Cinema policy: Marketing, production menagement

Marketing in Film Distribution

Although it has always been present on the market, art has attracted surprisingly little attention where economic theoreticians are concerned, with the exception of the elite performing and visual arts. However, today, economists and artists have to acknowledge the fact that the past and the future of civilisation rely on the intertwinement of marketing and culture and thus strive to cooperate allowing for their respective differences. Marketing, a relatively young scientific discipline might be of great help to their efforts. In the fifty years of its existence marketing has spread over many complex and diverse fields. Particularities of the most delicate field — art, film included, have been neglected so that there is great need for specialisation and modification of this branch of marketing. Development of a theoretical system that would allow creation of effective marketing strategies applicable in culture, art, and cinema in particular, would help improve the devastating state in which imaginativeness is today.

The most obvious example of the unavoidability of the connection between artists and economists is the most complex art form — film. Its organisational, technological and financial demands have conditioned its market orientation. In film production representatives of both worlds and worldviews coexist, although often forcibly, according to specific rules coined in practice. More than any other art form film is a social phenomenon, partly due to its technological and artistic demands, partly due to its influence on society. Marketing is one of its constituting components and coordinates the interests of filmmakers with those of the society on the whole. Improving communication between all the inputs and the participants of the exchange, marketing can fill the gap between a film’s idea, its realization (output) and its presentation on the market. In short, basic goals of modern marketing are coordination, communication and exchange.

However, any sort of mechanical implementation of marketing principles could be quite harmful. Vulgar commercialisation of film art destroys the identity of the author and undermines the aesthetic and ethical value of film along with the viewers’ taste, which is definitely not in the interest of marketing. The goal of marketing is to expose the author and his work to the wide public, however, it is not to encourage the production of works wide public expects or asks for. In other words, the goal is not to adapt the movies to the viewers but to find the right group of viewers for different types of films. Trying to achieve anything else could only be harmful, if not futile.

In Croatia today, cinema attendance rates are extremely low; viewers are uninformed while at the same time there are very few new films. Film production is entirely dependent on the state funding and completely disoriented. Additional financial sources are non-existent, distribution is passive, cinemas mostly devastated, and other techniques of film projection backwards. Links between the three branches of cinematography are broken or weakened by counterproductive conflicts, and no effort is made to bring them together. However, if we choose to accept modern international market-orientation of film production, as well as study and apply some of the most successful world experiences, many of which have been mentioned in this essay, it might be possible to overturn this devastating situation.
The awareness of the interdependence of the three branches of cinema is of crucial importance for the salvation of cinematography on the whole. One has to accept the fact that in order to make progress in any art field one has to create a foundation, in other words, create a market. Without the market, i. e. without films and viewers, offer and demand, cinema cannot develop. Cinema is as good as its weakest link, i. e. part of the film distribution channel that consists of producers, distributors, projectionists and consumers.

Without the viewers there is no distribution and projections, and without these two film productions is a waste of time. Encouraging cinema viewing can be an impetus for the development of cinematography in general. Investments in building and modernization of cinemas are the first step. Next is the intensification of film production, its diversification, which would eventually result in specialised film markets directed towards smaller audiences. Otherwise, there will be no audience even for the biggest blockbusters, as is the case in Croatia today.

The positive effects of marketing can be observed on several examples from the USA and some Western European countries, like France. Their markets are picking up, production is flourishing, but we are not in position to see all their new films due to our underdeveloped distribution network and cinemas.
Distributors’ basic functions, as are those of any mediator, are to assume the responsibility and reduce risk (and indirectly prices), as well as to organise and stimulate development in general. Film distribution should be the moving force of the revival of Croatian cinema.

Distribution is the only branch of cinema that is in contact with all other members of the film distribution channel while at the same time being wholesome on its own. It manages all the elements of the marketing mix, decides on the product, price, distribution and promotion. Its activities include the financing of production, reselling and marketing of films to other distributors and/or projectionists, and finally, informing the consumers and directing their choices.

Damir Primorac