Marketing Communications Strategies for the Success of 'The Hunger Games' Film Franchise

The essay discusses the successful marketing communications strategies used in 'The Hunger Games' film franchise, the importance of effective listening in the communication process, and the various tools and models used in marketing communications.

Principles of
Marketing
Communications

Table of Contents
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

MAIN BODY
Marketing communications basically includes the use of different marketing tools and
channels together as a combination. It basically involves the various ways through which a
organisation communicates its message to the marketplace. In context to the film “ The
hunger games” which was launched in the year 2012 and its another part followed by the
“Catching Fire” in 2013 (Nurhayati and Hendar, 2019). The movie franchise was highly
supported due to its effective marketing communication methods, successful multi channel
and trans media campaign that helped in becoming one of the highest grossing films. After
the overwhelming response and successful release of the first hunger games back in the year
2012, the director was ready to prepare for the next release. The organisation used effective
marketing techniques that helped the film to become the highest grossing movie of all the
time. The some of the key elements that they focused on included advertising, personal
selling, proper branding, pricing, promotions through digital campaigns, marketing research
that involves analysis and fact findings, servicing, pricing, packaging and advertising and
various channels of distribution. In context to the communication mix, it basically involves
the various tools which are used in order to have a effective communication with the
potential buyers and customers( Alderman, 2021).
The communication can be done through direct marketing, social media, advertising,
exhibitions, websites and various other communication mix elements. The marketing
communications helps in enabling the business for the purpose to develop revenues through
the process of interacting and reaching out with the consumers. Through maintaining
effective communication it helps in creating promotion of products and building a
awareness. In context to strategic communication it can be basically described how the
company uses various communication tools in order to fulfil their end missions (Şoproni,
2018).The main objective of strategic communication is to communicate effectively with the
formulation and implementation of the desired strategies (Dominique-Ferreira, Viana and
Prentice,2021 ).There are various problems and issues that can be there in the
communication process which involves various communication problems and these issues
can affect the implementation of the proper communication channel and might create a
hindrance in the entire process. The main problems or mistakes which are usually done by
the organization involves not truly listening. In communication process listening plays a
1

very important role in the communication method. It is important to communicate with full
attention and listening attentively. It is very important to listen your speaker carefully and
try not to interrupt the speaker during the communication process (Morozova, 2019). A
communication strategy framework involves tools in order to plan communication with the
customers, employees, investors and suppliers. The communication framework helps in
improving and uplifting the brand image with the help of people whose actions and attitudes
can contribute towards the organisation’s success. The marketing communications involves
both the applications and theory which basically focuses and aims at both the students and
marketing managers. These marketing communication theories helps and guides the
manages to negotiate (Hockenberry, 2019).
As per the viewpoint of the Kotler, the consumer point of view involves looking at the
entire marketing process. The marketing communication involves the process of conveying
the message between the organisations and consumers for the purpose to effectively convey
the message to the target audience and creating a message and to trust the brand. The
method of marketing communication helps in establishing a invisible relationship among the
customers and firm. The main objective of the marketing communication is that the target
audience correctly understands and receives the message (Salimon and Kompanets, 2019).
Through use of marketing communication, the audience can understand the organisation
about the brands, firms and products. In order to effectively communicate it is important to
understand that their is difference between the process of promotion, advertising and
marketing communication. In addition to that there are various elements in the process of
marketing communication that involves the public relations, personal selling, sponsorship,
advertising, promotion etc. In context to the “the hungry games”, advertising played a very
important role and was the main element that helped the film and its other franchisees to be
a big hit. Advertising plays a very important role and is the primary element in the
communication mix. It is basically a form on paid promotion of the ideas, services and
goods which is identified sponsor. Through advertising, it helps in attracting wider audience
in lesser time. It helps in getting the attention of the consumers and wider audience. Another
way that really helped the film to get the most attention is sponsorship. The sponsorship is
basically a sub category of public relations that helps in creating a corporation image and
building a relationship. In terms of promoting a movie or film, sponsorship turn to be a very
2

effective way of communicating and promotion as it helps in getting wider attention from
the consumers. It can be done in various ways through sponsoring a particular event or brand
which helps in getting attention by the audience. Another tool used involves the sales
promotion which is basically a short term promotion tool that helps in stimulating the buying
behaviour of consumers and end users. The main objective of sales promotion is not as
similar as the other elements in order to increase the long term relationship with the
customers. The main objective of sales promotion is to increase the sales immediately.
Word of mouth is another effective medium in order to establish marketing communication
and it also helps in changing the mind of consumers. An advice can effectively help a
organisation to change the consumer’s mind as it can help in changing the brand’s
preference.
Another communication model that works effectively involves the hierarchy of the effect
models which is considered to be the prime theory of the marketing communication
framework which involves a explanation of the sequential tasks of the messages related to
the marketing. Another framework involves the AIDA model which is basically a
fundamental theory basically related to the hierarchy of effect model. It basically involves
and explains that the marketing communication process is basically divided into four steps
that involves interest, awareness, action and desire. It can be also used for the sales training.
The framework helps in understanding the process through which the customers from begin
aware to perceiving the message and showing the reactions to the actions. Under this
process, the audience basically understands the message and then understand the message
finds it interesting. An advertising campaign basically includes the series of advertisements
messages that involves a single theme or idea which is then further integrated marketing
communication. With the help of marketing campaigns, a company or organisation promote
its products with the use of different types of media that involves the use of online
platforms, television, print and radio. The campaigns not full rely on the advertising but
involve a mix of various interactive techniques, demonstrations and video conferencing.
The brand campaign helps in putting up the company’s message or story in front of the
target audience with the objective to improve brand equity, goal of increasing the brand
awareness in the mind of the consumers. A brand is basically made up of the things that a
compay offers or basically its product identity. A consumer can easily recognize a brand
3

through its effective branding and campaigns. There are various things that need to be keep
in mind in order to create a brand campaign as per the needs of the organization and it
basically varies from one campaign to another based on the needs of the organization. In
order to launch an effective brand campaign it is very important to understand the time as
money cant replace time. Time plays a very important role in position the set off the brand re
positioning campaign. Through marketing campaign in becomes easy for the organisation to
understand the target audience. The most easy way of not wasting the spending on ads is to
not take the time to analyze and figure out the target audience. From the perspective of the
consumers, they cannot take away various messages from one ad and hence they keeping
walking away from the messages or call to actions and also they cannot expect customers to
pick up the secondary message or making a connection among the brand and the abstract
concept. Through a successful brand campaign it becomes easy for the organisation to know
something interesting and new. Through the use of campaigns, consumers who are exposed
to various multiple touch points uses various advertising brand campaigns (Chakraborty and
Jha, 2019).
In order to carry out a brand campaign it is very important to think about the efficiency
before thinking about the effectiveness. The main objective of the brand campaign is to
provide opportunities to the brand in order to rebuild and build a image in the mind of the
consumers. Through keeping in mind the thoughts of consumers, brand can create effective
brand campaign for the purpose to use the overall marketing efforts. The communication
mix basically involves the various ways through which a organisation can communicate with
the end customers as the marketing communications plays a very significant role and both
the communication mix and marketing vehicles are used and plays a important role in
marketing (Pavenkov and Rubtcova, 2019). In terms of media influence it is basically a
actual forces which is generally exerted through a media message that either results in
reinforcement in the individual beliefs or change. In context to media selection, it has
become a more complex problem in the fast development of communication and information
technology. In today’s world, social media plays a very important role in connected with
family, friends and brands through various forms of context. The organisation need to use
various platforms of social media such as YouTube , twitter, face book and etc in order to
conduct various campaigns and connect with the brands. It basically involves investing in
4

advertising campaigns through various digital channels that involves advertising in the form
of banner ads, social media advertising, native advertising, influencer advertising etc. It
basically involves reaching out prospective customers through mails. The mass media
basically involves the use of channels and technologies for a smaller group of people in
order to communicate with a large number of people. Furthermore, mass media plays a very
important role in the life of people. It basically involves the informs, media, human opinion
and entertains and also creates a image of the people through promotion, advertising and
various other specific purposes that are very important to the people. Through mass media
its helps in creating various forms of programs and releasing some information. It is very
important to engage with your audience and keeping them attracted towards the organisation
through various creative ways. Engaging the clients and customers helps in solving the
issues and also helps in solving new issues. It is very to collaborate and co create with your
target audience in order to establish a effective relationship. In order to make the marketing
technique effective it is very important to promote a continuously promote a product. It is
very important to break the patter on thoughts of the consumers in the most crucial and
creative form of marketing. In context to the Hungry games, they used media and print
advertising in order to attract and send advertising and promotional messages to its
customers. The company basically relies on the various promotional offers in order to retain
existing customers and attract new customers. Marketing communications basically involves
the media and message which is used by the marketers in order to communicate with the
target markets. The marketing communications involves sponsorships, traditional
advertising, direct marketing, presentations etc( Yarigina, 2021).
From the above essay there is a huge difference among the marketing strategies that was
used in the promotion techniques of the “the hungry games’’ and its other parts as it really
got advantage due to promotion it online through various digital platforms and carrying out
social media campaigns on various social media platforms and also helps in getting much
more attention from the public which helped the movie to become a all time hit over the
years. The entire franchise got support from a highly successful multi channel and various
other trans media that helped the organisation to become one of the highest grossing films of
all the time. The success came due to effective use of multimedia campaigns and marketing
techniques. According to various scholars points out there is a flow of media and
5

technologies across the various platforms that helped in understanding and changing the
relationship and behaviour among the consumers and producers (Bao, 2018). In addition to
that these technologies and flow of media affected the commodity culture and various
industrial practices. The lion gate marketing campaign was designed and structured in a way
that it can attract the existing fan base participation in mind. The movie current fan base
actively participated in the various online campaigns and also helps in recalculating the
content which is basically related to the movie. The fandom critically realised the need for
the followers fans in the digital age. Few of the factors that involves rise of the participatory
culture that was increased due to decrease in cost of the digital authoring tools and increase
in the processing power of the personal computers. The markets of the movie attempted to
link the consumer directly to the marketing and production of the media content which is
basically described as the viral marketing and relationship marketing. Through the use of
viral marketing it helps in making the customers actively participate and engage in the
promotional and marketing of the media content. With the help of the viral marketing it
helps in increasingly promoting as a model in order to sell goods in an interactive manner
and also with the help of viral marketing it helps in making consumers actively participate in
the promotion of the services and products (Gowreesunkar, Séraphin and Morrison,
2018 ).For the marketers of the movie word of mouth has long been a concern for the
marketers and it can be related for both the dissatisfaction and satisfaction within a service
or product. The main importance of lion gate is to generate positive word of mouth before
the opening weekend of the hungry games which can be further understood in the hungry
games opening weekend that played a critical event in the film’s commercial life that helped
in earning the majority of the receipts in the opening.
Critical reflection
From the above evaluation I can clearly determine that the marketing strategies used by
the “Hungry Games” film really worked well for the entire franchise and production house. It
also helps in analysing that in order to implement appropriate marketing strategies it is very
important to use the right type of trans media campaigns and various channels in order to attract
the customers and with the use of right type of multiple channels and various principles of
6

marketing communications it is very important to understand the target audience. The above
evaluation helped me a lot in analysing the various ways through which a firm can achieve
success with the help of suitable principles of marketing communications. The organisation in
order to promote its movies used the digital marketing techniques that helped the company to
critically evaluate its strategies and also helped in making the most profitable movie of all the
time. In addition to that it helped me in analysing the efficient and effective marketing
techniques that was used in the implementation of the marketing techniques and moreover it
involves the use of marketing campaigns that helped in connecting the customers with the entire
film franchise. The film got much more attention due to various social media campaigns and
promoting it through the digital platforms and also with the use of effective marketing techniques
. The organisation also conducted and was involved in various sponsorship programme and
events that helped in creating a buzz about the movie. In addition to that it helped me in
understanding the tools and techniques and effectiveness of the marketing strategies and their
implementation in the real world. In order to create a space and buzz among consumers it is very
important to identify the right strategy and also identifying the various ways and methods
through which it becomes easy to target the desired audience. The film franchise used the viral
marketing strategy that helped in creating a space among the consumers and attracting them
towards the film even before the release. I also analysed that word of mouth played a very
important role and effective technique for the film to be one of the biggest hit and profitable
franchise.
REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Alderman, H., 2021. Accreditation. In Encyclopedia of Sport Management (pp. 3-6). Edward
Elgar Publishing.
7

Bao, H., 2018. Marketing of Tourism Services/Experiences. In The Emerald Handbook of
Entrepreneurship in Tourism, Travel and Hospitality. Emerald Publishing Limited.
Chakraborty, A. and Jha, A., 2019. Corporate social responsibility in marketing: a review of the
state-of-the-art literature. Journal of social marketing.
Dominique-Ferreira, S., Viana, M. and Prentice, C., 2021, June. The role of marketing in the
development of digital touchpoints. In 2021 16th Iberian Conference on Information Systems
and Technologies (CISTI) (pp. 1-6). IEEE.
Gowreesunkar, V.G., Séraphin, H. and Morrison, A., 2018. Destination marketing organizations:
Roles and challenges. In The Routledge handbook of destination marketing (pp. 16-34).
Routledge.
Hockenberry, T., 2019. Embrace Marketing Ideas to Impact Change Management. The Journal
for Quality and Participation, 42(1), pp.19-21.
Morozova, I.O., 2019. LANGUAGE PECULIARITIES OF MARKETING.
In СОВРЕМЕННАЯ НАУКА: АКТУАЛЬНЫЕ ВОПРОСЫ, ДОСТИЖЕНИЯ И
ИННОВАЦИИ (pp. 157-159).
Nurhayati, T. and Hendar, H., 2019. Personal intrinsic religiosity and product knowledge on
halal product purchase intention: Role of halal product awareness. Journal of Islamic Marketing.
Pavenkov, O. and Rubtcova, M., 2019, February. Traditional model of marketing
communications and integrated marketing communications: comparative research. In ITM
International Conference and Summit on Techno Management Trends (pp. 15-22).
Salimon, O. and Kompanets, K., 2019. IMPLEMENTATION OF INTERACTIVE-
MARKETING IN HOTEL BUSINESS. Modern Science-Moderni Veda, 6(1), pp.39-45.
Şoproni, L., 2018. Branding a Border City: the Territorial Marketing Strategy of the City of
Oradea. Eurolimes, 25(25), pp.13-29.
Yarigina, G.G., 2021. ANALYSIS OF MARKETING AND COMMUNICATION POLICY OF
TOURIST ZHYTOMYR. MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND SCIENCE OF UKRAINE
NATIONAL AVIATION UNIVERSITY, p.292.
8