The Lord of the Rings analysis of marketing.

Benjamin Woollan 10Br

English Media.

The first time I was aware of the Lord of the rings was when I saw a trailer for the film back in the 29th of October 2001 whilst watching “Legally Blonde.” All though this was the first time I saw a trailer I have been told that teaser trailer have been running since November 2000 one year before the release date. The placing of this trailer also tells me of the kind of audience there campaign will be concentrating on as Legally Blonde is very much aimed at the teenage audience.

The lord of the rings got a lot of radio and television coverage with short dialogs being aired on a local radio show power fm. Television adverts for toys have become more and more frequent being aired around 5:30 p.m (see LORT tracking sheet). Where most of the teenage television is showed. Also adverts for the actual film itself. I first saw and heard these adverts at the end of October and beginning of November right through to the present day. Sticker books where released in the shops on the 20th of November (see source one). In addition, the whole cast of the lord of the rings where on several mourning television shows for children. One such being SM: TV live where the whole cast was on the show for the whole mourning. Bus adverts of the main poster were being published issued to the bus shelters and buses and the public started seeing them ten days before the release of the film. The Sunday times did a whole magazine on an insight to middle earth this was free in the paper release on the 9th of December (see source?).

The premiere of the film was on 9th December 2001. It was held in London where all of the stars of the film were present. In addition, the premiere was widely covered by the world’s press and included well known celebrities such as Graham Norton (see source 3 to?).

The day after the premier of the film there was a reference to lord of the rings on every paper and at least a two page article on the film

All film’s are sold on something whether it is the stars the director or its genre like the lord ...

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The day after the premier of the film there was a reference to lord of the rings on every paper and at least a two page article on the film

All film’s are sold on something whether it is the stars the director or its genre like the lord of the rings. The lord of the rings came with a big fan base all ready, as the book was such a success. The marketing team had to get the people had not read the books to see the film aswell. The thing that gets most films its publicity is word of mouth.

Publicity materials and posters are found in most daily newspapers and film magazines such as empire. Posters are found on the back of the radio times and in most teenage magazines. Popcorn cartoons also have pictures of the characters and pictures of the ring. There are big standees in the front of the cinemas.

The positioning of the publicity suggests that they are targeting the campaign at the 9 to 15 year olds as they have included trailers in such films, which are widely seen by a teenage and younger audience. Television advertisements were put after well known children’s programmes.

W.H. Smith was running a promotion with the Daily Mirror. If you collected tokens from the paper, you could receive a free video from the shop, which was a video about the making of the film, which included interviews with the actors and behind the scenes footage. (see source?) Radio 1 was running a competition where you could win the sword used by Strider in the film. The newspapers covered the premiere and world launch very well, including magazines giving you an insight into Middle Earth. The Sun newspaper gave you the chance to go to the premiere if you collected tokens and sent them into the competition address. Free posters were in The Sunday Times along with a magazine (see sources?).

Peter Jackson took on a huge task by converting this epic novel into a piece of film history. He did this by splitting the book into three sections, making three films, which he made all at one time, taking 18 months to film. For this film to make money, it needed good publicity, but even more important was word of mouth. The book has a large fan base, which needed a huge amount of effort to be convinced that the film has done the original fantasy novel justice and spreading good word of mouth. The loyal fans of the book since they have heard the word that the book is being filmed have been logged onto the Tolkien website where any rumour is spread across Britain and through the world weather the producers of the film like it or not. This overall concluded my analysis of the lord of the rings marketing as no matter how hard the marketing team of any film tries as soon as the film has been seen or that a rumour has been heard they can not do anything to stop it coming out.