Evaluate the role of digital technologies in the marketing and consumption of products in the media area you have studied.

Evaluate the role of digital technologies in the marketing and consumption of products in the media area you have studied.

The media areas I have studied is the high budget successful film of Star Wars: The Force Awakens and the low budget, yet still fairly successful film Ex Machina. Star Wars: The Force Awakens earned a box office of $2.068 billion yet they had a gross budget of $306 million and a net budget of $245 million. But, Ex Machina has a box office of $36.9 million and a budget of $15 million. This contrast in figures tells me that Star Wars: The Force Awakens was a high budget blockbuster film and it is part of the Star Wars series so fans of this series will already be engaged in the series so already earns the film lots of publicity. The film also contains A list actors such as the well known actor, Harrison Ford, playing the part of Han Solo who has been seen previously in other parts of the Star Wars series. This film is a sci-fi four quadrat film which means it’s aimed at a variety of ages and both genders which maximise the publicity potential for the film. Ex Machina doesn’t include as well known actors yet it was produced by the film company’s DNA Films and Film 4 and DNA Films is described as “one of the UK’s most successful production companies.” We can see that although Star Wars: The Force Awakens is likely to be much more successful due to the factor more money was spent on the film and it has already gained a lot of publicity. But Ex Machina can still be successful and it depends on the marketing techniques they use as they can gain high publicity through general marketing techniques such as posters or film trailers. Digital technologies are helpful in the role of marketing as it’s a cheap method to promote the film on social media such as Instagram, Twitter or Facebook as using social media is a normality. Also, the audience want to fit in with their felloe peers so if either Ex Machina created a publicity stunt that brought the film a lot of attention, many members of the audience would investigate what the film is about in order to fit in. Ex Machina realised this as the film doesn’t contain well known actors so it’s unlikely the film will gain a lot of publicity just through film posters so they need to explore other angles such as talk shows or promoting through social media (which they did through their Tinder publicity stunt) in order to promote their film as much as possible. I feel the role of digital technologies is important as it generally helps the overall marketing of the product due to the increase of publicity through the media as the audience hear more about the upcoming film.

An example of this is how Ex Machina used Tinder to plan a publicity stunt which got the audience members involved and interacted with the character of Ava. Ex Machina created a Tinder profile for Ava and matched with hundreds of users and would talk to them and perform a real life Turing Test. She asked numerous questions relating to the film, relationships and the implications of having artificial intelligence in the modern world. Select matchers who answered all of Ava's questions were given the opportunity to go to the premier of Ex Machina. A quote from one of Ava's conversations is she said to the matcher, "You've passed my test. Take a look at my Instagram and let me know if I've passed yours, @meetava." This account is Ex Machina's Instagram account so when the matchers found the Instagram, they found out about the link with the girl they've been talking to and the character Ava.  This method of marketing gained a lot of interest and gained 50+ write-ups from outlets like Newsweek, Time, Adweek, Mashable and Wired. A quote from the outlet Stuff stated that: "Using the hashtag #ExMachina, Twitter users were overwhelmingly impressed by the marketing campaign, calling it 'genius', 'wild" and "wicked smart'." By having these news outlets openly discuss the film, it will be a wide spread discussion across social media which will allow the film to gain as much publicity as possible as it’s likely the majority of the audience on social media will hear about the film. This shows that by using social media on digital technologies, it contributed massively to the large amount of interest gained in the film by the audience. But, it also showed a negative response as people felt it was unfair and was presenting a false identity. A man who had matched with Ava told the outlet Daily Mail that it "toyed with my emotions so hard." This shows that anyone that didn't agree with the publicity stunt perhaps may have not wanted to see the film. This tells me the marketing campaign has both a positive and negative response but I feel as it was a free marketing campaign that gained a lot of interest, it was a successful and smart idea and I felt it widely contributed to the success rate of Ex Machina. This backs up my view that the role of digital technologies is important as if media wasn’t such a wide spread normality for the audience, the publicity for the film wouldn’t have been as successful. Also, as everyone would’ve been talking about this publicity stunt the audience would’ve conformed and been influenced through social media to find out what this film is in order to fit in. This will overall cause the audience to be interested on how the character Ava is involved and would see it in the cinema or watching it through other media products such as DVD’s or streaming the film.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens also used social media to promote their film and used Facebook pages to allow all of their fans to discuss the film and give their opinions and reviews. Facebook is used by a wide variety of audiences but mainly 12+ so it allows Star Wars: The Force Awakens to promote the film to their target audience. The Facebook page also released teasers and tasters of the upcoming film which increases the audiences’ excitement for the film. This shows how by publicizing the film on social media, it increases the audiences’ interest in the film and as they keep releasing more spoilers, it’ll remind the audience of when the film is soon out. I constantly saw news about the film on a range of social media so the method of marketing through digital technologies on social media was successful as it wouldn’t allow me to forget about the film as it was a popular online topic which encouraged myself as an audience member to find out when the film was out so I could tell other people that I felt would be interested in the film. This demonstrates how this method of publicizing the film is effective as the audience has the initiative to share the film with other people around them. Another digital technology Star Wars: The Force Awakens used to promote the film was through television media by having the actors on talk shows where they were asked questions relating to the film.  The cast, such as Daisy Ridely, were on talk shows and interviews such as Good Morning America, Ellen, Graham Norton and ABC News. These are all fairly recognizable programs that the majority of the target audience would watch and theses interviews took place before the release of the film in order to gain as much interest in the film beforehand. By using this digital technology, it’s effective as Star Wars: The Force Awakens is a four quadrat film so it’s aimed at a wide variety of audiences, many members of the audience will watch these talk shows either out of their own interest or if a parent has influenced the children to watch it. Ex Machina did do a few interviews for the upcoming of the film, but there was only a couple of interviews in the build up to the release of the film. Alicia Vikander, starred as Ava, was interviewed on ‘Late Night with Seth Meyers” and was given an opportunity to promote the film and increase the audiences’ interest in the film as it’s likely they would’ve already heard about it due to the Tinder publicity stunt. Their level of using TV Media to promote their film wasn’t as nearly as extreme and wide spread as Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

The audience consumption of these two films was through DVD’s, streaming and downloads. Star Wars: The Force Awakens had a huge engagement through all forms of consumption and it was released on Netflix and Amazon as well as they first released all the teasers and official trailers on YouTube. Ex Machina released the official trailer on the 30^th of October 2014 and they released the film in the United Kingdom on the 21^st of January 2015, by having time in between it, it allows the audience to get excited for the film and it builds up as much interest as possible before the actual release. Star Wars: The Force Awakens released their official trailer for their film on the 20^th of October 2015 but they have had two teaser trailers before that: the first on on the 28^th of November 2014 and the second on on the 16^th of April 2015. The film was released on the 17^th of December 2015 in the United Kingdom. Through piracy, the film was also illegally downloaded by the audience due to the popular demand of the film being so successful that the audience wanted to also watch it without having to pay for it. The DVD sales earned $1.189 million in the first week of it being on sale which shows how successful the marketing of the film was as the audience looked out for when the DVD’s were released so earned the film lots of money and publicity. In comparison to this, the domestic DVD sales for Ex Machine was $4,407,068 and the domestic Blu-Ray sales was $4.288,806. This shows the total domestic video sales was $8, 695,874. We can see that Star Wars: The Force Awakens earns nearly an eighth of the total domestic video sales in the first week of it being on sale so we can see the difference of success between the two films. But, for a low budget film Ex Machina did fairly well and earned 1259 showings in America and was internationally shown at 627 theatres on the opening weekend. This shows that Ex Machina used successful marketing and gained a lot of interest in the film which then benefited them when the film came out as lots of the audience members wanted to see what the film was about.

My media consumption of the film was through Facebook as I saw the film release the teaser trailer and I then went on to tell my brother about it as I know he’s interested in the Star Wars series. This shows that members of the audience have the initiative to talk about the film themselves and it provides free publicity and provokes interest as after these discussions, members of the audience may go on to find out more about the film. Both film companies promoted the film in traditional ways but Star Wars: The Force Awakens was more successful in this aspect as they featured the film on food products, such as oranges, and makeup products. The film can also be seen on posters, billboards and buses which forces the audience to constantly see the film everywhere which means it’ll always be on their mind. This is a successful marketing technique as it will keep the audience updated of when the film is coming out and its huge popularity will convince the audience to see the film. Overall, digital technologies are important in the media area as it’s cheap advertisement that will give the film more publicity. It’s an effective technique as it causes the audience to stay updated about the film even if they don’t want to and we can see that through Star Wars: The Force Awakens as its extreme publicizing make the audience see the film anywhere which will increase the success rate of the film. In contrast to this, Ex Machina didn’t publicize as much as Star Wars but they still used a very effective, diverse marketing technique that caused a lot of discussion on social media. It was a useful technique for Ex Machina as it’s a low budget film so it provides a marketing technique that benefited the film due as it was an untraditional method.

Ex Machina Review

Ex Machina is an independent science fiction psychological thriller which I found to be very intriguing and enjoyable. It was directed and written by Alex Garland who has written the screenplay for lots of films including 28 Days Later which had a budget of $8 million but grossed a box office of $84.7 million which shows it was a successful film. It was also nominated for the Chlotrudis Award for Best Original Screenplay, this shows Garland is a successful screenplay writer. As he also wrote the screenplay for Ex Machina, this already gives me an impression that the plot will be interesting and engaging.

Ava was played by the actor Alicia Vikander who is known for playing Gerda Wegener in the film ‘The Danish Girl’ which had a budget of $15 million but gained a box office of $64.2 million which shows it was a successful film and most likely recognised by a lot of people. Caleb Smith was played by Domhnall Gleeson who is well known for starring in the widely successful film of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows- Parts One and Two and he starred as Bill Weasley. Nathan Bateman was played by Oscar Isaac who is very well known from playing the character of Poe Dameron in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Kyoko was played by Sonoya Mizuno who isn’t a very well known actor and being Kyoko in Ex Machina appears to be her first fairly successful role. By having the actors Domhnall Gleeson and Oscar Isaac, it helps the publicity of the film as people who liked them as actors will be likely to want to see their next production. I really liked Oscar Isaac as an actor in Star Wars: The Force Awakens so it didn’t surprise me that he portrayed the character of Nathan well in Ex Machina. This shows that the actors they pick may have an effect on someone’s overall opinion of the film.

The producers for Ex Machina were Andrew Macdonald and Allon Reich. Both of these producers also produced alongside Enrique Lopez-Lavigne and Bernard Bellew to make the film 28 Weeks Later which had a budget of $15 million and grossed a box office of $64.2 million. The prequel for 28 Weeks Later is called 28 Days Later which Andrew Maccdonald produced on his own and Alex Garland is responsible for writing this film. This overall shows how this crew worked together and were successful at making these two films. This gives the overall impression that the film will be well made with a good story line which I felt was achieved in the film.

The musical score for Ex Machina was composed by Ben Salisbury and Geoff Barrow who has previously worked with Alex Garland on Dredd in 2012. This shows that Alex Garland is very experienced in the film industry so he contributes all the right attributes Ex Machina needed. I liked the soundtrack as it built up emotions and tensions which makes a film much more dramatic and engaging. I feel that due to the majority of the crew have worked together in the past, it explains why the film was successful as they would all know what each of them has to offer which gives the film the best possible potential to be successful which it succeeded in.

Overall, I enjoyed the film as I felt it was an interesting story line and I liked how they didn’t have a stereotypical good ending as I don’t like it when films are predictable. I liked the actor Oscar Isaac as I felt he presented the intimidating character of Nathan well and we can see in Star Wars: The Force Awakens he can present the personality of the actors in a believable way in which the audience can connect with the character.