The mobile phone is a great way for companies to get their advertising out to potential customers, as it is advertising ‘on the go,’ so no matter where they travel companies can always get their message out to their target audience. Nearly every teenager today has a mobile phone and most can access apps and social media on it, which is why companies, like Universal, are trying to use this to their advantage. After all, I would expect their target audience for this movie to be teenagers, so it looks like a great tactic!
Universal has done this with the release of ‘Snow White and the Huntsman.’ They run their ads within Pandora, a musical app. The ads that they have created incorporate links to their social media pages on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. This is a great move to further their reach. Getting their audience onto social media helps to interact with them and find out what they think about different subjects whilst also sending out information such as trailers and upcoming events. Universal can build a two-way deeper relationship with their audience, as well as raise awareness. After all, one in three people go to see a movie in a theatre, because of something they read on a social network.
The Universal Pictures ad features characters from the movie and encourages consumers to buy tickets for it via their mobile device. This is great because as soon as they click on this or the social media sites they are given so much information and most importantly how they buy tickets and go see the movie.
Even after the company has used these tactics and persuaded everyone to go see the movie, it doesn’t stop there. People use social media whilst they are in the movie theatre, checking it seems to have become an addiction. In a study around 11% of people said they do this, which in turn helps advertisers because they are sending more information out to all their friends and followers and the cycle continues.
Over the past decade, the mobile device has gotten much more complex and even now, it still continues to be an emerging advertising market with enormous potential, which is still far from being realized. How do you think it compares to the laptop in regard to giving out and receiving information from social media? Do you think it will change in the next 10 years?
The Film industry and social media 
I think mobile phones are becoming increasingly more prevalent than the laptop. While the laptop is useful for a wider range of functions, such as writing papers and doing research, the cell phone can practically perform all of the same functions. It becomes a normality for people to constantly be checking their social media accounts while doing other tasks like watching TV, hanging out with friends, or even in the classroom. I think phones are such a great way for marketers to target consumers because we’re constantly on them. Like you touched on, we’re even checking our profiles while we’re watching a movie in the theater. They’ve become such a huge part of our daily lives that I think in 10 years they could become superior over the laptop.
This is the direction that all companies should be headed towards, putting time and money towards advertising on social and mobile platforms. When an advertisement pops up on your tv you can change the channel. You could even leave the room, but when an ad comes up in an app or on your phone you are forced to look at it. Most people won’t put their phone down and leave just till the advertisements done. Making it easy to purchase tickets from your mobile device through the advertisement is a good idea to. If some one wants to buy it they can do it impulsively.
The consistent accessibility of mobile devices is really revolutionary for all industries, and I can definitely see how greatly it can impact the film industry. They’re definitely taking over the laptop, because laptops, yes are better for larger amounts of work such as typing essays, but when it comes to daily viral interaction the smart phone is really all an individual of 2014 needs. It’s pretty cool to use mobile device apps to promote videos as well as allowing any type of purchase to be completed via your mobile device, wherever and whenever you please. Yay for the future (:
I had no idea that one in three people go to see a movie in a theatre because of something they read on a social media network. Universal’s method to reaching out to its audience is the direction that all companies externally as well as internally will need to do for good communication. With analysis of their target audience tucked under their arm, Universal made the right decision that to reach out to their younger aged audience they would need to meet them where they were. With the crazy increase in technology most pre-teens and teens have phones with the “necessary” apps (i.e. Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, etc.). Linking the movie and ticket information to these social sites increases the likelihood of these individuals seeing the movie.