Film Marketing Research Task

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows:

I have decided to research how the film, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is marketed because it is a successful movie which is seen by many people.

The Posters

One of the posters features a photo of Hogwarts School, and the whole photo's contrast is set to dark, which gives a mysterious look to the poster. This mysterious look hooks the audience and makes them interested in watching the film. Apart from this poster, there has been many other posters which feature the main key characters in the film. In other words, there is a key character shown for each of the posters. For example, there is a poster which mainly consists of Harry, another which consists of Ron, another Hermione, etc. All the key characters in these posters look as if they are in the midst of a battle. This also gets the audience interested into watching the film, because they would want to know what would happen next.

Another set of posters were also released. Similarly, these consisted of one key character per poster. However, the presentation of the key characters was significantly different from before. In the second set of posters, the poster mainly consists of the key character's face looking directly at the camera. Some of these posters have already been released as a promotional material; the smaller version of these posters were in some magazines. However, all of these photos all have a mysterious, dark feel to them which Harry Potter is all about; magic, fierce enemies and fierce battles. The second set of photos consist of the characters' faces, and all of them have a serious look on their face as if facing their ultimate enemy. This also gets the audience hooked and interested in watching the film.

The Trailer:

The first full trailer starts off with a full-on battle scene between Harry and Voldemort. This then continues until it cuts off and shows a montage of scenes of enemies fighting and the 'goodies' trying to defend what they can. From this, we learn that right from the start of the trailer we instantly see binary opposites; Harry and Voldemort, 'goodies' and 'baddies'.

From watching the trailer we do not learn much of the storyline; all we see is battle scenes that is persuasive in grabbing the attention of the audience. However, considering the profile of the target audience, they are more likely to become interested in the battle scenes rather than what actually happens (the storyline).

Products attached to the film:

In terms of merchandise, there are a lot of things that are on sale on the net. For example, there are robes and costumes of what the Harry Potter characters wear, and many more things that are all related to the film. This also gets the target audience interested in the film because it is used by some of the key characters; therefore word of mouth for the film would spread quickly if someone were to buy one of the robes or costumes or any other thing that is sold on the internet which is related to the film itself

Promotion(s):

As I have mentioned before, some of the official posters which advertise Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 have been released and put into some magazines which are sold at many newsagents and big shops like Tesco. The target audience will then be informed of the film and its release date, which results in more people turning up to watch the film because they got the information about the film from a smaller version of the official poster.