The Woman in Black - Researching a full marketing campaign

On the 12th of March 2012, 'The Woman in Black', a horror film starring Daniel Radcliffe, was released in the UK. Focusing on the horror genre of film, I have decided to look further into its marketing campaign to help me when creating components of my own campaign. 

The first case of marketing for this film began with the showing of the first trailer, on the 10th of April 2011 at 'Kapow!' Comic Con in London. Due to the fact that many people who go to Comic Con are interested in films, and possibly even franchises like Harry Potter (which Daniel Radcliffe starred in), this may intrigue them. Later that year, in July 2011, another trailer was advertised before showings of the final film in the Harry Potter series, 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2'. Again, with the finale of the series, 'The Woman in Black' may provide fans of Daniel Radcliffe to see him in a new film. This choice of advertisement means that a specific part of the target audience is addressed (which may result in more viewings when the film is released). One month later, on the 24th of August 2011, posters within the UK were released, and by the 14th of October the official UK trailer was released. Posters were displayed around the country from billboards to the sides of buses. The posters, with the blues and black colouring linked together with the trailers.

On the 14th of October 2012, Momentum pictures released an official International trailer, and even a new version of the already established book (which was written in 1983 by Susan Hill) was released with a brand new cover, featuring Daniel Radcliffe. Again, this attracts fans of Daniel Radcliffe and even Harry Potter fans.

Daniel Radcliffe also appeared on around 10 magazine covers during the campaign and was even invited to be on both The Jonathan Ross Show and The Graham Norton Show (which was a first within the film industry).

As well as this, a national competition was held for people to submit their own original ghost stories, from the 31st of October. A video was filmed, featuring Daniel Radcliffe again requesting the entries, for which the prize was that the winning entry would be read out by him on the special features of the DVD when it was released. This competition promoted the film virally, and the competition was unique to this films advertising campaign, setting it apart from other films of its genre. 

The fact that Daniel Radcliffe endorsed this campaign would have increased the interest in the film as his fan base is quite large. However, apart from this, the synergy throughout the campaign allows the advertisements to be viewed by many different types of people, right across the country and internationally. The website and Facebook pages also added to the advertisements across the internet, and overall, the campaign reached a lot of different demographics.

Looking at the full marketing campaign for 'The Woman in Black' has been very useful. Due to the fact that we will be creating a trailer for a film that focuses on a similar storyline (and not a slasher horror etc), the campaign for this film may provide us with some inspiration.