IMC Goes to Movies Essay

With the widespread global internet usage, it is becoming harder for people to go to theaters to watch movies. A lot of viewers prefer to watch it online or download the movie. Therefore, movie campaigns have been launched to prompt people to leave their couches and go to the theaters. It requires extensive and effective marketing in all ways to reach the targeted audience. Thus, the campaigns have incorporated modern marketing techniques such as Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) which has proved beneficial. The term refers to joining together of all marketing tools, such as branding and advertising, carefully in a way that they work together in a unified peace (Orasmae, 2017). An example of a movie that successfully used IMC is Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle. Despite the negative critics the movie had received when its release was announced, its marketing team carried out a lot of marketing campaign that in the end bore fruits as the movie became a box office success. In the current digitalized world, movies have incorporated the use of IMC tools to market them to their target audience hence ensure their success.

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Since the movie Jumanjiis a sequel to a prior 1995 movie, its primary target audience was the viewers that had watched the first movie. However, due to the content of the movie, the target proved to be challenging since the people that had watched the first movie were adults when it was released. Nevertheless, the producers of the movie had faith that the continuous story, the success of the first movie and the changes the movie made would still attract the primary audience. Also, the movie targeted comedy lovers as it focuses more on comedy more than the original movie. However, the comedy is too complex to be understood by children hence targeted adults and youths (Craig, Greene, & Versaci, 2015). Similarly, the movie is based on a video game and the challenges the actors face are similar to those of a video game. Therefore, it also attracted kids. The film also targeted science fiction lovers as it comprises of creatures generated from a computer and the whole movie is based on fiction (Craig et al., 2015). Generally, the movie targeted families since despite being an R-rated movie; it did not have vulgar language. Furthermore, the action involved in the movie does not rise above the one found in video games.

Jumanji was announced to be produced in 2015 and the shooting began in 2016 and thereafter set to be released in theaters on 20th December 2017. At first, the movie had negative reviews from viewers as they claimed that it would ruin their childhood memory of a perfect original movie. It forced the producers to launch an IMC campaign to promote the movie. The marketing involved use of print, television and social media (Orasmae, 2017). Also, the campaign used IMC approach consistently throughout the marketing process. For instance, the movie was advertised regularly on television with a captivating trailer that gave clues of what the movie entailed; that is, comedy, science fiction, and drama (Belch, Belch, Kerr, & Powell, 2014). Also, the movie was marketed through all social media platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and a personalized website for the movie (Ashley&Tuten, 2015). Additionally, the movie was promoted in magazines. Furthermore, the logo of the movie gave away what the movie would entail. For instance, it had pictures of prominent actors such as Kevin Hart, hence revealed that it would have humor and Dwayne Johnson who symbolized action (Belch et.al, 2014). All the platforms passed the same message of what the movie would be about hence worked in harmony to pass the intended common message.

The IMC approach contributed a lot towards taking the intended message to a wide range of viewers, including the targeted and non-targeted audience. The movie heavily relied on the actors' social media platforms since they have a vast number of followers (Ashley, &Tuten, 2015). Moreover, the actors are famous and each represented his/her respective role, for instance, comedy for Kevin Hart and action for Dwayne Johnson. Moreover, the other actors were also relatively famous and thus similarly had a huge fan base such as Nick Jonas. Therefore, the use of social media proved highly effective in the campaign (Ashley&Tuten, 2015).

If I was in charge of the movie studio's marketing team, I would have incorporated the use of traditional marketing media in addition to the IMC campaign. It would have ensured that the audience that was not digitized would have been reached hence increase the consumers base. For example, the movie's logo would have been printed in different national newspapers. Also, it would have been advertised in radios and different interviews about the movie carried out.

Conclusion

Conclusively, the use of Integrated Marketing Communication in movie promotion is highly effective and beneficial. The linking together of all movie's marketing communication has yielded maximum impact. As time goes by, more people become digitized and the IMC system, in turn, increases in value. When used correctly it ensures the success of all movies. For instance, Jumanji effectively incorporated IMC and in turn was a huge success, more than the producers had anticipated. It experienced a lot of viewers' turnout in theaters and topped the box office for a considerable amount of time. Therefore, it shows that more movies are synchronizing all their marketing communications for a beneficial outcome.

References

Ashley, C., &Tuten, T. (2015). Creative strategies in social media marketing: An exploratory study of branded social content and consumer engagement. Psychology & Marketing, 32(1), 15-27.

Belch, G. E., Belch, M. A., Kerr, G. F., & Powell, I. (2014). Advertising: An integrated marketing communication perspective. McGraw-Hill Education.

Craig, C. S., Greene, W. H., &Versaci, A. (2015). E-word of mouth: early predictor of audience engagement: how pre-release "E-WOM" drives box-office outcomes of movies. Journal of Advertising Research, 55(1), 62-72.

Orasmae, A. (2017). Integrated Marketing Communication.Retrieved from: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00913367.2014.934938.