The Role of The Distributor

   Every film has a detailed marketing plan to increase visibility of the film and convince the audience to watch their film. It is important they choose carefully to release the film to make the most amount of money from it. Launching a film is expensive and its important for the distributor to get their money back. 
  
   The distributor wants to reach as much as the target audience as possible with the least amount of money to increase profit. They approach different audience is different ways, such as for a younger audience it will be advertised more online whereas for an older audience TV and newspapers would be more appropriate. Complementary media is also used such as posters and trailers. They very carefully decide what the target audience is for each film individually then advertise accordingly, but they will also attempt to reach out to a wider audience

   The marketing plan is to make sure as many people know about the film. Posters are widely used and usually contain the stars, theme/genre and tag lines. It is important that they stand out to be noticed and seen over other posters present at the time. In the UK there are around 250,000 poster boards. Other printed display materials can be used in cinema's to further increase the awareness of a film. e.g cardboard cutout, banners and mini posters. Trailers are, as far as i know, nearly always used for a film these days. There are two main types, theatrical and teaser. Teaser trailers are generally released early in the films production, are shorter and give little away. Theatrical trailers are usually between 30 and 90 seconds. They want to include a representation of the best bits but not give away too much. Films usually have their own website  to advertise their trailer on as well as screen shots. Other websites let films create awareness early on relatively cheap and easy by posting to sites such as youtube.com. The downside of all this information is as soon as a film is screened it is subject to scrutiny from reviewers and the public. Independent coverage and reviews are more widely trusted as they are seen as unbiased towards a film.
  
   The film stars are also usually asked to do television interviews to help promote the film, as well as magazine articles and talk shows, not necessarily about the film but they can "plug" it. Often distributors will organise press releases where large amounts of journalists are invited to interview the cast and supply information about the film. Often films are given a premier where all the stars go to watch the film on its first opening, these are sometimes televised and photos often appear in the newspapers.