Identify and explain the key factors for the commercial success of the movie Hunger Games - Essay Example

Commercial Success of the Hunger Games XXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXX The Hunger Games is an internationally acclaimed movie produced in 2012 under the direction of Gary Loss. The movie captured and is still capturing the attention of viewers across all races and gender from the different themes identified in it. It is common for many movies of the contemporary times to shed light on various issues that people deal with on a daily basis. However, The Hunger Games happened to capture more than average attention of the viewers from the marketing strategies adopted by the creators.

It is thus important to understand the various approaches that the creators of the movie used to reach a larger more diverse audience. One manner through which this movie has achieved its commercial success is through the customer satisfaction model used as a theory in many business practices (Sheth, 2010, 54). The initial production of The Hunger Games was in print form. This is because prior to the production of the movie, 25 million copies of the trilogy were already circulating in the United States alone.

The print version of the movie had captured the attention of many readers across all ages and it was thus simple for the movie version to take over the media as it did. Having an existent customer base is an important aspect as it reduces the amount of time spent on various marketing means. Lionsgate, the production company, also had a large role to play in the success of the movie. This is from the fact that unlike the production processes taken up by various other companies, Lionsgate seeks to generate a huge amount of interest from a small marketing staff and with a small budget (Barnes, 2012).

With this, the company has the ability to coordinate its workers and ensure that the strategies it sets out towards the marketing of a movie are rather concise. This was effective in that the quality of the movie was outstanding and the preview that the company set for the viewers to watch had amazing graphics that had people anticipating the release. Direct marketing theory is one other method that led to the huge success of the movie. This is from the fact that customers had a one on one interaction with Mr.

Palen, Lionsgate Chief Marketing Officer. Prior to the production of the movie, Mr. Pallen had already engaged in the understanding of the market and promotion of the movie. This is evident from the fact that in the year 2009, he flew to New York where he met with the book officials of the same merchandise (Karen, 2012, 63). This was in an effort to understand their marketing approaches for the book and see if there were strategies that he would incorporate into the movie’s promotion. Advertising is one other strategy sought by the production team of The Hunger Games.

This is from the manner through which the movie hit the social media websites with a bang having it trending worldwide. The achievement of this was through specialization. Danielle DePalma received the sole responsibility of managing viewer blogs and posting about the movie in different websites (Barnes, 2012). This move captured the attention of many as news spread across fans of different countries with Danielle having prompt responses to any questions that the fans had with regard to the movie.

A factor that accelerated this form of advertisement was the use of digital marketing. Marketing mix theory involves the coordination of different marketing aspects. Promotion is one of the most important aspects. In the promotion process, there was incorporation of digital marketing in that there was the use of spreadsheets and chronology to capture the attention of bloggers and online viewers (Megan, 2012, 37). This made it simpler to navigate the movie’s website and understand the content.

Consequently, the movie captured a lot of attention. The allocation of online promotion to a specific person was one factor that the movie’s success attributes. This is because other movies seek to have social networking as a minute aspect of advertising. However, with the changing technology world and with people turning to online and social media for information, The Hunger Games was able to capture that (Collins, 2012, 44). Brand Asset Valuator model was a marketing concept incorporated into the production of the movie and was effective enough to have the movie make huge market shares.

Through this concept, few people get the privilege of testing a product and giving its reaction. Many movies of the contemporary times engage this aspect by having the fans test the movie after its production to know what market to target more. However, with The Hunger Games, the production team allowed five individuals to engage in the production process where they had them identify some weaknesses in scenes that may affect the customer base (Kaitlin, 2012, 111). Core competence is a marketing notion that comes in as a major aspect to incorporate as a theory in marketing.

A core competence framework that assisted in the sale of the movie was the release of a sneak peek that lasted one minute together with the official trailer of the movie. This was a huge milestone for the promotion of the movie in that viewers had the ability to view a continuous one-minute flow of the movie on MTV.com and later on watch the official trailer on the very website. This concept is different from other concepts taken by other movies where they show either the trailer or the sneak peak, but rarely simultaneously.

This strategy worked in that there were complains stating that the sneak peak was not enough. This led to further anticipation of the movie and thus the huge fan base upon release (Egan, 2012, 73). There was introduction of the Affiliate marketing theory as a marketing strategy, which led to the success of the movie. The clear depiction of this was that in approximately 100 days to the release of the movie, the studio released posters to various networking sites (Gundell, 2012). With these posters, the sites would get a large number of fans and both the studio and the website would benefit.

This is because the website would gain acknowledgement and get paid by the studio with the number of clicks that the movie got. The studio would also benefit in that the sales of the movie would increase from awareness and consequently an increase in profits. The Hunger Games is a movie that has captured the attention of many movie viewers and critics over the past few months. Critics have stated that the movie is not ideal for children from the manner in which the print version of it shows numerous killings involving children.

However, the fact that the movie has minimal scenes of violence has received acclamation from different types of viewers. The various marketing strategies set by the production company for it have seen its success. References Collins, Suzanne. 2012. The Hunger Games: Movie Tie in Edition. New York: McGraw Hill Publishers. Egan, Kate. 2012. The World of the Hunger Games. Chcago: Chicago University Press. Barnes, Brooks. 2012. How ‘Hunger Games’ Built Up Must See Fever. Retrieved on 15th November 2012 from http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/19/business/media/how-hunger-games-built-up-must- see-fever.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 Kaitlin, Menza. 2012. Secrets from the Set of the Hunger Games: Seventeen, 71(4), 109-112.

Megan, Riesz. 2012. The Hunger Games: Great Book. Good Movie. Dangerous Video Game? Christian Science Monitor, 1201 (8), 34-39. Karen, Velby. 2012. Game On. Entertainment Weekly, 1197 (23), 54-65. Gundell, Sara. 2012. The ‘Hunger Games’ Among Growing Popularity of Movies. Retrieved on 15th November 2012 from http://www.examiner.com/article/the-hunger-games-among-growing-popularity-of-ya- movie-franchises Sheth, Jagdish. 2010. Marketing Theories: Evolution and Evaluation. New York: Cengage Learning.