Evaluation question two- How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Our film campaign consisted of a magazine, a poster and a teaser trailer, all of which

effectively promote our film ‘Ivy’. All 3 of the products are succefull at capturing the genre of

our film; crime thriller and giving across our ‘who dunnit’, mysterious style plot.

Before creating our own promotional package, we carried out research onto other campaigns.

For example, I looked at the Gone Girl campaign and found that there was many similarities between the products used (trailer, magazine cover, posters and websites). This included a similar naturalistic colours scheme (blues, greens, white and yellows), it also used a similar font throughout ( a very simple font. It also uses the idea of a sun setting over water in a lot of its products- this imagery will be very memorable and enables viewers to distinguish between this film and others. The magazine is actually very different to the rest of the campaign, however sticks to a similar green and blue (medical looking) colour scheme and heavily features the protagonist.

I also looked at the film prisoners promotional package. I noticed a continuing theme of the idea of a maze. Used in both the trailer and the posters. They also used a very dark colour scheme and all of the products were very clearly linked and focused on the star used in the film (Hugh Jackman- usp).

Looking at examples of other promotional packages was very useful as it gave us an idea of how we can link our products together to make a succefull and effective brand identity that will be memorable for audiences and overall make them want to see this film.

Brand identity

!   Definition: The visible elements of a brand (such as colors, design, logotype, name, symbol) that together identify and distinguish the brand in the consumers' mind.

!   Why is it important? A brand name helps an organisation differentiate themselves from its competitors. In today's competitive world customers expect products to have branding. it allows a relationship to be built with the brand. some people will only purchase a particular brand even though there are acceptable alternatives on the market (such as apple)

POLAROIDS The main aspect of our overall brand identity is the polaroid’s. Our campaign centers around this idea, of polaroid's being used as clues etc.. Clearly linking it to the crime thriller genre. This theme is kept consistent throughout, which is one reason why our main product and ancillary texts are so effective as a campaign. People can easily recognize that they are linked, and the polaroid symbol gives them something to remember and link back to. However, it wasn’t just this aspect that linked our products together and created out brand identity…

The missing and stalking theme’s

The main theme of this film is someone going missing and being stalked. It is most clear in the trailer as you see clips of the man stalking the girl and taking pictures of her and you see missing posters. For the magazine, we the polaroids which link to the clues of finding the girl and that the man stalks her by taking the pictures. She is also hiding behing the tree, looking worried, which hints to the fact she is missing and scared. The poster is less clear, however put across the polaroid feature, it is more mysterious and doesn’t give much away. It simply leaves people wondering who this Ivy girl is.

FONT This another important aspect that we aimed to keep consistent throughout our campaign. The font we used was called ‘Helvetica Neue’ We used it in both our trailer and our poster and we even used it in our magazine, however it was drawn as we drew our cover by hand. Although its simplistic, its also recognizable and draws more attention to the actual word. It is also suited to our audience as its not all ‘fun’ looking, its serious. Which will appeal to these young adults.

Colour We kept to a very dark colour scheme to symbolise the mystery and dark side to the film. We used a simple black and white colour scheme on the ancillary products- connotating evil and innocence and creating enigma. We used very dark effects in the trailer to create mystery, darkness and hide identities (crime genre link). Therefore they all link together in this way- giving our brand a very dark and sinister look to it.

As our target market are slightly older, 18-24, they don’t need bright colours to encourage them to watch it like a younger audience would. They can be drawn in simply by the mystery of the products. Its also gender neutral- it can appeal to either.

IVY- the protagonist All of our products heavily feature around the protagonist, ivy. As does the actual title of the film. She is the main focus on all of the products and so therefore this makes her face easily recognizable, meaning it gives the film an actual face to the name. She is an appealing character to our target audience as she is a very typical teenage girl, around a similar age to them. Therefore they can relate to her easy and sympathize with her- this makes the fact that she is heavily featured even more effective.

She isn't quite giving direct address in either of the products- creating either more mystery as to what she is looking at!!!

Points of views

One of our USP’s is that this film follows the viewpoints other 4 different characters during the case of Ivy going missing. We see the fathers grief, the sinister side to the villain, the struggle for the detective and the fear of the protagonist- Ivy. In the trailer this was put across by featuring all four of the characters and hinting towards their emotions and roles. It was shown in the magazine cover as each of the polaroids featured their face. However, I feel we didn’t capture this aspect as well as we could of (particularly in the poster). It should have been exaggerated more in the trailer (such as showing each character in sections instead of all muddled up). We could have incorporated a tag line in the poster also which made this aspect clear.