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MOVIE MARKETING

When you think about the marketing of a film, you might think about
an ad you saw on television, an interview with the director or star,
a review by some film critic, or the trailer you saw streamed on the 
Internet. All of this is part of the campaign to promote, market and 
attract an audience to a film.

Studios spend millions of dollars getting the word out about their film on TV,
radio, newspapers, magazines and the Internet. Studios have people and
departments whose sole responsibility is to oversee marketing and promotion.
Each film is trying to reach a "target audience," those people identified as the ones most likely to pay to see the motion picture. So, advertising and promotion
is designed to identify what media the "target audience" pays attention to.
Capturing their "eyeballs" is a way to reach the audience and get them
interested.

In 1962-1963, the year To Kill A Mockingbird was released, movie marketing
looked surprising similar to marketing of today. There was no Internet, of course.
One thing going for it: a highly successful and award-winning novel published in 1961 by Harper Lee. It had won the Pulitzer Prize for literature. Bookmarks were distributed to schools who were reading the novel, and a film study guide was
produced and distributed by The National Council for Teachers of English.

As you and your students consider this Academy Award winning film, 
think about how it was marketed THEN, and how it might be marketed differently today.

Film Critic Reviews     
                                    Hollywood Reporter Original Review (Dec.11, 1962)
                                    NY Times' Original Review  (February 15, 1963)
                                    Original TIME magazine review, (February 22, 1963)
                                    LOOK magazine's Original Review (Feb.26, 1963)
                             Variety's Original Review
                             Collection of Original Reviews On One Page   
                                    Film Quarterly's Review (2002)
                             Review Marking DVD Release (1998)
                             Film Site's Review webpage
                             Other Review resources 


Movie Trailers: view original trailer    edited trailer 

Original Newspaper Advertisements

Posters

Product tie-ins (books; soundtracks; lobby cards; video/DVD)

Publicity Stills

Awards


Resources:

The Movie Marketing Blog

A Case Study: Film Marketing & Judge Dredd
(17 page guide produced by BFI)

Marketing (another BFI produced guide)

Teaching Trailers (filmeducation.org)

©2004 Frank W. Baker