Test screening and interactive marketing

A lot of the film studios such as warner brothers used test screenings with their new fims to get a sections of the publics opinion before the film come out, around 200 people were selected to go to a test screening, they were given card in which they could write their opinions and if they would suggest it to a friend, the studios have a theory that if they got less than 70% of people saying they wouldn't suggest it to a friend, then they would consider there to be a problem with the film. An example of a film changed because of a test screening was little shop of horrors, the test screening went really well until the end of the film where the main character dies, the people were so outraged that they made a new ending for the film where the main character survives and lives happily ever after with the girl of his dreams.

Interactive marketing have been around since the late 90's an example of this is the (1996) film space jam, this film had its own website that was designed that had information about the film, a flash game, links to basketball channel, this was one of the first main marketed films, a more recent one is from a film called untraceable, this was a horror film in which people would go on a website and they would be killed by entering it, for marketing they made a replica of the website featured in the film for the public to go on, this engaged the public and made them want to see the film, this is the main aim of film marketing, to engage the viewer and interact with them and make them want to see the film and tell their friends about it as well.