Case Study: Catching Fire

Catching Fire’s marketing campaign started with the new subway subs that were spicy due to the title of the film. This opened up their target market. The films demographic is teenage girls, the ones who have boyfriends will no doubt drag them to the cinema to go see it. Teenage girls are quite obsessive, so they will want to go to subway and try these new sandwiches but this aspect will appeal more to the male gender, opening their audience. In America they have included a competition too to have your own victory tour and in Canada you can win up to 1million dollars with many other prizes too.

Covergirl covered the fashion side to the film. Since the Capitol is so into looks and appearance Covergirl did a special feature called ‘Capitol Beauty Studio’. Because there are 12 districts they did 12 looks, one for each district. They set up special counters in stores with the make-up used within the advertising feature with tips and guides for the looks. This is again targeting their target audience as teenage girls are very into make-up and

fashion. Using this as promotion makes the consumer feel more interactive with the film. It lets them look the part and feel a part of it too. Personally, as a teenage girl, I feel that this market scheme is very good. If I walked passed this while shopping I would definitely stop and have a look, resulting in taking a booklet with the tips on and then going on the website to see how the looks are done too.

A fake magazine was in production before the film, it had its own facebook, instagram and tumblr. Palen stated that he wanted the public to know that this isn’t another ‘twilight’, the plot isn’t all about the love story so he used the magazine to remind the fans this. They have done this because of their target audience, teenage girls. They are very Internet orientated. Being part of the online social network will make sure you stay in the picture, that you will stay relevant without having to spend loads of money on adverts and posters. If you over advertise people start ignoring the adverts. If you start advertising too early people will forget about it so being apart of social networking is a good way to give subtle updates.

Back in February, 9 months before the film was out, they started the instagram page, posting a picture of a chair. This got fans excited and interested. It was an empty chair but still got over 2,000 likes. The instagram’s purpose was to tease the fans and leave them wondering. The caption that went along with the picture, ‘Always Elegant. Always Prompt. Join us on March 4. #LadiesFirst’, gave off enough information to make them come back on March 4th. They

then went on the posting pictures of the tributes and head pages that included what contents the mag will contain. Everything looked very real and believable. It was like a product the people in the capitol would actually have. Again this made the fans feels like they were part of the franchise. Like they lived in the Capitol and did what the Capitol people do. The Capitol would get a lead up to the games and so is the public.

Overall I think that this marketing campaign is very effective. It is applying massively to its target audience, and as part of this market I can guarantee it works. They way they have made the film feel real for the fans are great PR and marketing tactics.