The Social Media Games

Lionsgate have created a comprehensive and what I think is a very effective social media campaign, which I'm sure you have already seen something of as it is everywhere and hard to avoid! In my opinion the social media campaign is extremely integrated. Here is some social media channels they are using well:

Twitter

http://twitter.com/#!/thehungergames


Tweets include real life news about the movie release, messages from the actors, engagement with fans by asking them to talk about their favourite part of the movie, favourite scene, character etc. There is also a link to another Twitter account on The Hunger Games page which takes on the guise of Panema's capital city official account (this is the city the movie takes place). Very exciting for the die hard fans who get to feel like they are actually in the movie!


Facebook

http://www.facebook.com/thehungergamesmovie

Comprehensive Facebook page for the movie, as well as Facebook pages that have been created for main characters in the movie as well as the districts from the movie. There is not just you regular pictures, status updates and info there is so much more - you can buy tickets on here, play games, even become "fan of the week"!

YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/thehungergamesmovie

YouTube has its own channel featuring everything to do with the movie. It has trailers, short teaser clips, interviews with the cast but what I find interesting about the whole thing is you forget you are even on YouTube. They have called it "The Capitol TV Productions" The Capital of Panema is where the Hunger Games takes place they have completely built up a channel so you completely feel like you are living in this city with these people and a part of the games.

What I like about  Lionsgate's social media campaign is the integration of all the different channels. When you first visit some of these sites, before you read a word you know that you have entered something do with The Hunger Games just by the colours used, the fonts, the logo, look and feel. What I also love is the interactivity, you are not just reading about The Hunger Games on any one of these sites you are actually part of The Hunger Games. They really have used each platform to its best ability there is a hell of a lot to do on all of these sites.

The disadvantage of using social media can be that you leave yourself open for all the bad comments as well as the good due to the interactivity of these sites. One of the actors from the movie Amanda Stenberg was subjected to racist attacks against herself via The Hunger Games Twitter page. It is one of the disadvantages of using social media and something that cannot be avoided if you are using an open forum like this. I do think the pros outway the cons though. It is so inexpensive and the perfect medium to reach the target audience of the movie.  The Hunger Games social media campaign is perfectly integrated and investigating and using all these sites has made me really want to go and see the movie now!

Who is the target audience of The Hunger Games?

Lionsgate had the advantage of already having a built in fan base for The Hunger Games, thanks to the success of Suzanne Collins' trilogy books. About 9.6 million books were already in circulation when the film first began shooting. The problem Lionsgate had was the core fan base was made up of female fans 14-25, the lead character is a 16 year old action female and historically movies with a female action lead like Tomb Raider haven't always done well at the box office. Films like Tomb Raider already had a built in fan base too from the video games and completely flopped at the box office. The similarities to the Twilight trilogy also worked at alienating male moviegoers. Lionsgate's strategy was to target their campaign towards young males at the same time not neglecting their pre-built female core audience. Lionsgate Vice Chairman Michael Burns was quoted as saying "We always wanted this as a four-quadrant movie." Meaning it would appeal to boys, girls, men and women, that would be the target audience.

Some promotional strategies that Lionsgate have used to allure men have been opening the film on nearly 300 IMAX screens for a limited time - IMAX cinemas have a much bigger male audience. Also airing a full length trailer of the movie in the ad break during the superbowl in America. The film also apparently plays down the romance aspect of the story and focuses more on the action - this shows the strategy to enlist more males was in the pipeline from the beginning.

I think it was the right thing to target the males as well as females during the marketing campaign, it gives the film more credibility and hopefully wont turn it in to what the Twilight craze has become with it's "Team Edward" and "Team Jacob" girls gone crazy craze! The Twilight movies seem to be getting more critical panning as they continue and I must say I saw Breaking Dawn on DVD the other day and it wasn't good and I can't imagine if that movie was a stand alone and not part of a trilogy if it would have any viewers apart from a female 12-18 year category. 




The fans of Twilight - mainly female

Fans lining up to see first midnights screening of The Hunger Games - males & female

Reference

Barnes, B. Bosman, J. 2012. Hunger Games' book sales bode well for the film. The New York Times Accessed 27.3.2012.http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/hunger-games-book-sales-bode-well-for-the-film/

Let the games begin

This is just one of the many trailers, teasers, featurettes, interviews and so on that can be found on YouTube about the movie franchise set to blow the Twilight series out of the water - The Hunger Games.


The movie only opened on Thursday (23rd March) yet the hype has been present for nearly a year now - right about the time Lionsgate, the studio behind The Hunger Games began its integrated marketing communications campaign to launch this multibillion dollar franchise.


The Hunger Games movie is based on the first novel of a trilogy of books written by Suzanne Collins. It tells the story of a 16 year old girl, Katniss Everdeen who is called upon to represent her district and  fight  23 other teens to the death in a twisted annual survival competition that is televised to the nation of Panem. (Dodes & Jurgensen 2012)


I have not read the book, nor seen the movie yet I feel I already could tell you a lot about the story, characters, actors etc. It has been very hard to avoid the enormous hype surrounding The Hunger Games, that is for sure.


The world has already been watching The Hunger Games through Lionsgate's very successful social media campaign in particular and according to Torchlight digital Solutions "they have one of the best and most integrated social media viral marketing campaigns." Although the focus has been on using social media and other inexpensive online techniques, mass media or now what we class as "old media" like newspaper and magazine ads, haven't been ignored. 

References
Dodes, R & Jurgensen, J. 2012.http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204603004577267832212316716.html. Accessed on 24.3.12

Barnes, B. 2012http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/19/business/media/how-hunger-games-built-up-must-see-fever.html. Accessed on 24.3.12