The Marketing Plan and Distribution Plan

Every single film has thier own distribution plan tailored to fit that certain film the distibutor then develops it in a meeting with the producers and/or studio. The most important strategic decision the distributor can make is how and when to release a film so they can make as much money as possible, if the film id released at the wrong time all the time and money put into the film could be wasted as people cant be bothered to go and watch the film. They do this as with any plan the goal is to keep costs to a minimum and optimise profits, however films are very risky and seriously expensive and most films dont even make a profit from their theatrical runs.

The risk with distribution is the audience is very unpredictable you can never tell if they are going to like it or not until they have seen the film and if one person doesn't like it and they tell thier friends or right a review on a socail network hundreds more people could not go and watch your film from one person alone not liking it. Nobody can tell what film is going to be a hit and what films are going to flop and they cannot tell when and where it can happen, however market research can be conducted to make the audiences feel exicted about the film at pre release test screenings. Once in a blue moon a film becomes a 'sleeper' hit playing for longer and generating greater returns than expected. As you would expect the film business is such an unpredictable product driven business its hard to tell what profits you would get each year.

An understanding of the target audiences age group and gender can inform you how to make decisions like where a particular film is promoted, although most people in the UK that go to the cinema are upmarket. You must remeber though its very important to never to lose sight of the films core target audience, however they always try to attract as wide spread of people as possible. The age of most people that go to the cinema are between the ages of 15-25 as the cinema is thier favourite out-of-home leisure activity although 35+ year olds are to do with a growing share of ticket sales. Overall a quarter of the population goes to the cinema once a month and the average visits to the cinema per person every year is 2.7.

One way to attract more people to watch the film is if the film performs better at the box office its more likely to attract more people that don't normally go and watch films. People that dont normally go to the cinema don't go and watch a film on the opening weekend they wait until later raising the challenge for the distributors to sustain the run in cinemas. Competition is always the primary consideration, is there a space in the market for your film? is it something completely different to everything else that is in the market? is it an event film? or a specialised film and is there any star power among the cast of your film or is the film made by a known director/producer, are the directors/star cast able to attend the premiere or be available for UK/International publicity. All of these factors will lead to bigger ticket sales which equals more money.

Is the film for a holiday period? if it is what season is it for? These things need to be known as it would be pointless to bring out a Christmas film in the middle of summer. You can also research what films were successful the previous year in particular slots. Is the film nominated for an award? This would also make the film have a buzz about it which will again make more people want to go and watch the film. The certificate is key about a film take 'The Woman in Black' even though it was a horror the age rating on it was 12 the reason for this as people were going to see the film as Daniel Radcliffe was in the film and most people know him as Harry Potter so they needed the age rating down as most Harry Potter fans were 12-13 years old. If the rating had been higher the film would have never have done as well as ir did in the box office.

The 'tentpole' strategy is normally depolyed on large scale sequels or star led holiday releases, this gets mass audiences rushing to the cinemas to see the film as early as possible, however specialised films offer a different cinema experience and around only 25 prints are made for these types of films, very rarely a film could be 'platformed' in a single location before being rolled out, but most films in the UKare released on less than 100 prints. London is one of the main places for cinema, with an increasing population of 7.5m people, accounts for around a quarter of cinema admissions even though 15% of screens are actually in london.

Along with the distribution plan every film has a detailed marketing plan, the marketing plan involves creating visibility, raising awareness and engaging the audiences interest, as distributors must compete with others for a significant share of voice not only against other distributors but also other leisure activities.