Answer to : What is the difference between Independent and Hollywood Movie Marketing

Thanks jerry for your question.

You asked : what is the difference between Independent and Hollywood Marketing?

I wanted to show a most current example, so I used internet marketing to illustrate the answer.

Internet Marketing is on the rise, and many companies take new ideas from the web and apply it to conventional non-internet marketing. Studies have shown that there is a difference between the ways Independent filmmakers market their film to the way Hollywood does. In the conference papers of the International Communication annual meeting in 2007, they discussed Charles Hoffader’s ideals, a popular scholar in general web marketing activity and they applied it to the film industry.

According to Hoffader, there is four levels of interaction in websites. They are Communication, Sales, Content and Networking. “ We can say that the first two, Communication and Sales reflect promotional goals through sales from different movie distribution outlets of the Independent/Hollywood filmmaker. The second two interactions are content and networking, that reflect goals of maximizing and audience interaction to develop demand and profit for the films themselves.” (Intl’ Communication Association meeting, pp.2)

Consider websites from popular movies such as “Fun with Dick and Jane”, “Saw 2”, and “Chronicles of Narnia” vs. an Independent film such as “Man From Earth” and reflect on the Sales and Communication to the Content and Networking of each other.

Man From Earth encourages an audience member to participate in networking by creating links in their home page, which you can rate or write a review for the movie on Blockbuster, Yahoo or Amazon etc. With “Fun with Dick and Jane” all that is on the website is to buy the DVD and it’s based on a film critic you don’t know and doesn’t say much to convince you.

A Filmmaker can tell a lot from a website about if you want to Independently distribute or Hollywood distribute. Your success will depend a lot on the fan devotion and effective audience creating based on history and your idealism of Independent Film.

You can market yourself towards a “moviegoer audience” based on monetary merchandising, i.e. Harry Potter, or you can market your film through viral marketing and simplified networking, which includes individual interaction or rating and reviewing your movie.

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