Discuss the importance of cross media convergence and synergy in production, distribution and marketing re-write

Discuss the importance of cross media convergence and synergy in production, distribution and marketing?

Different levels of cross media convergence and synergy can greatly effect a films production, distribution and marketing. Warner Bros animation are a big conglomerate and when they released The Lego Movie (Lord and Miller, 2014) all of the films, levels of production, distribution and marketing benefited greatly from cross media convergence and synergy which is a good representation of how significant it is to big conglomerates such as Warner bros. Whereas the independent institutions such as BBC films don’t really see a huge importance in cross media convergence and synergy in production, distribution and marketing. For example when BBC films released Mrs Browns Boys D’Movie (Kellet, 2014), they didn’t really pursue and identify the importance in cross media convergence and synergy in production, distribution and marketing as they didn’t really use these factors to try and help promote their film. This represents how important cross media convergence and synergy is to big conglomerates rather than independent institutions.

First of all as The Lego Movie (Miller and Lord, 2014) is a franchise of actual Lego the films production benefited greatly from this. For example a Lego digital designer was produced to help create the millions of virtual Lego bricks which were needed to create the film. Each individual Lego brick which was created had to have real life effects such as scratches and dents to make them seem more realistic. This is a good example of how The Lego Movie benefited and were able to identify the importance of synergy to help the film have another major unique selling point and to help the film look as authentic as possible. Whereas in contrast my other case study the independent institution of BBC films benefited from convergence in a very different way because their film Mrs Browns Boys D’Movie (Kellet, 2014) already had their own television series which means as a result the film already had a existing fan base which was pivotal in allowing the film to generate a certain amount of sales.

Furthermore through the distribution and marketing aspects of Warner Bros The Lego Movie (Miller and Lord, 2014) promotional campaign benefited greatly from cross media convergence and synergy. First of all because Warner Bros animation is a American film company they identified that the marketing and distribution of the film is the most important aspect, which enables them to see the huge gap in the market and which ways will be the most successful. For the films synergy they decided to use major things such as: Lego themed events around the world, actual sets of the film was released to allow fans to buy and make the sets, they have a devoted section to the film at the theme park called Lego land, a clothing range was released,  costumes of the main characters were released, mini-figures of the characters were released, lastly The Lego Movie and Warner bros also partnered up with McDonalds and released eight limited edition Lego movie cups with every Happy Meal to help the film appeal and be sold to the main target audience. Doing this much synergy benefited the film greatly as it made over $300 million at the box office and become one of the year’s biggest grossing films for 2014 which again was another way they sold the film as word of mouth spread about how good it was because of how much they made at the box office. Whereas the independent institution of BBC films and their film Mrs Browns Boys D’Movie (Kellet, 2014) only used a variety of forms of synergy to help sell the film to their target audience this includes: a calendar, a range of costumes and a small range of clothing. This is a lot smaller amount of synergy used by BBC films compared to the amount used by Warner Bros animation. However Mrs Browns Boys D’Movie still made over £200 million in sales at the box office and was deemed a commercial success. This represents that synergy isn’t as important for smaller independent films as it is for big conglomerates because synergy is one of the main features which helps the conglomerates sell the a film.

During the marketing and distribution of films cross media convergence can have a huge impact on how successful a film is at the box office. For example the big conglomerate Warner Bros animation used a huge amount of cross media convergence to help with the release of their film The Lego Movie (Miller and Lord, 2014) this includes: a video game which was released along with the film, a soundtrack which was released on many different media platforms, YouTube clips of the main stars talking about the film and their characters where released, lastly a theme song called ‘Everything is Awesome’ was released which helped promote the key ethics of the film, furthermore this song was also re-released by different artists which was a good use of cross media convergence which didn’t cost The Lego Movie anything however it helped promote the film. However In contrast the independent institution of BBC films and their film Mrs Browns Boys D’Movie didn’t use half as much cross media convergence to help sell the film to their target audiences. They only used a limited amount of convergence which includes: an autobiography of the main star Brendan O’Carroll talking about the film production and being distribution, also a soundtrack of the film was released on different media platforms, lastly again YouTube videos of the production of the film was released. This explains the difference between the two different types of institutions and the way they use convergence to help sell the film.

In conclusion I feel institutions using synergy and cross media convergence in a films production, distribution and marketing is vitally important to a film’s success. Big conglomerates such as Warner bros animation are very good at using them both, in the process of a films production, distribution and marketing which leads to the huge success of nearly every film that they release and the continued growth of Hollywood and the strong force of the film production oligopoly. Whereas the smaller independent institutions not being as effective with it all will lead to the nearly the same outcome for most the films they produce, distribute and market which is normally failure and as a result will never be able to compete with Hollywood and gain some of the market share.