Have you heard of that movie, 'The Untold'?

As every good media head knows, marketing for a movie is a very important aspect into the movie being a hit or not. There has to be a lot of caution taken when choosing your audience and how to market correctly for them. Where? Who? and how? are the main questions. After all, how will anyone know of your movie and attend the cinema to view it if there's no promotion? No word of mouth? It's all down to marketing! The 'who?' that we've decided to target are 15-24 year olds and with this in mind what would be the most suitable platforms to advertise our movie on for them to see?

The year is 2013, social networking sites are at the top of everything and everyone knows all about what's up and happening in the world due to these medias. Our audience are members of this era of internet use and social networking so our prime area for marketing would be places such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Being a young adult myself (19) I know for a fact how popular these websites are and how my peers use these on a daily basis. It's clear how often they are used and how information, news and events spread like wild fire across these media platforms. 

As statistics here shown (taken from HERE) users in the United Kingdom are mainly 18-24 year olds and 25-34 year olds with the smaller minority of users being 13-15 year olds. As previously mentioned our target audience being between the ages of 15 and 24 this is a good sign. Being British based these statistics show our audience is there and are frequent users of the social networking site Facebook. With a total of 8 178 000  users between the ages of 24 and 34 this is great news!

On the left is statistics showing the genders who are using Facebook and what the population is. As you can see the majority of Facebook users are female (52%) but this can easily be shared with the male (48%) population as it's not much a difference. But this is also good news as females are known to be more influenced and to follow the crowd more than males. As I mentioned in my target audience post males seem to prefer horror and action movies apposed to females who enjoy rom/coms and the occasional horror flick. So although they are the majority gender it still holds up good foundation of our movie spreading as the youth of today are much less likely to be scared or enjoy the 'buzz' that comes along with being frightened. Also statistics show 48% of 18-34 year olds check Facebook when they wake up, with 28% doing so before even getting out of bed. That's a big percentage of people checking their social feeds on a consistent basis!

Word of mouth is very very important here. The fastest way for news to get around and for opinions and reviews is through what people tell other people. Bad word of mouth can be critical to a movie and really push it down the ground. But without the network sites this is impossible to achieve successfully. Social networking will also make horror movie fan bases aware of our film 'The Untold' and for reviews to start being posted giving more audience views and critics. It's obvious that good reviews are very important and we need to achieve this through plenty good reviews and positive word of mouth and correct marketing strategies. There's nothing more sad than seeing a movie boasting potential and then having it be a massive media flop, an example of this is the Disney film 'John Carter From Mars'. A lot of bad word of mouth and reviews caused the film to know even show in Europe thus losing a lot of money, time and publicity. 

I think a main thing to keep in mind also for marketing would be an official 'The Untold' website. I've noticed how nearly every film has it's own official website with it's own unique things to do. Such as games, reviews, videos, behind the scenes, information on the cast, trailers ect. It's important to make the audience feel involved and I think a great way of doing this is to make our marketing as interactive as possible. By posting up games or quizzes or even riddles to get the audience pumped up for seeing the film is always good. It invites them in and it's a premature hook before they even see the film. I know I personally love a website that has interactive options up for offer and how this exclusivity really makes me, as a viewer, feel important and I can sense the time taken to get my attention.

Above is the loading screen for the Official Saw Website I love this idea of blood filling up the title before revealing the website. It's a great way to build anticipation and just adds that quirky, unique essence when compared to a simple website.

After the loading screen there's a short intro playing clips from the movie and panning around a room that appears to be Jigsaw's warehouse. This is a very interactive entrance for a website and it immediately draws you in with the eery noises and quick clips of the victims. Also straight after the loading screen there's a white and black noise from a television set and Jigsaw's puppet appears as if talking to you. I loved that element in particular!

Once the into had finished the real website is revealed and as you can see it's very detailed and true to the SAW film. It includes links to all SAW movies, Home, House of Jigsaw, Fan page and also a store. There's lots to click on and read/view and there's also updates to keep the audience involved and coming back.

Above is the 'House of Jigsaw' page which tells us all about the history of the serial killer, his traps, his victims and also holds some free downloads.

Next is the 'Fans' page which I think is really great. It includes everything from auctions, shop, register, a forum, news and a contact link for all the fans to indulge themselves. 

Lastly is the Official Saw Store where all fans of the movie can purchase items, clothes, autographs, gift cards and much more to do with the film. I believe a website like this for our movie 'the Untold' would be really beneficial as it holds lots of elements to keep you occupied on the site for a long time and offers items for purchasing which I know, as a fan of certain movies myself, would love to buy.