Promotional Materials

Aside from word of mouth, I believe the 2 most successful types of promotion and advertising nowadays are creating a cult fanbase and spreading visual awareness. Here are 2 examples of both these methods and how they are good at promoting a film or TV series.


1) Website - creating a cult fanbase

I researched a website promoting the new 'Dead Set' series on E4. Although this is not a film, it works closely with film conventions as it is a 5 part TV horror drama with a total running time of 3 hours (later to be released as a 2-part film on DVD). A large proportion of its huge cult fanbase has been created by the website found at http://www.e4.com/deadset/index2.html.

This is the first thing you see on the website, and is silent. The big brother eye covered in blood is the series logo, and keeps blurring slightly whilst the web page crackles to disorientate you. The warning pepares you for what might be in the website. It is meant to be scary and depict horror and danger, whilst unsettling you with the silence and confusion of the illusion the blurring logo creates. I clicked enter at the bottom of the page.


Next you see the home page (right) accompanied by eery music with bits of silence and unsettling noises such as wind, water and growls. Every 30 or so seconds there is a break in the signal of the website like a television, with a split second image of a zombie. This is designed to shock you and continues throughout the website. There is a faded image below the writing of an empty big brother house covered in dripping blood - which sets the scene of the show and completes the eery atmosphere. The big brother logo and house are clever in being familiar to millions of big brother house, but strangely different without the charizma and style of a normal big brother website. Something is missing and it is unsettling. One by one, I visited each page of the website along the bottom of this home page.

This is the page titled 'story'. This simply gives an overview of the synopsis of the show so you know exactly what the website is promoting, and that it is not just a hoax. The E4 logo also helps promote the fact that it is a TV show and that you must watch E4 to view it. The plot summary does not give everything away but simply introduces the setting and situation, with a picture of the housemates and another of the main character (who is not a housemate) to help visualise what the show is all about.

This is the page titled 'cast & crew'. It is very clever in giving an overview of each main character but not in a direct factfile. It also helps give clues about the storyline. The character in the image is the main character 'Kelly' and shown is an email she sent to a friend along with her reply, and her job card. The card gives her name and occupation as production runner on the big brother set, whilst the email gives some vital personal information about her boyfriend Riq and how she feels towards him. The friends reply seems to suggest Kelly has been chating with a boy called Danny. These are not facts but simply guesses or assumptions we make but we want to find out more by watching the show. The other characters except Riq and Patrick are housemates, and we find out a little about each one by clues given in a newspaper or magazine article about each one (shown as past cutouts) - again not direct facts. Patrick is the big brother producer and we find out more about him through a newspaper interview he gave, whilst all we see of boyfriend Riq is his facebook page, giving clues about his paranoid relationship state and that he is or was a DJ. I found this very interesting but wanted to know more about each character. The idea of scattered articles and letters also gave an abandoned feel, like litter scattered in a desolate place.

This page titled 'videos' simply shows a list of different trailers and teasers. The trailers were the trailers shown on E4 and channel 4 the week before the shows launch, whilst the teasers just showed random clips of big brother live inside the house, with the characters shwon being zombies. The video player required 'Flash'.



This page was titled 'gallery' and simply showed a montage of images of the tv drama in full action. The images could be enlargened, and on the right there were little teasers of significant images released one by one leading up to the shows release. The latest one shown was an image of Davina Mccall as a zombie - to show the hunour of the show and its cultural but very real reference to the big brother show.


Aside from the 'win stuff' page (a show competition) this was the last page titled 'get infected'. This seemed ambiguous at first so I clicked on it to see what it was. The title was intriguing and I wanted to know how I could get infected. The page tells you about a shocking video captured from in the big brother house, which makes you very curious as to what this is. It is also very chilling shown by the image and the description of the "disturbing video". It tells you to type in your name and date of birth so I did both and clicked 'take me to unseenscreen' (I had to give a false date of birth as it would not let under 18's in to the sight).



The link took me to a fake but very real looking video website like 'youtube' accompanied by fake video comments and fake peoples usernames. The video itself was very disturbing footage of a woman bleeding and stuck in the diary room of the big brother house (where the chair had been turned aside). She wrote on the back wall in blood the words 'help me kristian'. Obviously that was the name I has stated beforehand so this was simply just a scare tactic, and it worked because it really freaked me out at first! The video works as a very clever way of spreading show awareness. I could not embed the video as it is not a youtube video.


Immediately after the video had finished the following appeared on the screen. It gave you the option of sending the video link to your friends email addresses (obviously putting their name in order to scare them). I tried this and it worked. The emails I sent to some friends showed them the video with their name written in blood on the back wall. This really freaked them out before they got the option of sending it on, as a well as a link to the website to show what it was all about. I believe this to be a very strong way of spreading awareness as people will keep sending the video on, and a sa result more people will look at the very cleverly constructed website. Overall, this helps to create a very strong cult fanbase for the show 'Dead Set' in a similar way to what extent a horror film could. In the modern day, advertising by internet technology can be very effective; especially as I have seen many advertisements on MSN, Facebook and Myspace linking directly to the website I have just analysed. It spreads very quickly, and as a result, many more people will watch the show. I certianly will!



2) Poster - spreading awareness

This is a poster for the 2006 remake film, 'The Omen', a good example of a blockbuster film revelling in promotion for the best part of a year before its release. What was special and put this film aside from all others, was its release date. The date had to be exactly the 06.06.06 for the advertising to work, giving it almost a year of advertising before it even premiered. This poster is an example of a teaser poster, simply spreading awareness of a film before its big release.

The poster is just a big image. This image is very powerful. It is in a very eery setting, in a misty forest or park. Like all film posters, the main character is the focus of the poster, but usually this actor/actress takes up more of the poster than 'Damien' (the boys character name) actually does. This is because the boy already has such a presense. He is very sinister looking, his eyes follow you as he swings on the swings, and he holds the evil look of a man who has plans to kill and to cause chaos. This is unusual coming from a young boy, but it works here simply because 'The Omen' already was a well known film, and the audience knew that this boy is the devil in human form. The bright background makes the boy almost an ambiguous silohette, but we can still see his eyes. Our attention is firmly on his eyes, but is taken away by the title below too, which stands out in dark contrast to the background. It sticks out from the rest of the writing due to its slight yellow-gold highlight, and the cross logo stemming from the 'O' (one of the icons from the original 'Omen' film) representing a graveyard, fallen christ or simply death and evil. It is all very sinister. The poster is a teaser poster with some but not many details such as cast and producers along the bottom in boring white font. This is not the main focus at the bottom of the poster. What stands out here is the 6+6_06 in brihgt yellow, which outlines the release date of the film; the 6th June 2006. The date is a play on the devils number (666) and links to the famous film quote (or slogan) at the top of the poster. "The prophesy is clear. The signs are unmistakable. On the 6th day of the 6th month in the year 2006 his day will come." These are very sinister words, and without giving much away seem to summarise the plot of the film - that this child is the devil and he will rise on the release date of the film (e.g. the film shows his rise to power). The poster is very clear, and makes you so intrigued to see just what it is that is supposed to happen on this cursed day. This poster will have been placed everywhere on the films release; bus stops, billboards, cinemas, shopping centres etc. It is an extremely good way in spreading visual awareness to go with word of mouth and really make you want to go to see the movie.