By Catherine May

How are national and local audiences targeted by international and global

institutions

Traditionally, Sherlock Holmes is an iconic British institution with one baggage; such as wet Sunday afternoons and black and white filming.

The original

In order to provide the new film with credibility, it was directed by the British Director Guy Ritchie.

The script was also inspired by the original books in order to ensure the film was authentic.

The famous USA star Robert Downy Jnr was casted as a main part, as this would be appealing and therefore very successful to the large American audience. Jude Law; the iconic British star was also casted as a main part, in order to ensure it appealed strongly to the British audience as well.

Bringing it to a new generation

Before bond then came Sherlock.

There are many similarities between the two iconic British franchises:

-Witty-Unconventional-Familiar but exciting-Action Adventures-Blockbusters

Positioning

Modernity – Fashion, gadgets and many other factors.

Confidence – Brave and iconic fearless characters who give direct eye contact in all promotional posters and trailers.

Heritage – Old English traditional places and stereotypes.

Communication Strategies

The first TV advertisement to the film was for an online game. This brought players together online to work as Sherlock and Watson, enduring clue solving and many other iconic Sherlock Holmes actions.

This was the audiences first exposure to the film.(www.221B.SH)

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Warner Bro’s also ensured and paid for the film trailer to be played in the X factor, I’m a celebrity and champions league finals in the UK to ensure that the large specific British audience had awareness of the film’s release.

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The film also produced a high premier outdoor campaign with spectacular digital designs, on major sites such as the Westfield shopping site, Piccadilly Circus and heritage London posters near underground stations. This is because these are areas that are most popular and iconic to London and therefore a large amount of attention and attraction from many people was given to the campaigns.

Iconic London imagery was also placed in unmissable print placements such as double spread pages in multiple newspapers.

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In Baker Street tube station which is famously iconic for Sherlock Holmes, for promotion bespoke wall tile vinyl's were juxtaposed with old heritage Sherlock posters in order to forewarn people and create awareness that a new one was coming.

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Madame Tussades created a wax work figure of Robert Downey Jnr as Sherlock and placed it accompanied in the tube station. This created a large amount of publicity from sites such as MSN, BBC News and the Daily mail.

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The Guardian created a Sherlock audio walk, which included podcasts and maps available to download to guide people round london to places that Sherlock iconic to visit.

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The average awareness of a film is around 10% of people six weeks before it is released. However, due to all it’s promotional efforts Sherlock Holmes had an astonishing 45% audience awareness six weeks before it was released.

Once the film has been released (week 0), audience awareness is on average about 30%. Sherlock Holmes however was 80%.

Audience awareness

Sherlock Holmes had passed Box Office’s target of £15m by 73% by its third week of release.

By week eight, the film had produced a total of £26m.

In comparison to similar films such as Robin Hood which produced £15.4m, this film was a huge success.

Box office

Produced by Warner Bros.Warner Bros own VUE cinemas; therefore no

payment had to be made to present their films in VUE cinemas reducing costs of release dramatically.

Warner Bros also have ownership on many aspects, such as their own DVD manufacturers, which also reduced production costs on a large scale.

Media Ownership

The release of the film sprawled many Sherlock related media such as:

-Sherlock the TV series on BBC 1-Novels in both Britain and America

inspired by the story plot.-American TV programmes

21st Century