Promotional Campaigns allow fans to feel as if they are discovering a film, the main focus in these campaigns involves a digital hard sell in which little is left to chance — as is apparent through techniques used by Lionsgate to assure that “The Hunger Games” becomes a box office phenomenon.
Lionsgate’s chief marketing officer, Tim Palen. He was in charge of the whole promotional campaign for the Hunger Games.
Online
· The early promotion started in spring 2009. Lionsgate methodically posting out casting news via Facebook, and also created ‘The Hunger Games’ fan blogs for existing fans of the books to use. As ‘The Hunger Games’ is a successful book series before it already has a fan base, this means that just stating the promotion by getting people talking about the fact that there is going to be a film starts to get people excited and guarantees an audience.
· These websites were often updated with casting and filming news through the rest of the year.
· After this in August of 2010 there was a twitter announcement informing followers about the website for the film, ‘thecapitol.pn’. This site allowed visitors to the website to make digital ID cards as if they lived the Panem, the movies futuristic society.
· Then in October another twitter announcements, allowing those who created ID cards makes to campaign online to be elected mayor or various district of Panem.
· On the 15th of December, 100 days till the release of the film, the studios created a final poster and cut it into 100 puzzle pieces. It then gave digital versions of these pieces to 100 different websites and asked their puzzle piece on twitter on certain days one by one. Fans then had to search twitter to put it together. ‘The Hunger Games’ then trended on twitter within minutes which is another advertisement in itself.
· In January 2012 a Tumblr blog was set up called Capitol Couture dedicated to the movie’s unique fashion. This appeal to a niche audience that is interests in fashion. As the costumes in the film are unusual this may interest certain people and make them want to go and see the film.
· In March just before the movie was released there was a Facebook game created and a virtual tour of the capitol in a web partnership with Microsoft. This appealed to audience as they people like to feel as though they have seen something exclusive before the film has come out and before anyone else has seen it.
Posters
· On the 20th of July the teaser posters were released. This was a simple image of the logo of the mocking jay and it said the tag line of the film ‘may the odds be ever in your favour’ and the title of the film. This was just to keep the audience enthusiastic about the film. And not to give anything thing away too early. This line would be known from the books and might reassure people that the books are being stuck to, something a fan of the novels might be worried about.
· The next posters to be released were the character posters. These featured the main characters of the film including, Katniss, Peeta, Gale and Effie. The audience now established who had been cast for the leading roles and works on the audience desire to find out how they play the characters and what happens to them if they have not already read the books. When the storyline is known, often the casting is one of the most interesting elements anc can cause a lot of debate and therefore publicity.
Trailers
· Also on the 29th August the official teaser trailer was released. The purpose of a teaser trailer is to generate an advanced buzz for the project. In both cases, they’re often put together with shots lasting a few seconds of characters expressions / a reaction leaving the viewer wondering what is happening within the film. It often has a voice-over telling you how great the film if going to be These kinds of trailers might include a subtitle of the directors past projects, therefore if the audience is a fan of the directors past films then they may enjoy this one.
· A teaser is often short, lasting around 30 seconds to a minute and a half. http://youtu.be/eAWODq_dMFI
· The 14th of November marked the iTunes release of the full official trailer. This trailer received 8 million views in the first 2 hours of being uploaded.
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