Marketing Communication Strategies: The Success of Hunger Games Film

This essay explores the marketing communication strategies employed by the Hunger Games film franchise, focusing on the successful multichannel transmedia campaign that contributed to its box office success. It examines the use of various marketing communication tools, including adverti...Read More

Principles of
Marketing
Communication
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Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
ESSAY.............................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................11
Appendix-......................................................................................................................................12
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INTRODUCTION
Marketing communication is the fundamental and complex approach in which the company
interacts with the customers. A company can interact in many ways with their customers through
internet sources, through telephone, through social media channels and many others. The
communication can be established in the business model through applying of communication
strategies and techniques. A long set of process in the basic need of the company is to establish
an effective communicative relationship with the customers so that the respective products and
services of the company gets promoted. This marketing communication process includes
activities such as Direct marketing, social media campaigns, printed materials, and sponsorships
(Cambier and Poncin, 2020). There is a wide variety of communication tools that can be used by
the organisation in order to well communicate with people such as email, mail, telephones,
smartphones, computers, video and web conferencing tool. With an effective management
communication strategy, the business will ensure that the correct values are communicated to the
interested customers. This essay covers the success behind the communication marketing
campaign of Hunger Games, Catching fire, Mockingjay part 1 and part 2. They used a
multichannel transmedia campaign, which made the movie's highest-grossing film of all time.
ESSAY
Marketing communication refers to the different set of marketing channels and tools that
the organization and entity use to bridge the gap between the company and the consumers. This
essay is in the context of 'The Hunger Games' movie, which was launched in 2012, and the next
franchise movie is 'Catching fire,' which was launched in 2013. The people highly supported this
franchise as they had an effective marketing communication strategy to communicate with their
viewers (Khandakar, Bhuiyan, and Siddika, 2018). Marketing communication includes the
various ways an organization communicates the values and products that the company is looking
to establish in the market.
The businesses used the successful multichannel marketing communication strategy to ensure
that their ideas were well communicated with the viewers. Key elements on which the company
focused were advertising, branding, pricing, promotions through digital campaigns, and
marketing research (Petrosyan and Dimitriadis, 2018). The marketing team of the board used a
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different set of techniques in which they made hype about the movie first-hand so that more and
more people relate to the trailer and watch the movie. These data are collected from different
social media platforms and the internet by analysing the customers' interests. The successful
conversion rate of this data is significantly less.
Communication is done through effective marketing strategies to do the whole marketing
process efficiently. This process involves conveying the messages from one end to another, from
the company to the customers (Strenitzerová and Gaňa, 2018). The objective of the process is
that the audience can understand the message behind the process effectively and further act
according to the company's interpretation. Another objective that is delivered by the process of
communication is generating a sense of awareness about the launch that the company is going to
make.. Customers and organization can only develop a good piece of communication if their
branding is done in a manner that the customers get appealed towards the products and services
that the business is offering.
Communication mix in marketing ensures that how the company communicates with the
customers is essential in bringing business productivity. The marketing communication mix
consists of five tools that will help the company shape its brand strategy to identify unique
factors in the business. The franchise must choose a relevant program or tool that supports the
process of well communicating the ideas of the company Five tools of the communication mix
will help the franchise in terms of well communicating the area of interests to the viewers. The
franchise of hunger games used five marketing communication tools that helped them become
one of the highest grossers of all time.
The first tool is Advertising, in which elements such as TV, Radio, press, and PPC are
considered. The movie was actively marketed on every platform to ensure that everyone in the
audience was aware of the launch of the new movie in theatres. Television and video streaming
platforms have been significant sources of advertising that the franchise used to generate the
interest of the users in the movie. A good trailer and teaser of the company always play a long
way; this helped them ensure that more and more audiences will be interested in knowing the
movie's storyline (Mogaji and Yoon, 2019). This is one of the significant components of
communication through which the franchise actively communicated with its audience.
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The second tool used by the company in the marketing communication mix was indirect
marketing, in which the company posted on their social media platforms so that they could create
a hype of the movie release. The franchise uses sales promotion to ensure that the company has
communicated its ideology and services to the viewers. This is one of the cheaper marketing
strategies in which the company can communicate with the viewers through their social media
handles. Another marketing tool used in the marketing mix of communication is Public
Relations, in which the news, campaigns, and strategies help create a positive view of the
company so that a good reputation of the company can be established in the market.
With a communication mix, the campaigns become effective as the company uses
different techniques to communicate with the customers. A different set of tactics promoted
through the Television and social media channels ensure that the highlights of the upcoming
movie highlights are seen by the viewer, which will automatically generate a sense of curiosity
among the viewers regarding the story. The selection of the right media is one of the crucial
factors that impact the communication marketing strategy of the company. A proper selection of
media by the franchisee will ensure that most of the viewers are well communicated and aware
that a new movie under that franchise is going to release. Further, the media selected in the
campaign by the franchise was Facebook, YouTube, television and more. Facebook was one of
the most common social media platforms which was used by the company to promote their
movie. The company took an opportunity and released its posters and trailers on the franchise's
Facebook page. The movie is made for teenagers and alders, hence, the film maker analyse the
platforms to launch their film trailer which is commonly used by their targeted audience. Hence,
that's why they use Facebook pages and you tube medium to launch their trailer. They created an
excellent trailer on YouTube and Television as well. This is known by the review of the audience
about the trailerWhat do (The Hunger Games and Social Media Have in Common? You Have to
Fight to Survive!, 2012). This helped them in maximizing their reach among the viewers. After
one campaign, the franchise ensures that the current viewers are targeted again with the new
movies that the franchise is looking to release.
Creativity is one of the significant areas that can be utilized by the franchise to create
engagement with the customers. Creative content used in the marketing strategies can be
effective as this will help me create an engagement with the viewers. The franchise started being
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active on its social media platforms and advertisements, which ensured that the viewers
interacted with the content of the franchise daily (Bondarenko et al., 2021). A creative
advertisement goes a long way in which the other end ensures that effective communication is
established, and the customers are attracted to the franchise's content. These elements were
creative because it target emotional factor of audience first. The film makers launch their movies
trailer on social media platforms first to gain the attention of their targeted audience to create
interest among them to watch movie. They become successful because audience share the trailer
quickly with each other and hence, by their advertisement content they aware more people. The
creative ad campaign run by the franchise was successful as it established the ground that the
story of the new movie of the franchise would also be interesting as the advertisement. Narrator
Katniss Everdeen narrates The Hunger Games. The story is told in the first person and it recounts
the personal experience and history of Katniss Everdeen (The Hunger Games; key facts, 2022).
The brand campaign helped the company build a compelling image for the business for a
more extended period. In order to carry out a brand campaign, that is important for the whole
process is by maximizing efficiency and effectiveness. Both the communication mix and
marketing vehicles are used and play a critical role in marketing. The communication mix
involves the various ways an organization can communicate with the end customers, as
marketing communications play a significant role. Communication mix has 4 elements which
will help the film maker to reach their audience. Firsts is advertising on TV, radio, press and
many others. Here, the film maker promote their trailer on TV to gain the attention of audience
as well as they share the interview of the characters of the movie. Another element of
communication mix is digital marketing which is also used by film makers to promote their film,
they launch their campaign on Facebook, Instagram and many others.
Another communication model that worked effectively for the franchise was the prime
theory of communication framework that involves a range of sequential tasks related to
marketing (Raji, Rashid, and Ishak, 2019). The AIDA model used by the franchise is applied so
that the process can be divided into four steps: awareness, interest, action, and desire. Through
this process, the message is effectively communicated, and the customers start perceiving the
actions in the business. In this process, the firm's primary goal is to make the message
understanding and engaging so that the customers take part in showing interest.
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The Hunger Games is a film that conducts a campaign for its promotion and to make the
audience aware of the basic concepts of this film so that they will be interested in watching it.
The marketing campaign conducted by these filmmakers is called Lionsgate's marketing
campaign and the production company is Color Force. This campaign talks about the film
industry, fandom, and digital labour. The material for this campaign was collected from
newspapers, articles, personal interviews of film-makers. This campaign further states how
producers and customers operate in the digital age to make a film. This film's campaign was
basically to promote digital film-making practices, and it brought an alternate universe to life
through social networks like Twitter, Facebook, and many others (Khoshtaria, Datuashvili, and
Matin, 2020). The explanation of this film was promoted through this platform, which helped the
audience understand the film's concept well. These digital platforms were chosen due to their
global reach. Hence, the main aim of the film-makers is to promote the film at a global level and
bring an international demand for this film. Every company needs to maintain a good
communication strategy with their customers so that they will get aware of the products and
services they sell in the market. There are a few trends in marketing communication which is
mentioned below Social media platforms are one of the most used marketing communication
channels nowadays. Companies promote their products and services through social media
platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, and many others. The campaign mentioned in the case
also uses social media platforms to promote their film by uploading the summary of their
campaign on Twitter and Facebook. These mediums have a global reach that helps the campaign
make a substantial global focus of people. Social media platforms also allow customers to
comment and share their experiences about the campaign well to get to know what their
customers prefer about their films.
Video Channels- Various video channels like YouTube and many others help promote the brand
by showing the video of the products, services, and campaigns to attract more customers
(Veronica, Silvia, and Lavinia, 2018). Customers get more attracted to the videos because they
understand the concept of the campaign clearer through videos. In the context of Hunger Games,
they also use YouTube videos to share the short trailer of their film and make their customers
aware of the film's concept. Campaign makers also share rating forms to get it filled by
customers so that they get to know that they are performing well or not in communicating to
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customers. High ratings mean more satisfaction of customers, and low ratings mean low
satisfaction levels. Customer Feedback is also one of the most critical channels for company and
customer communication. The company makes a feedback form in a survey, shares it with their
customers, and asks them to fill it. Such feedback forms contain questions related to customers'
experiences and expectations. In the campaign context, they make feedback forms and distribute
them to their customers through emails, social media platforms, and even in hard copies and ask
them to fill and resend to the campaign makers (Vangelov, 2019). On the other hand, the
disadvantage of this method is that it is time consuming and it may interpretate wrong
information because sometimes customers did not pay appropriate attention to fill the feedback
forms. Feedback forms will help the companies and campaigns analyse what customers are
expecting from them and what they are serving to them, and in case they find the gap, they must
fill it by taking corrective measures. It will help the film-makers analyse whether their audience
is influenced to watch the film. In case of negative feedback, they will make changes in their
campaign. Sentiment analysis can also be used by the campaign by using natural language
processing (NLP) which identifies the emotional tone behind a body of text. This will help the
campaign to understand the social conversation between them and their customers to identify
their preferences and behaviour.
Text messages and WhatsApp- It is also one of the commonly used mediums for companies to
communicate with their customers. Here, companies have a direct chat with their customers and
analyse what changes they require and all complaints they are having regarding a particular
segment of the campaign (The Hunger Games Viral Marketing Campaign, 2016). One-on-one
chatting through WhatsApp will help the campaign predict customers' experiences and points of
view by the contents of their chats. If they use aggressive content, it can be predicted that
customers are not happy or satisfied with their campaign (Li and et. al., 2021). On the other
hand, in the case of customers chatting with polite words, it can be predicted by the campaign
performance handlers that it is going well. Therefore, WhatsApp and text messages are used by
various campaigns to communicate with their customers by receiving their responses quickly.
Websites and emails- Customers commonly use these communication channels to analyse which
company offers which product in the market. In the case of many companies, they share their
information about the company through their website. Their customers reach to company's
website and get to know about the products, and they also have an option to ask their questions
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and solve their quarries related to shared products and services (Vrontis, Christofi, and
Katsikeas, 2020). Companies respond to the questions from the customer end as soon as possible
so that they will gain their loyalty and trust. On the other hand, today, most customers use emails
to review their experience with the product and services they use.
Reflection.
From this module, I developed several sets of skills and knowledge regarding marketing
communication issues and strategies. Through this module, I developed an understanding of
campaigns run by businesses to market and communicate with people. With this module, I
developed an understanding of marketing communications in which different sets of tools and
channels are used. I understood that several aspects of communication marketing are used to
make a marketing campaign of the company successful. I learned a different set of information
that I can further apply to the marketing strategies and campaigns of the business. Through this
module, I learned several skills. A few of these skills are: Organization and planning skills- With
this module, I developed organizational and planning skills where my efforts were directed
towards marketing communication that the organizations perform in the business code of
conduct. Organizing and planning marketing communication are significant tasks required in this
skill as it helped me understand the strategy that a marketer uses while advertising their product.
Good communication and writing skills- While marketing products and services in the market, it
is essential for the company to communicate the purpose and qualities of the product effectively
so that people get aware of the product and ideology that goes behind the company. I learned
how good marketing communications could be established in the brand to develop an effective
marketing strategy in the company. I learned that good communication between the customers
and the company is essential as it ensures an effective marketing campaign.
STP Model for the campaign-
Segmentation- This is the process where companies divided their markets into smaller parts. In
context of The Hunger Game, they segmented their market for both male and female of age
group 10-15, 15-20 and 20-25.
Targeting- This is the process where companies choose one or more segments to decide their
targeted audience. In context of Hunger Game, they targeted teenagers of age group of 11-15.
they specially target females (Should I Let My Ten-Year-Old Read The Hunger Games?, 2012).
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Positioning- This is the process where companies and campaigns promote their main product
and services to gain the attention of their targeted customers. In context of The Hunger Games,
they promote this movie on social media platforms because their targeted customers are
teenagers and most of the targeted audience of this movie are active on social media platforms.
CONCLUSION
From the above information, producing these campaigns is considered a good marketing
campaign. It concluded that communication practices play an essential role in the success of any
company or marketing campaign. If companies and campaigns communicate a compelling idea
about the summary of their campaign, they can quickly generate interest for customers to
participate in campaigns that make companies can do the best campaigns to attract all the
customers. If the company can create excellent campaigns for customers, the company can make
more Fanclub to the movie and make more money for the movie. It is also essential for the
campaigns to analyse which issues they face in reaching their customers well and try to opt for
those practices that will mitigate them so the company can find out how to take care of the issue.
It is also concluded that analysing the need and preferences of the targeted audience is essential
for the campaign so that they will modify it accordingly and serve in the same manner, which
will gain more attention from customers.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Bondarenko, O and et. al., 2021. Improving Approaches to the Formation of Enterprise's
Marketing Budgets.
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effects of brand transparency signals in a consumer empowerment context. Journal of
Business Research, 109, pp.260-270.
Khandakar, M.S.A., Bhuiyan, M.R.U. and Siddika, H., 2018. Customers’ Expectation towards
Online Marketing: A Study on Some Economic Zone in Bangladesh. American Journal
of Trade and Policy, 5(1), pp.7-14.
Khoshtaria, T., Datuashvili, D. and Matin, A., 2020. The impact of brand equity dimensions on
university reputation: an empirical study of Georgian higher education. Journal of
Marketing for Higher Education, 30(2), pp.239-255.
Li, R and et. al L., 2021. Assessing Social Media Communications of Local Governments in
Fast-Growing US Cities. The Professional Geographer, 73(4), pp.702-712.
Ližbetinová, L and et. al., 2020. The approach of SMEs to using the customer databases and
CRM: Empirical study in the Slovak Republic. Sustainability, 12(1), p.227.
Mogaji, E. and Yoon, H., 2019. Thematic analysis of marketing messages in UK universities’
prospectuses. International Journal of Educational Management.
Petrosyan, A. and Dimitriadis, N., 2018. Applying persuasion science in marketing
communications: A comparison of marketing communications professionals in Armenia
and Greece. In Business Models for Strategic Innovation (pp. 85-105). Routledge.
Raji, R.A., Rashid, S. and Ishak, S., 2019. The mediating effect of brand image on the
relationships between social media advertising content, sales promotion content and
behaviuoral intention. Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing.
Strenitzerová, M. and Gaňa, J., 2018. Customer satisfaction and loyalty as a part of customer-
based corporate sustainability in the sector of mobile communications
services. Sustainability, 10(5), p.1657.
Thaichon, P and et. al., 2019. Online relationship marketing: evolution and theoretical insights
into online relationship marketing. Marketing Intelligence & Planning.
Tsarpa, I. and Koutroukis, T., 2020. Marketing efficiency of second change schools, its
application and usefulness for lifelong learning in Greece.
Vangelov, N., 2019. Efficient Communication through Influencer Marketing. Styles of
Communication, 11(1).
Veronica, P., Silvia, M. and Lavinia, P.A., 2018. Traditional versus Online Marketing for B2B
Organizations: Where the Line Blurs. Ovidius University Annals, Series Economic
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Vrontis, D., Christofi, M. and Katsikeas, C.S., 2020. An assessment of the literature on cause-
related marketing: implications for international competitiveness and marketing
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Online-
The Hunger Games Viral Marketing Campaign, 2016 [online]. available through
< https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:732925/FULLTEXT01.pdf>
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What do The Hunger Games and Social Media Have in Common? You Have to Fight to
Survive!, 2012 [online]. available through:
<https://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/what-do-hunger-games-and-social-media-have-
common-you-have-fight-survive/>
The Hunger Games; key facts, 2022 [online]. available through:\
<https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/the-hunger-games/facts/>
Appendix-
I further evaluated the marketing strategy of the highest-grossing movies and how they managed
to attract a massive audience. They applied several principles of marketing communication
strategy in critical moments of the business, which helped them market the movies to the
viewers. I learned the issues that companies generally face during their marketing campaigns and
how they can be ignored to reach maximum productivity and efficiency. I further learned how a
company applies a communication mix in their campaigns to attain maximum productivity in the
campaigns. I also learned that organizations often apply a creative set of ideas in their marketing
strategies and ideas so that the products can appeal to a good set of audiences.
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