

T.V. Web 2.0 such as file sharing and social network sites (You Tube/Facebook) Cinema Billboards Posters Newspapers Magazines (interviews/reviews) The Internet (cinema film listings/review pages) The internet (official web pages) Word of mouth

With television, these would have been trailers that would have been shown, on social networking sites they would have been web banners showing a poster of the film with a link attached, or if it was twitter they would have released a sponsored tweet about the film itself, in the cinema they would have released a longer trailer than what would be shown on the television. On billboards they would have shown large posters, and smaller posters on bus stops and buses. They might have had

posters in newspapers and on magazines, but also another way they would have had them in magazines such as Empire and Q would be in the form of interviews with the stars and also through articles about the film itself. Also online such as on the ODEON website they would have had web banners and also listings of what films were/will be on. They would have also created an official website which people could go to, to see trailers, news and other trivia. The difference between some of these is that while some are electronically based advertising a lot are still based through posters and word of mouth, and also the cinema. But they are also linked, for example on posters they will have information on the facebook and twitter pages of the film, and also the films web page they created, so in this way it shows that they are all interlinked with each other, no matter what form they take.

The way in which the audience has been targeted in that they have allowed for people who have not seen the film and they have made it very easy to get into, but also that it is for people who like Iron Man, as stated by Shane Black he has made this film for fans of the super hero Iron Man, but also to make the film enjoyable for all of the fans, the film has also been targeted in the sense that the film is set at Christmas, which can attract younger children to see the film. Furthermore, with Audi using product placement in the film, people will like seeing these cars in the film, this is not a big reason, but it is a reason through product placement. Furthermore TCL (a home entertainment company) secured a deal with the team behind Iron Man 3 to feature there products in the film, while also using this fact by putting Iron Man advertisement’s on their products (they are based mainly in china) which is another way to get the film out to new audiences.

Media Anchorage is a term that means attaching meaning behind a word to something (such as a film) or images, to create a meaning between the now related things. For example by attaching the words ‘Iron Man’ to a picture of Robert Downey Jr. people will know that this is the man that plays Iron Man, this will then be stuck in their head, because if they see a picture of Robert Downey Jr. again, they may automatically think of Iron Man.

The producer of a film will use many different types of research in pre-production before making a film.

Pre-production research Secondary Research – Location/Read the script in order to do that/ Find out the culture and

beliefs of those countries. E.g. Certain times of day to pray.Location Manager, reports once he’s researched enough.

Primary Research – Focus Groups/Questionnaires/Interviews/Genre/Stars/Narrative/Special Effects/Find out what the public wants.

Qualitative Research – Finds out people’s opinions. Quantitive Research – Is when statistics and is all measurable information. Post Production Research – Test Screenings, 100 people are invited to watch the first cut of

the film. Called an “Intimate Screening”. They will then be given a questionnaire giving information on what they liked, what they didn’t like and then they will ask for their opinions.Then they will do a full scale post production screening (around 400 people) and once they have seen it they will do a questionnaire on how the film was. The response will be used in the marketing of the film, favoured scenes will be shown in the trailer.

Secondary research is needed because it is the act of finding research that somebody has already done and is needed for things like filming in a different country as the actors there may need different things (for example certain times to pray) it is also someones job to do this, their title is that of Location Manager. They would also do primary research, this is where the producer would do the research themselves instead of finding pre-done research, this means they would create focus groups of different people (different race/gender/opinions on films) they would also release questionnaires as a way to get peoples opinions, they could interview people on this also. They would also want to find out what star is popular with audiences at the time, and figure out if it would be a good thing to get them to be in their film.