LO1: Task 4: Cross media product case study

The Adaptation I have studied is the movie and comic book of the antihero 'Deadpool'. This adaptation was proven very popular with its release in February of 2016 to its mass audience of comic book fans from the ages of 15- 40, this provided a wide range of different marketing and cross promotion to gather their wide target audience’s attention. Deadpool worked to create more marketing and gather more profits for example they came up with Deadpool inspired merchandise and games on Playstation4 for example which gave 20th Century Fox a higher profit margin. They all cross promoted on social media pages such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and has their own Snapchat page which has information on the release, they also had their own Snapchat Deadpool filter which was around the lease of the film to promote it more successfully

Due to the mass of advertising 20th Century fox did it made the Deadpool movie very successful which then allegedly made around $300 Million Worldwide on its weekend debut. Both above the line and below the line advertising methods were used to create such a big phenomenon, for example above the line methods like the use of posters and billboards around the World and in major cities to show the release of the film, this was to get the mass target audience a glimpse of what the film will be like and the fans who have been waiting this whole time. They also therefore used below the line methods of advertising Deadpool with the use of social media pages such as Facebook and Twitter where you could share and give your thoughts on the movie which made it very effective and a form of promotion which is word of mouth, this meant more people would see and hear of the movie because nearly everyone in the world uses social media. Synergy also played a major part in the marketing and distribution in the form of a game which was released in 2013 although it was before the release of the film it still acted as a form of synergy and marketing towards the movie as people who played the game already have a fan base of this therefore are definite of watching the movie when its released even without seeing the trailer etc. Although the game wasn’t widely received when it was brought out it has now been more successful due to the release of the movie as more and more found out about it, it is rated 8.3 on IMDB and 9 on Steam which is widely popular within the gaming community.

A very popular piece of advertising was the 12 days or Deadpool From December 14 through December 25, every day had a unique piece of content leading up to a new trailer for the movie. This consisted of gifs, posters, emojis, teaser trailers and then the final trailer on Christmas day which got a lot of attention as it showed with the lead up to it. Also as the date of release was coming closer they started with more advertising techniques such as allowing five TV networks ran custom ads during three-hour blocks, customized to the demographic of the programming being run. “Workaholics,” “Tosh.0,” and “Golden Girls” were all featured in this campaign. 20^th Century Fox also took advantage of the release date’s proximity to the Super Bowl.  Not only did they buy a commercial during the game, but they also ran several live promotions over the course of the weekend.

The marketing for Deadpool has an audience range of 13- 30-year-old male and females of an ABC1 audience, although the film had a much wider audience when the release came out it was more focused on males of the late teenage years as Deadpool character was quite witty and dark it suited that range of audiences more. Also with the advertising of Deadpool emojis this suited the younger generation who use them daily when talking to friends on social media for example. It reached an older generation as it already had a solid fan base of those who like to read comic books when they were younger etc and families who watch superhero films with their children however although this film was classified at 15 year olds younger generations would watch it is as it’s a superhero film. An ABC1 audience would watch this film at the cinema as it is not of working class but those with a higher spending power and it shows the characters of this.

Audiences can access this adaptation due to technological convergence as over the years we have technologies working together to produce higher quality stuff, so for example Deadpool can be accessed on Sky movies or NowTv for audiences to watch it whenever they want at the comfort of their own home, this is gathering in more money for 20^th Century Fox as its already 61^st highest grossing film it is getting more audience views at the same time, also with streaming which we wouldn’t have been able to do before technological convergence came around. Several black box devices such as Smart TVs, laptops, mobile phones allow us to download movies on it so audiences can watch it when its more convenient for them. These news ways of viewing films due to web 2.0 are highly beneficial for not just the producer but the consumer as the producers are still gathering money in and the audience are time shifting to decide when they want to watch the film.

Overall Deadpool was a very successful film as it gathered $783.1 million, against a budget of $58 million which broke numerous records, as well as being the ninth highest grossed film on 2016. On Twitter the movies page is also very successful for a movie with 697k followers and with the tweets with the hashtag Deadpool still being used every day it has become a household name, also with 9 awards in 2016/2017 it has become widely popular

LO1: Task 3: Technological convergence, advertising and distribution

Advertising is key to making an audio-visual product, making social media marketing very beneficial for the audience and distribution company, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are the immediate options. An example of a successful marketing campaign is the social media marketing of the Hunger Games franchise which has been exceptionally successful over the years. As part of the Hunger Games social media marketing they used Twitter to base some of their clever marketing on, the marketing idea the Hunger Games franchise did was to let users tweet special hashtags to unlock cities to show the movie before its release. If the city, you tweeted was ‘unlocked’ you also were entered into a drawing to win free tickets to attend. This was successful for marketing the movie as it used above the line marketing to a mass audience to interact with the audience, using Twitter as a source for this way of advertising was good as it focused on the target audience more as Twitters most active users are from the age of 15-17 male and females, which is around the same demographics as the Hunger Games franchise. This supports the black box theory as we have all the advertising in our hand on our phone or laptop for example, so the Hunger games franchise would be recognised through everything on a black box device. Also, due to technological convergence we have new ways of accessing these advertisements instead of just on a smart phone for example internet on pcs, Play stations, smart TVs- as we get technologies coming together the amount of advertising we produce and see rises.

As technologies evolve we also get a rise of viewers using video on demand services such as 4 on demand, this has become more popular over time as people can watch it whenever they want instead of watching at the initial broadcast, which has led on to the result of users time shifting so either recording or watching on demand television programs after the broadcast, this  is useful for a mass audience who aren't available to watch the show etc at the time. We get more and more Video on demand sites as they are becoming more popular, Netflix is also a very popular site which allows users to watch program what aren't aired on their TV or original series for example Stranger Things, although video on demand sites are useful for audiences they can be disadvantages of it as it is allowing audiences to become fragmented into doing what they want when they want, this relates to Sonia Livingstone's theory 1999 of the Death of the schedule who argued that schedules are becoming less and less relevant and although people still tune in for big shows such as Xfactor and The great British bake off audiences still watch their shows at a time which suits them.

In addition to this Technological convergence has impacted on how audiences access products. Black box devices are very popular among audiences nowadays as they can access products on their smart tvs, phones, laptops at more convenient times which has impacted on how audiences access media products. Also the rise of being able to download movies has affected the way audiences access products as now a lot of medias allow you to download movies by buying them for example on Sky or downloading them on Netflix when you want to access a product without an internet connection, this is beneficial to audiences as it allows them to watch what they want when they want, this is similar to streaming as the audience are streaming movies etc which weren’t available to do before the rise of technological convergence and web 2.0 which has brought along the successfulness of how audiences access products. Web 2.0 has also brought along simulcasting which plays a part of how audiences access products. Simulcasting is when a media product is distributed on more than one platform at a time, this is seen on radio channels and sports event channels for example. This is also similar to a second screen which is when you are watching something on your television or laptop etc and are on another device at the same time like your phone either tweeting about what you’re watching or just scrolling through, this is similar as you are talking about the product while streaming at the same times