The theatrical trailer of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was the first chance to promote the movie to its target audience. Starting up to a year before the release of a major studio movie, distributors run movie trailers that are meticulously edited and audience-tested. The idea is to give moviegoers a taste of the upcoming laughs, special effects and plot twists of the studio's upcoming releases, while leaving them wanting more. It's an art form that's usually handled by special trailer production houses. We can find trailers either on the Internet in such websites such as the Apple Trailers or Youtube. These trailers are also regularly run in short breaks between programmes on he television on channels such as the terrestrial channels.
About the same time that the first trailers hit the theaters, the movie studio will unveil an official Web site for the film. Typical movie Web sites allow visitors to view multiple versions of the trailer, watch behind-the-scenes interviews and mini-documentaries, read plot synopses, download cell-phone ringtones and desktop wallpaper, play games, chat in forums and even pre-order tickets. The official movie Web site is only the beginning of a much larger Internet marketing campaign. This can be found on the link www.harrypotter.warnerbros.com
As the release date of the film drew closer, the blockbuster movie got early favorable press coverage in newspapers, magazines and on entertainment TV shows. The main movie publicity tactic is something called a press junket. At a press junket, journalists, entertainment reporters and movie critics are flown out to a special location for a day or weekend of interviews with the stars and creators of the film. The actors, directors and screenwriters sit in separate rooms and the reporters are brought in one by one to ask their questions.
Press junkets are highly controlled environments; where a publicist often attends interviews. This was shown on both Channel 4 and Film 4 previously with protagonists such as Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint discussing the movie and sharing their opinions. From this the whole ‘wiggle in the hip’ of member Ron Weasley was splashed across the media. The actors were sitting in front of a poster of their movie; this is a convention of a typical press junket.
Weeks before the movie opened nationwide, the promotions department starts an all-out publicity blitz. The idea is to bombard the public with so many images and promos for the movie that it becomes a "can't miss" event. Movie marketers will plaster the sides of buses with huge ads, place billboards all around the city, run tons of teaser trailers on TV, place full-page ads in major newspapers and magazines, and the movie's stars will show up on all of the major talk shows. Below are a few examples of this kind of publicity Blitz on Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows.
The Internet is proving to be a prime spot for publicity blitzes therefore promoters are now able to place rich, interactive ads on the Web sites most trafficked by their target audience. They can also release behind-the-scenes clips, bloopers and other viral videos on video-sharing sites like YouTube. Or they can release different media clips and let the fans create their own trailers.
Another popular strategy is to use highly visible product tie-ins and corporate partnerships. In the weeks leading up to the release of the blockbuster, images of Harry Potter appeared on packages of biscuits, pots of yoghurt and cans of fizzy drinks. For marketing children's movies, the new sequel might be getting promotional goodies in McDonald's Happy Meals.
One final movie marketing strategy is the publicity stunt, an orchestrated media event where someone does something incredibly silly, dangerous or spectacular to draw further attention to the opening of the movie. This year it was the unexpected appearance of X-Factor finalist attending the premiere. This meant that X-Factor viewers were also viewing a promotional event with other Hollywood A-Lister and may have been subconsciously persuaded to watch the film due to the big event.
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