Submarine Marketing Campaign - Above-the-Line/ Below-the-Line

Above-the-line

Being a British film (and not featuring any Holloywood stars or financing), Submarine relies on it's indie style and qualities to attract a niche market of film fans. There was no international cinema release and due to a solely British market there was little Above-the-line advertising, other than a trailer.

Promotional Poster:



Link to film trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IVFfiv6wpY

Instead, Submarine relied on a lot of Below-the-line advertising due to being inexpensive and being more accessible to the target audience than through numerous trailers and merchandise like The Dark Knight Rises. The only star quality used to promote the film is the actor Ben Stiller, who had no involvement in the film other than an executive role and used his name to raise attention.

As opposed to The Dark Knight Rises, which could attract audiences through a marketing campaign, Submarine approached audiences via critical acclaim, and upon the film's release at local theatres its' award wins were used for promotional purposes.

Links to film reviews/ interviews:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/mar/17/submarine-review

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mEErpOlqgc

http://www.film.com/movies/sundance-interview-richard-ayoade-for-submarine

The Dark Knight Rises Marketing Campaign - Above-the-Line/ Below-the-Line

Above-the-Line advertising material for The Dark Knight Rises:

Due to the large budget of the film (financed by Warner Brothers, and a good percentage being spent on marketing), there is a lot of material such as posters and viral advertising to promote the film. Unlike 'Submarine', the producers can afford to take risks with advertising, and so an unusual campaign was used to spark interest and raise awareness of the film by word of mouth, similar to The Dark Knight - inviting followers over Social Networking site Twitter to post images they find of bat-signals scattered across the world.

Many teaser trailers and television advertisements could be afforded by the studio as well, so that as many people could be made aware of the film months in advance, whetting their appetites.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Below-the-line advertising:

 

As well as trailers and merchandise, a great deal of publicity came from reviews and press publicity involving the star talent to raise audience interest.

 

Links to online press interviews/reviews:

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/9396277/Christian-Bale-interview-The-Dark-Knight-Rises.html

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uTFuyks9fE

 

http://www.timeout.com/london/film/the-dark-knight-rises

 

http://www.totalfilm.com/reviews/cinema/the-dark-knight-rises

 

Due to the large-scale media coverage of the film, there were stories in the news which became associated with The Dark Knight Rises - in particular the Colorado Cinema Shooting at a late-night premiere of the film, showing a negative impact of below-the-line promotion.