Battleship

Ryan Willis

• Director Peter Berg’s film Battleship grossed 58 million on its opening weekend. The film was met with mixed reviews and used a range of advertisement methods such as posters, games, trailers and social networking to build anticipation among consumers.

Poster campaign

• Various posters were released during a poster campaign up until the theatrical release of the film. All of these contained the headline “The battle for Earth begins at sea” and many with the gigantic spaceship in the sea seen above, this is to create continuity between products. There was also a character based poster campaign which featured a picture of each character and their name, this is so the film would appeal to different types of audience such as Rihanna fans or Liam Neeson fans.

• Trailers were advertised on TV, radio and were available on Youtube, the trailers gave the audience a basic look at the storyline with plenty of special effects included

Trailers

Trailers continued…

• Most of the trailers for Battleship only last just over 2 minutes but manage to include all the best bits of the film like the special effects and the one liners. Even without narration the trailers clearly indicate that this is a science fiction war/action film and in my opinion are very good advertisements as it made me want to see the film.

Magazines

• Battleship featured on the front cover of Empire magazine alongside other films. Because Empire is a film magazine this front cover ensured that film lovers who read the magazine will now be interested in the film and it also creates a wider target market as the magazine is sold in popular stores such as WHSmith and supermarkets such as ASDA and TESCO. The cover shows the main character, exploiting their persona whilst signifying what type of film it is through costume and look of the actor.

Casting Rihanna

• By casting Rihanna in the film it creates a much wider audience because all of Rihannas fans will want to see her in her first acting role, the fact that she is in the film is exploited through posters and the trailers all of them featuring Rihanna significantly. Also a lot of men will want to see her in the film as she adds sex appeal.

Social Networking

• Battleship also received a lot of advertisement through social networking sites like facebook as many fans make their own fan pages of the film where if they like or want to see the film they can visit that page and see what others have put about it or look at pictures from it. A facebook game was also made so people can interact with the storyline and if they like the game it may urge them to see the film.

Video game tie-in

• A video game released on all types of consoles such as Xbox, ps3, Nintendo and the Wii. This benefits the film because if people play the game and like it they will be interested in seeing the film and it works the opposite way, if people have seen the film and like it they will want to buy the video game.

Conclusion

• Overall the film Battleship used many different ways of media such as posters, trailers, games and social networking to promote the film and did this successfully as the film was a hit at the box office.