Tarantino's Marketing - Case Study Example

This set the stage for the meteoric rise of his next film, which was the Oscar winning Pulp Fiction. Tarantino had established a career through the impact these first two projects. In 1994 Reservoir Dogs was voted best film and best debut and in 1995 Pulp Fiction was voted best film and Tarantino best director by Empire magazine1. This seemed to be a new kind of director making new kinds of films which were enormously popular, and which employed extremely good marketing. This dissertation will look in detail at the general marketing and in particular at the posters and other visual media used in these campaigns.

It will be focusing on the images, colours and language used and the affect on their audience. In addition, it will be looking also at other visual marketing activities that have been undertaken, for example guerrilla marketing which has used striking posters in unusual locations as well as props scattered around various cities seemingly randomly which made great photos news advertising. It will look at the effect that movie posters have on the film-going public - it seemed that at one time everyone had (or still has) these posters in their rooms.

The more controversial side of this medium will also be explored. What techniques are used to create the shock factor and interest in the films that are being advertised How do these techniques actually work, and what implications do they have on other practitioners in the field, and what impact do they have on wider film culture. Finally, the paper will discuss if this style and form of advertising actually has the effect intended. Chapter 1 This chapter will investigate Quentin Tarantino and the types of films that he makes and how this shapes the type of advertising techniques he would use.

From this we will then look to investigate the way in which Quentin Tarantino uses shock advertising to grab the attention of the public. Before Tarantino, the general use of posters in advertising forthcoming films, as well as the actual trailers for the films, had been the industry standard method for many years. Eventually as in every design or art medium this dual concept would grow and evolve into a stable model.Tarantino upset this standard set-up by using strikingly original sometimes shocking, single images amongstother marketing and advertising strategies to establish points if difference.

Following Tarantino's success, the film advertising industry was not slow to follow his lead using more and more original ideas, using unusual and shocking visual images, to capture the public's imagination.Quentin Tarantino's film Kill Bill had an advertising campaign that illustrates some of these methods. Figure 1Figure 2Figure 3Many different campaigns were designed and they all look different but they all conveyed the same kinds of striking imagery. Also images were used on unusual blank canvases throughout cities, elevator doors for example.

This type of advertising added to Quentin Tarantino's reputation as a both as filmmaker and as a general creative person (he also writes scripts). This chapter will therefore concentrate on the effects of the advertising used by Quentin Tarantino and his marketing team. Why have they decided to use a variety of mediums to advertise his films I will attempt to understand how these advertising techn