May the odds ever be in your favor...especially if you're on the marketing team for what is sure to be a movie phenomenon, the Hunger Games, which come out this Friday in theaters. Overshadowing Twilight, the Hunger Games is projected to have opening-weekend sales of about $90 million, according to the New York Times. The film coming out on Friday, will be the first of four, based on the book trilogy written by Suzanne Collins.
Lionsgate has adapted their movie promotion to younger audiences by having an extremely strong online presence. They have been maintaining a very active Facebook and Twitter page, as well as a YouTube channel, Tumblr blog, iPhone games and live streaming from the movie premiere through Yahoo.
The film's popularity is backed up by the fan base of the books, even with the somewhat graphic nature of the content. The book can be found on lower-level reading lists, but with the intensity of the marketing plan since last summer, they seem to be selling for more the books as well as hyping up the film.
Since the marketing campaign began, TheCapital.pn (The Capital is where the Hunger Games take place), the site has allowed fans to make their own ID cards as if they lived in the movie's futuristic society. More than 800,000 people have created them. The iTunes release of the movie trailer received eight million views in the first 24 hours it was available. The campaign also utilized Twitter to make digital "puzzle pieces" of the new movie poster for fans to find throughout 100 websites. Needless to say, there shouldn't be a problem getting these viewers into theaters.
As this week is the opening week, look out for ticket giveaways, updates to the Tumblr blog, "Capital Couture" and a Facebook game. To read the rest of the NYT article, click here.
Will you be seeing the Hunger Games this week? Have you participated in any of their marketing tactics?
the hunger games is fascinating a lot of people. no damnation for that.
ReplyDeletemore should know about it, time to buy the books.