synergy and CMC

 "Synergy and Cross-Media-Convergence are vital processes in the successful marketing of media products to audiences." To what extent do you agree with this statement in relation to your chosen media area?

I strongly agree that synergy and cross media convergence are vital processes in the successful marketing of media products to audiences. An example that showcases just how important these aspects can be for a company is Disney as a conglomerate, Disney has a major advantage especially after using horizontal integration to acquire Fox back in 2019. This means another connection amongst many other, Disney can use this connection to advertise as such on all the other platforms they now have control over, this means they can use this as an opportunity to collaborate to showcase whatever films Disney comes out with. An example of where Disney really excelled was where they released the film Frozen which was released in 2013, they made a worldwide gross of 1.3 billion dollars. This is due to the extensive amounts of cross media convergence that was attached to this film, with companies such as Mattel. Disney has also acquired companies such as ESPN, Marvel, Lucas Film as well as Touchstone pictures. This allows Disney to promote and advertise their films on multiple different platforms and channels. Disney also has Disney+, another means through which Disney promotes their films is through synergy with having theme parks located all over the world in countries such as Hong Kong and America, which also ties in which Disney's censorship with Asia as they try to accommodate them as they are the biggest film industry. 

A movie that was heavily promoted through synergy and cross media convergence is the remake of Lion King in 2019, they made a world wide gross of 1.7 billion dollars. This film was incredibly successful as it was a remake of a film that was already a very successful film, and on top of that it uses two very relevant singers, Donald Glover and Beyonce. These two artists also have a very large social media following on which they were able to promote this film on, the reach they could achieve is incredible with Beyonce having 200 million followers, being on the top 10 most followed Instagram accounts and Donald Glover having 4 million followers on Instagram. Especially with Beyonce being an A-list celebrity, her influence alone is plenty of promotion for the film. A few of their promotional strategies included partnering with the biggest fast food chain, McDonalds, they had partnered with them to create a toy that would be added in the happy meals. Another promotional partnership that highlighted the significance of synergy was their partnership with the very popular jewellery company, Pandora. They had worked together to create jewellery that represented the characters and such that were a part of this film. Major league baseball and major league soccer encouraged their fans to lift up their young ones out in the stadium during the game in the way that simba is lifted in the film, in order to have the chance of appearing on their "Simba-cam", appearing on the big screen. These are just a few to name, and they all get the audiences and general public thinking about the films release in the early stages and as well as actually going and watching this heavily promoted movie in the cinemas in general. Relating back to the cross media convergence they really used their ownership of a popular theme park, to their advantage by having Lion King themed scavenger hunts as well as performances of songs from the movie. 

Just to emphasise how important synergy and cross media convergence is, a film was made with a budget of only $60,000, yet they managed to gross in a worldwide amount of $250,000,000. This is entirely due to their promotional strategies using synergy and cross media convergence. Some ways this film was promoted was with "missing person" leaflets which were left around the city that were of the characters in the film. The aim of this marketing strategy was to really get the potential viewers to think about whether or not the footage in the film was real and if it was based of real life events, and this is what the marketing team suggested would get the film talked about and they were absolutely correct about that because people did infact get drawn in by this method and watched the movie just to see what all the talk was about. A website was made about the film, discussing what 'myths' were circling around about the movie, the website aims to make it so that the audiences think everything is real, really trying to draw in the people into the world of the film and extend it from the theatre into real life. This film was made in 1999 so the internet was not at its peak at this time, people were still figuring things out so having this website with footage taken from when they were filming, attaching it to witchery stories, the people were taken back by it all. 20 years later this film still haunts the internet after all its viral marketing, having being seen as one of the scariest horror movies ever made. The film-makers also manipulated the iMDB website so that when people click on the actors that played roles in the film it would come up with a notice saying that they were either dead or missing so this obviously was all a big viral marketing stunt and it worked out to promote the film to an extensive degree, with people actually believing and falling for some of their tactics. This truly highlights the importance of synergy and cross media convergence and proves that you don't have to have a massive budget and be part of the big 5 to be able to promote your movie successfully. The big 5 are conglomerates with subsidiaries, the Big 5 is made up of Disney, universal pictures, paramount pictures, warner bros and Columbia pictures. 

A film made in New Zealand is "what we do in the shadows", and this was was made in 2014 with a budget of $1.6 million, they grossed in a worldwide amount of $7.2 million. This film was heavily promoted in NZ with means that would include the involvement of the public with having a dating website with the vampire characters. This really brings in the audience into the actua.  world of the film, which also increases the films verisimilitude disregarding how unrealistic the film actually is, this adds a bit of believability regardless. Another way this film was promoted was by having the wellington sign changed to Vellington, they also had the actors from the movie, got them to dress up and had them be in the theatres that the film was playing in, surprising the people who were watching the movie. This all gets the movie both talked about and has the people who were avidly part of these experiences with the cast, to be more excited about the movie having many of them post about it as they would take pictures with the cast and put that up to show everyone which is giving free promotion for the movie anyways.