Hollywood Media Synergy as IMC

Hollywood Media Synergy as IMC

• Hollywood media products in recent years have been produced to promote one another One for of media synergy in Hollywood is the sqeulisation of blockbuster films. Other important and profitable convergant forms include theme park rides,soundtracks, novel tie ins and videogames - an increasing importance to the bottom line at media conglomerates.

• Following the success of Star Wars and its various sequels and pre-quels, Hollywood focused more of its attention to developing  and marketing megafranchise films - big budget films that have potential for sequels video games, theme park rides, novels and other media product tie ins.

• Top performing Hollywood megafranchisees are produced by the conglomerated "big-six" and Dreamworks.  (time warner, news crop, Sony, Disney, Viacom and NBC universal).

• The megafranchise model was intiatied by star wars and is one which has generated the most revenue for the majors. Culture critic Mark Crispin Miller(1990) was one of the first to analayse Hollywood's move to vertical intergration(buying up companies that allow distribution of saod media product to be eaiser) to horizontal (buying up the competition), and films that have been developed withb the purpose of deployablty on multiple media platforms, as well as thier abilty to be sequelised and thier abilty to be cross-promoted with other media texts.

• Those who make the decisions within media conglomerates undterstand that every pice of media under the same brand-umbrella promotes every piece of media unser said umbrella.e.g the disney stores promote consumer products which promote the theme parks which promote the Tv shows.

• According to Miller this can be described as constant media synergy, wherein everythingwith in a franchise promotes and endorses other products with the umbrellaAccoridng to Hollywood a francise film is any film title that is a sequel, or a title that has one or more sequels following it.

• However there is an idea that Hollywood has been sufering from a case of sequelitis at term that refers to the increasing ratio of sequels. The term was coined in the mid 1990's by Hollywood trades

• Film scholar David Bordwell 2006 pointed out that sequels begin to account for 25% of domestic box office in 2003. However, what Bordwell is refering to are sequels generated by revenue alone and thus couldn't factor in the revenue generated by films that would later produce film franchises for example the films Bruce Almighty and Cheaper by the doxen which were later seqlised in 2007 and Evan Almighty and as Cheaper by the Dosen 2 in 2005.

• Sequels are considered as theatrical brand extenstions driving revenue beyond raw box office.

• Domestic Box office revenue is regarded as the single best predictor of all follow on supporting revenue.

• This includes foreign box office, domestic DVD, Toy merchandies, soundtrack and videogame revenues.

• The film industry market has started to rely more on the sequelised model.

• Media scholar Thomas Schatz claims that there have been over 100 "new hollywood film franchises".

• Furthermore these film franchises are bieng planned in one go for example New line executive Robert Shaye made the decision to produce the entire lord of the rings trilogy for the combined cost of $270 million.

• This business model may impact the business strategies of active franchises such as James Bond and Spider-man where the success' inheret in prsequalisation are likely to appeal to studie executives and where the risk that comes with producing films are lowered by the pre-sold elements i.e. a dedicated fan base that is inherent to a long-running film franchise.

The 4's franchise model - synergy, sequels, spectale,story

• Franchises such as Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park, Shrek, LOTR, Spider man and Pirates of the Caribbean follow these models to ensure success.

• All seven films have theme-park rides, video games, books and soundtracks under their brand umbrella.

 

• The importance of videogames should not be underestimated, they have generate enournmouse revenues and have become Hollywood's most important form of media cross-promotion with films.

 

• Sequelisation itself is a form of cross promotional media synergy.

 

• All the franchises above invest heavily into the development of their screenplays, wheter they are adaptations of books or presold properties or theme park rides.

 

• Majority of these megafranchises, present and then represent a "campbellian" hero's journey in a fairytale-like fashion -a simple yet effective and reduced narrative which is then intergrated into other synergistic media under the same brand.

 
 

• Schatz(1997)  - "film franchises such as Jurassic Park comprise a profitable product line and a cultural commodity whose form directly reflects the structure of the media industry at large."

 

• Producsts such as movies, videogames and theme park rides can be treated as related aspects of entertainment supertexts, multimedia narrative forms that can be expanded and exploited almost ad infinitum

• Spectacle and high production value does not simply attract and provide enjoyment to audiences, it increases the megafranchise's brand value and provides a robust "barrier to entry" to lower budget would be competition.

 
 

• Elements from theses films such as score and CGI can be imported directed by other media such as videogames.

 

• As important are the 4'Ss can be to Hollywood megafranchises,  simply using large does os the 4'Ss does not ensure success, there must be a glue which holds all the elements together.

 
Film/videogame convergance
 

• Media scholar Kristin Thompson - biggest videogame projects have acieved success becaues of their big franchise film licesnses e.g the Lego Star Wars games.

 

• Over 100 Star Wars games have been reloeased starting with The Empire Strikes Back (1982).

 

• Young gamers are being targeted by the media conglomerates in counterintuitive cross promotional maneuvers for example the Lego Star Wars partnership which is an effective way of getting children to interact with the Star Wars brand at an early age.

 

• The direct convergant repurposing of elements from film to videosgames only came into common practise in the mid 200s.

 
IMC implications
 

• IMC practitioners can beneift by observeing the ways in which successful megafranchises practice brand consistency accross multiple sequls and interations.

 

• They can also take not of the skill with which Hollywoodhas adopted the synergised model intiated by Star Wars.

 

• One may alrady observe the synergistic practises where in the case of nike the athletic shoe promotes the athletic shirt, that promotes the atheletic jacket and vice versa.

 

• Coca cola- soft drink>cooloer>T-shirt

 

• Harley Davidson - Key chain > Leather Jacket > motorcyle.

 

• The power of synergy is a force IMC practitioners have the opportunity to help design and unleash for clients in their respective marketplaces.