Research Methodology

Research Design

Film promotion today is one of the most important elements of film industry especially at the release and post-release stages. In order to find the best solutions for the Russian film industry, the importance and effectiveness of film promotional campaigns will be described and analysed based on previous studies. In addition, primary research will be utilised in order to highlight the main hypothesis of the dissertation. The dissertation will be based on using a combination of primary and secondary data. Interviews and questionnaires will provide qualitative data about the dissertation topic, while secondary research will be used to describe quantitative aspects so that the ideas become clear and constructive. This combination of research methods will be used to achieve the research objectives and to test the hypothesis of the dissertation. Below is the choice of methods which will be explained based on the research method literature.

Secondary data will be taken from available sources and will provide the theoretical part of the research. Primary research will be used to identify, describe and examine the film markets of the USA and Russia by an overview of promotional tools and strategies that are used in both countries. The main aim of the analysis of primary research data is to find some of the most profitable release and post-release strategies which could benefit the Russian film industry. Primary research will be based on a combination of interviews and questionnaires. It is necessary to obtain and analyse not only the secondary data for film promotion but also the primary data which will reflect the opinions of professionals within the film industry in both countries. Primary data will be also used to gather the views of the audience about the research question and its objectives. Few interviews will be insufficient to answer the central research question and, for this reason, mainly questionnaires will be used to monitor the opinions of large number of moviegoers, who are the target audience for film promotion companies.

Research Approach

The deductive approach has been chosen as research approach for the purposes of this dissertation. A theory and a hypothesis have been developed based on the theoretical background which has been researched from primary and secondary sources.

From the data and information, which will be presented after the analysis based on the questionnaires and interviews, conclusions will be drawn to compare the points of view of customers and filmmakers in order to find the most profitable release and post-release strategies in film promotion between two countries. Secondary data will give an overview of promotional tools and strategies, providing examples of US promotion practices and also give a review of Russian film promotion. Data will be compared in different ways and conclusions will be drawn on release and post-release promotional strategies for the two countries with a view to highlight those that can benefit profitably the Russian film industry.

After analysing all the available data a final conclusion will be drawn in support of the central hypothesis.

Research Strategy

It can be argued that the case study is one of the best ways to explore existing theories through questionnaires, observation, interviews and documentary analyses (Lewis et al., 2003). The survey strategy to collect data seems especially well suited to achieve the objectives of this dissertation. See explanations for reasons of choice under 3.2.

Data Collection

According to Lewis et al. (2009) primary data is collected by using questionnaires and interviews for getting as much relevant practical information as possible. The questionnaires will help to clarify the differences between American and Russian consumer choices and also help to highlight effective film promotion strategies between the two countries. The interview questions will be sent to two representatives of the American and Russian film industries respectively. The questionnaires will be interpreted by using logical and descriptive statistics based on age, gender and level of urbanisation of population which will be analysed quantitatively. As was mentioned in the Literature Review part of the dissertation, the Internet plays a huge role in film promotion and because of this questionnaires will be posted on the most popular websites used by moviegoers. These questionnaires will be available for all websites’ visitors without any limitations.

Interviews

Interviews will be conducted by e-mail and via Skype and they are based on standardised open-ended questions (Appendix 2). The reason for doing this is that film promotion strategies are different in both countries therefore open-ended questions provide more descriptive information about the main research objectives. Two interviewees have been selected, one American and one Russian. Due to their busy schedules interview questions will be sent by email or asked via Skype. Both interviewees have extensive experience in film promotion. The information received from them will describe the research question and the hypothesis of the dissertation from professional point of view. More attention will be paid to the comparative analysis of US and Russian release and post-release strategies according to the hypothesis. The two experts are Karina Mejia from the USA, who has been the head of 20^th Century Fox Promotional Department for more than twenty years. The other expert is Sergei Shanovich, who has his own film promotion company in Russia called Shan Design, which main function is to distribute Russian films in Russia and abroad. The questions for the interviews will be standardised and open-ended in order to get a detailed picture of the two countries’ film promotion industry which is central for the hypothesis of this current work. They could provide valuable information not presently available in the secondary literature based on their own personal opinions and work experience. In addition it is an excellent opportunity for the author to talk with such extensive film industry experience.

Questionnaires

The quantitative part of the research, which is based on online questionnaires, will be available for one hundred regular moviegoers who, due to their interest in films and the film industry at large, will also be regular followers of film premiers and promotional activities (Appendix 3). The questionnaires will be posted on popular American and Russian websites which are IMDb.com and Kinopoisk.ru. All visitors of these sites will have an opportunity to answer the questionnaires. These will be available 24 hours a day, each of the respondents can answer once only and the results will be anonymous. The questionnaires will be withdrawn from the side once one hundred people submitted their responses. For getting responses the use of online questionnaires is preferred. Questions will be a mixture of open and closed types and will include some free choice and rating questions, which will show how respondents agree or disagree with the given statements. After the questionnaire respondents will be invited to express their views on the questions if they choose. The survey will be available for all Internet users in Russia and the USA. Analysis of the whole population could be difficult, ambiguous and costly therefore a quota sampling method will be chosen. Quota variables will be collected based on the Russian and the American population by gender, age and urbanisation level. Population will be divided into two main groups; American and Russian moviegoers. These moviegoers will be divided by gender, age, using the following categories 12 to 17, 18 to 24, 25 to 34, 35 to 44, 45 to 54 and older than 54. Urbanisation level means the distinction between place of residence, for example cities, villages or hamlets and other localities. These variables are important because they demonstrate the differences in the perceptions of film promotion campaigns. Quota sampling is a non-random sampling method used for sampling large populations. The reason for choosing this method is that it is quick and economic and also has the same distribution of characteristics as the population (Lewis et al., 2009). It is important to take into account audience opinion when film promotion strategies are discussed. Consumers are the most powerful market forces who can determine success from failure therefore their opinions are paramount. The data received from moviegoers will be compared to and contrasted with the opinions of the professionals.

Secondary Sources

Secondary research will also be provided and presented through data which was taken from freely available resources because there is no confidential information contained in the dissertation. That means that the author has full access to secondary data. Secondary data will be collected from printed books, e-books, journals, online journals, websites and online databases, such as EBSCO and SAGE. These sources will provide appropriate information about the strength and weaknesses of the US and Russian film industries. Data from secondary sources will also provide useful information for the design of the questionnaires and interviews (Lewis et al., 2009). Secondary data will be collected, analysed and integrated to underpin the theory and practical examples which will be presented to illustrate and support the hypothesis of the dissertation. All the information that will be found from the secondary data will complement primary research findings and provide good examples which can be used to help make the Russian film industry far more profitable. To understand the status quo in both countries is the initial step to explore all available information about film promotion but it is not comprehensive enough to make obvious conclusions.

After collecting both qualitative and quantitative data they will be compared with each other to show the difference of opinions between the audience and the professionals. Audience’s point of view will clearly show main promotional tools and strategies which are interesting for them, while professional’s point of view will describe how it could be applied and how it is used by promoters in both countries. Also these data will provide information about main differences among promotional strategies of two countries. The results of the American survey will show the promotional tools that are more widely used there by some film promotion companies than by others, while Russian survey will show the types of promotional tools people want to see and those which could specifically benefit the Russian film industry in order to make it more profitable that it is today.

Methodology of Evaluation

The interviews will be based on self-selection sampling in order to collect vital and unique data from specialists who will take part in the research. Clear structure of interview questions will help easy analysis of the interviews. All the answers will be analysed individually. The results will be evaluated by Microsoft Office Word because there will be very little statistical information, since answers are related to the perceptions, experience, skills and opinions of the interviewees.

The questionnaires will contain open-ended and closed questions as well as questions about ratings, thereby giving the audience the freedom of choice in the answers which will be simple to analyse quantitatively. All the data to be received from online questionnaires will be analysed using Microsoft Office Excel to give an accurate evaluation of all statistical information. Sums, averages and percentages will be calculated by using the same computer software in order to avoid mistakes. The elements of the questionnaires will be analysed separately to show a detailed picture about views and perceptions of all surveyed. Microsoft Office Word will be used to show statistical information through illustrations, such as tables and diagrams. All the illustrations will be presented in the text where necessary as well as in the Appendix part of the dissertation.

Validity and Reliability

One of the most important limitations of collecting information for interviews is the tight timeframe of completion. The interviewees will have a time limit for answering questions. Since the interviews are not face-to-face, the author will get only limited information with regards to the research question and its objectives. Face-to-face interviews would convey more useful information not only verbally but also through non-verbal communication. Moreover, conducting only two interviews with two film professionals is not sufficient enough to gain thorough understanding of the research objectives.

Questionnaires have also their limitations, such as limited time and the fact that it is an online questionnaire. Another limitation of the research is that quota sampling is not a type of random sampling but it is used to sample large populations without giving 100% accuracy. The main purpose of using this method of sampling is to get information quickly and economically. Also questionnaires will be available through the Internet using popular film websites; therefore it is not representative of the population as a whole. Questionnaires and interviews will be made available in two languages English and Russian and information will be collated accordingly.

In order to avoid some of the limitations which are listed above different techniques will be applied, such as follow up questions via Skype or distribution of additional questions to some of the respondents. To prepare good questionnaires and interviews a draft questionnaire will be first composed and tested with the supervisor and native speakers of both languages, English and Russian. The final version of the questionnaires will be received by four people, who will be asked to evaluate the questions for clarity.

For online questionnaires there will be an additional field available where respondents may invite anyone they choose to participate in the survey. It is a kind of snowball sampling which can positively affect the final results. There are some limitations which will be hard to avoid but all efforts will be made to minimize their effects. The questionnaires were completed by two hundred American participants, while only a hundred people responded from Russia. To create a balance between the American and Russian results the same number of American answers were used by not considering any answers after the first hundred.

It is not possible to evaluate the reliability of the whole research process. Participant bias or errors could take place but the structured manner of interviews and questionnaires will help avoid these problems. The importance of film promotion could be viewed differently by respondents because of their lack of experience with the film industry. Respondents will not be under any pressure to fill in the questionnaires, they could answer freely and tell what they think. All the answers will be scrutinised and conclusions will be drawn to evaluate all opinions. To prevent any bias in the evaluation results will be compared to secondary sources.

Data Analysis

This part of the dissertation will be presented in two chapters which will describe the American and Russian film industries through secondary data, surveys and questionnaires the results of which will be used to confirm the hypothesis. The American film marketing and promotion industry is stronger than Russian and the main aim of data analysis part is to find release and post-release promotion strategies of American film industry which could be adopted by Russian promoters to make their film industry far more successful and profitable.

Several professional film critics took part in both surveys and Russian Internet critic, Eugene Bazhenov, who has his own YouTube show named BadComedian, and Ray William Johnson, who is the creator of the famous YouTube show named “=3” and director of Riley Rewind film, sent their responses to the author via email and their opinions will also be presented in the survey results.

In addition, interview results of American research will be supplemented by short interview with J.J. Abrams, director, screenwriter and producer of Lost, Star Trek, and Star Wars: Episode VII and many other famous films. The Russian part of the research will be supplemented by interview results from Dmitry Puchkov, professional film translator, voice actor, Internet blogger, writer, journalist, screenwriter, publicist, and film critic as well as one of the ministers of the Russian Ministry of Culture, who has been working in Russian film industry since 1990. These additional interviews, which were done in informally, will give more detailed information about the research topic.

The American Film Promotion

Secondary Research

According to Kerrigan (2010) the American film industry is the most powerful domestic business in the US and all over the world. It total box office has more than $6 billion. It is one of the most profitable and successful industries on the American market. To become a successful industry it is necessary to attract wide audience that will spend their money to see new films. Almost all film studios spent their budgets to make attractive and interesting marketing and promotional campaigns. The most popular and profitable promotion strategies are release and post-release. Pre-release strategies, which include pre-screening, are not widely used by film distributors because it could give not enough audience’s opinions about new film and it also expensive way to promote new films.

Release strategies, nowadays, is the most important way to promote new films (Marich, 2013). It includes well-known tools for every moviegoer, such as posters, trailers, Internet advertising and other forms of promotion. According to Screenvillie (2009) approximately 90% of moviegoers in the USA pay attention on these tools when they decided to see new films or not. In this fast developing world mostly all audience use the Internet for their decision-making processes and film promoters should use this promotional tool as frequent as possible. Word-of-mouth technique also plays one of the most widely used techniques in film promotion and its importance should not be underestimated.

The post-release strategies, which include sales after film’s release, such as DVDs, Blu-rays and merchandise, also became widely used tools to make films far more profitable even after showing particular film in cinemas (Rennhoff and Wilbur, 2011). According to Gong et al. (2012) a film’s total box office success will be the basis for deciding whether or not make sequel. Some promotion and distribution companies prepare and sell merchandise to increase the film’s attractiveness and create fans (Elliott and Simmons, 2011). One of the best examples could be Comic-Con which attracts more than a million people every year for a thematic exhibition in San Diego, USA. Here moviegoers and fans could buy or even sell their collections which are relevant for particular films, such as Star Wars, Hunger Games, Star Trek and many others.

To understand American film promotion and film industry as a whole it is necessary to look at the most profitable and financially successful films of 2013. According to Box Office Mojo (2014) among all American films The Hunger Games: Catching Fire earned more than $424 million domestically (40.1%) and more than $439 million in foreign countries (50.9%). Lionsgate spent more than $50 million on its release and post-release promotion campaigns. Iron Man 3 by Marvel earned approximately $409 million domestically and more than $806 million internationally and became more profitable than Hunger Games. Buena Vista spends approximately $90 million on its promotion campaign and earned more than $1.2 billion. Moreover, both films have big fan communities and its merchandise can be found worldwide. Number three in the list of 685 films made in 2013 is Frozen, whose domestic earnings were approximately $400 million and foreign earnings were more than $713 million. As could be noticed all these films earned more money worldwide than domestically. For comparison, the film named Storage 24 earned just $75 domestically and absolutely nothing in foreign countries. It had no promotion campaign at all because Magnolia studio has no marketing department.

According to The Numbers (2014) of top-selling DVDs, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 2 took first place and approximately five million copies of this film were sold with earnings of an additional $72 million. Number two, Despicable Me 2, sold more than 4.5 million copies and earned $77 million worldwide and number three, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey sold three million copies and earned $40 million. Sale of Blu-rays of all the films shows a similar result. All these films were in top-10 box office list and they earned additional money by being sold DVDs and Blu-rays and that does not include the sale of merchandise that earned additional profit.

Survey Results

The purpose of the survey was to identify the most popular release and post-release strategies in the film promotion among moviegoers. The questionnaire was posted on the most popular website for moviegoers in the USA named IMDb.com. One hundred people completed it, some of them wrote interesting comments and Ray William Johnson, creator and host of popular show “=3” on YouTube, also gave the author additional information relevant to the survey.

55% of the responses came from men and 45% from women. Among them 8% is between 12-17 years, 26% is between 18-24 years, 25% between 25-34 years, 16% between 35-44 years, 14% between 45-54 years and 11% who were over 54. 83% of these participants live in big cities, such as New York, Los Angeles and San Diego, 11% in small towns, for example Springfield, Hampton and Lancaster and only 6% in villages which are located near cities and towns, for example Oakland, Lincoln and Lakewood.

Chart 1. Gender distribution of the survey (USA) Chart 2. Age distribution of the survey (USA)

46% of people who answered said that they saw from one to two domestic films in the last three months, 31% that they saw three to five films and 23% wrote that they saw more than six films. On average people prefer to see films in cinemas or at home.

35% of the audience thinks that film marketing in the USA is weak and people do not pay attention to film promotional campaigns. 55% disagree with this and 10% are neutral.

Actors and actresses attract 19% viewers and directors only 16%. Interesting storylines attract 30%, trailers 35%. These numbers show the importance of film promotion at the release stage.

The most common way to find information about new films among American moviegoers is the Internet, voted by 45%, posters and cinema trailers voted by 23%, magazines and journals voted by 19% and TV adverts voted by 13%.

Chart 3. Common ways to find information about new films among moviegoers (USA)

From proposed promotion tools 41% voted for word-of-mouth, 32% for social media, 18% for television, 5% for radio and 4% for posters and billboards. Many people responded that film reviews and print affects them most.

90% buy DVDs and Blu-rays of films which are of interest. Among these 85% were over 25. Those who do not buy DVDs and Blu-rays 83% were under 24.

81% of people who were watching films on the Internet 86% were 24 years. 19% of the American respondents do not watch films on the Internet.

27% buy merchandise associated with films, while 73% do not. Some over 30 with families say they buy merchandise related to films for their children. For example, a woman from Kensington bought more than nine hundred figurines associated with The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Many agreed (97%) that they enjoy taking part in competitions for different film promotion activities. Ones disagreeing with this were over 45.

Ray William Johnson volunteered a lot of comments not all of which are relevant to the dissertation. He is 25 years old and lives in New York and watches 3 - 4 films in three months. As an Internet critic he thinks that the Internet represents the future in advertisement. His own show on YouTube has more than 7 million viewings and his film, also shown on the Internet, had 10 million viewings with no other advertisement. Variety magazine named his film the most successful Internet film in 2013.

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