The Fifth Element
Sidekick Main character Villain
In our last lecture session we were able to watch (The Fifth Element, 1997) which is a sci-fi filmed based in the 23rd century. The main genre is sci-fi with a sub-genre of action and the main themes are the battle of good vs. evil, technology and love.
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Whilst watching my marketing campaigner, Jessica Powell, and myself came up with some questions we would ask if we could talk to their marketing team.
1) How big was the budget?
After looking into it the official budget for the film was $90 million. It seems like a lot however for a huge film which was estimated to make a lot of money the risk paid off. It made $263.9 million in the box office which is a ridiculous amount of money. But clearly shows the film it was a success.
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2)What were their main marketing strategies?
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I couldn't find an factually correct answer for this question so I'll make a guess based on what I have seen them produce online. I've seen a few trailers which would have been the majority of the campaign. There's also a few movie posters which would have been put everywhere.
I don't know if it was done or not but this would be my marketing strategy. In 1995 the DVD was produced for the first time so they would have been all the rage at this time era. I remember from childhood on DVD's of popular films there used to be adverts and trailers of films to come. I would have put trailers there to advertise it coming out. Especially if DVD sales were extremely high, the majority of their audience might have come from them if it were to be marketed like that.
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3)How did they get the story across in their marketing?
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I would imagine the main focus would be to show main themes and genres in the trailers and posters but not give the whole thing away. You can clearly see in this posters there is the good guys vs the bad guys in the poster. They lay out the sidekick main character and villain easily so this reinforces the theme.
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Apart from that visually showing the genre within the trailer so flying cars and modernized city. This will draw in the sci-fi audience and create an audience for the film.
4)Who was their target audience?
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Again I could not find an official answer so I will create my own.
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I believe the target audience would be 16-19 and the secondary audience would be 20+. The film is rated a PG however I believe some of the contents might be a little bit strong for anyone under 16. This relates quite a bit to our cyberpunk theme. Its naturally going to have elements that are too strong for the audience but we have to mellow them out to create a safe film for younger people if they do choose to watch it.
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