Our Client Brief Response - P2.

Client Brief
Brand Statement =
- Trespass is a horror movie that aims to portray ideas of total isolation and inexplicable fear, this therefore makes our movie a psychological horror, due to it being set in a mental asylum, mental health issues will be tackled in the movie.

Overview of Background and Objectives =
- We aim to create a cinematic experience that enthrals the audience and provides entertainment for them throughout the duration of the movie. This will be done by raising awareness for our movie so that people will be willing to watch it. The more awareness we raise, the more likely people will watch it because mental health issues are becoming more common.

Target Audience =
- 15-30 year olds, this is because mental health issues are more commonly seen within these years. This means that teens to young adults would be able to relate to the movie easily. Our other target audience must be those who like horror movies due to our movie being a horror movie.

Competitors =
- Other horror movies such as: Mara, Umbra Hominis, The Cultivation and Guilty. 

Goals =
- Create  a campaign to promote and advertise our film successfully and as a result, create awareness of our film.

Driving Idea =
-  We want the movie to be unique and intriguing to the audience, this would be done by making a horror movie that's different to other stereotypical horror movies, but still having the same feel as a horror movie. Our movie can tackle mental health issues to try and create awareness for them too.

Brand Voice =
- Trustworthy, appealing to the younger audience.

Communication Channels =
- Social media (Twitter and Reddit), advertising through posters, streaming (Spotify) and trailers.

Product Details =
- Psychological Horror Movie, rated 15, aiming to tackle mental health issues.

Other Requirements =
- The advertisement shouldn't spoil the majority of the movie plot. It should also be streamed on Netflix and Amazon Prime as streaming is the main way people watch movies now.

The Advertising Plan (For Twitter) - P3.

We created a plan for our advertising campaign that would start a year before our planned release date in October. It was designed to span the next twelve months - mainly focusing on the social media aspect of it through the use of multiple accounts on Twitter. One of these accounts would be run by the characters in the movie, following the story as they search for Simon, posting pictures of clues they find along the way and posting questions about what they should do next. The other account would post teaser pictures, film clips and bits of audio out of context, but sometimes relating to the characters account through replies or similar pictures. These accounts would not be directly linked, so it would be up to the audience to put then together. 

One year before release:

October
- Open account with a picture of Simon and "Have you seen the person?"
- Post a couple of pictures of him in different situations with different friends (all of whom would show up in the film)
- Part way through the month, open the other account (This takes inspiration from many movies such as Logan where they teased the movie with simply Logans hand being held by another hand, no context is given except what is shown.) - could be something like a No Trespassing sign.

November
- Post updates about Simon's whereabouts.
- Post another minimalistic teaser - a short video?

December
- Minimalistic poster - locked gates.
- Another update on Simon - looking in his case and found this, this and this (post pictures of evidence).

January
- Post another minimalistic teaser - picture of empty and dark corridor.
- Post a picture of Simon's room covered in newspaper clippings and photos - continue to show close up pictures of the room over the next couple of weeks.

February
- Minimalistic teaser photo - down a stair well.
- Post pictures of the start of a plan - lists and researching.

This type of posting of small teasers with little context and updates about where Simon is and his work before he left would carry on for the next couple of months. The official marketing with trailers and posters on billboards would start in the May of that year, after the characters twitter went quiet after they decided to enter the asylum mid April. 
During the official marketing, the posters would all have same theme - a dark image in the middle, fading out to black around it, though the main one would be a corridor 

The teams ideas for advertising - P3.

The team’s ideas for advertising:

Ben's: Make a website for the product so that we can advertise off that. Websites are also easy to use and update. Using the correct resources, websites can be cheap to set up too. We can then add the trailers and posters here at which will make the website have a creepier vibe to make the website just like the movie.

Another idea could be through Snapchat filters, this is a good idea because Snapchat is used greatly by our target audience and as a result, it would be easy to advertise to this target audience.

Finally, another idea could be through Reddit, this is a text based website at which the user can add images to go along. It includes subreddits such as r/creepypasta at which we could post stories there and as a result, we could write stories there, or snippets of the movie.

Frances’s and Eve's: Audio clip to be player over radio, this is dialogue between characters talking about where Simon (a character) is, this cuts off with footsteps, doors slamming and then a distant scream. The radio advert will be broadcast on Capital FM during the evening where he target audience will be revising.

Poster, this can either be a portrait or a landscape photo of Eve's character (One of the ghosts that haunts the area) this image is clear near the centre and fades into blackness around the edges. This would be released a lot later.

We will create a Twitter account similar to that of ‘The Sun Vanished’ (a story page that slowly adds to the story of the movie), the page would be of a character looking for Simon, who will later be looking for the other characters. There will also be a second Twitter account which would be only promotional, for example. The account would only promote the movie and openly do so. Such as @thenunmovie this would be similar to the website as, they will both contain mostly similar content, but the website would be more in-depth and the Twitter would be brief.

Post ideas: The audio idea can also be used for Spotify, this would help catch a younger target audience which our film is aimed at. As a result, an increase in attention and sales would be possible.

Comparing two cross media campaigns - M1.

M1

Products of choice: ‘God of War’ by SIE Santa Monica Studio and ‘Bloodborne’ by FromSoftware

Script:

First form of advertisement: Both games were both first presented and announced at the Sony E3 press conferences. For Bloodborne the president of Sony’s worldwide studios Shuhei Yoshida, who once rejected the Souls Series and said it will be a failure got to announce it, he said himself “Tonight, I get the honour of announcing an all new IP from one of the industries most respected directors. This is a project that is really dear to my heart if you know me and my hour history with the developer” This is essentially Shuhei Yoshida apologising for putting down the soul series that Bloodborne is a part of, and therefore pointed out that he disliked a game that turned out to be one of the best. This was followed by Yoshida showing the trailer. This was perfect because no one knew much about Bloodborne and it was taken right after Little Big Planet 3, probably one of the friendliest games, instantly switching to a much darker game in a Victorian style setting.

For God of War, at E3 they presented it starting with an orchestra to try and hype up the product first. Then the trailer and gameplay opened with Atreus playing with wooden toys, entering his house then slowly showing Kratos for a massive reaction as he is hidden in the shadows. This allowed Sony and SIE Santa Monica Studio to see the audience’s reaction when Kratos is finally revealed. This is soon followed by some gameplay footage that allowed the viewers to all see what the new game is like. As a result, this allowed SIE Santa Monica Studio to get good reactions and see what the audience likes.

Advertising following E3:

Comparing the games together, both of which are similar in their advertising methods, they were both big games already by the games that were created before them, God of War follows the previous God of War series and Bloodborne follows Souls series. This means that they were both able to keep audiences for their game but try and change the games to catch newer target audiences. Bloodborne was a more Victorian era version of Dark Souls and had a more gothic tone, this can catch the attention of the players who like gothic games more than games like Dark Souls where it was a mix between dark environments and light environments. Both games have the same mechanics which means loyal players to the franchise aren’t forced to change how they play too, and the game is created by Hidetaka Miyazaki who made the Souls series big and created a new tone to the game industry. The cases for the games are also similar to the point at which the game case for Dark souls 2 is almost the exact same as the Bloodborne case, this means that players that recognise the Dark Souls 2 case will see a Bloodborne case and notice its similarity and therefore, assume it’s similar too.

For God of War, the game is the same as the others, although this one takes place with the accommodation of the game going to take place with Norwegian gods instead of Greek gods. This therefore makes characters like Odin more apparent than the franchises previous gods like Zeus. This allows loyal players to once more continue playing the game and people who like the Norwegian gods and also the game teaches players about the mythology and therefore, allows them to learn about the mythology at the same time.

One way that Bloodborne was advertised was from IGN posting short creation videos and gameplay of the mechanics. This allows the users to see how the game was created and give a more in-depth look into the game and what went behind it. This is different to other games that have been advertised as I believe I have never heard of a game being advertised in similar ways. This essentially gave Bloodborne a Unique Selling Point as showing the mechanics, looks at objects, environments and character creation made them much different to their rivals. Also, the idea of character creation was a big Unique Selling Point that they advertised because the Souls series is iconic for their character creation. 

The above image is from an enemy that was in production for the Bloodborne game. Here they show the viewers how they were created, the 3D designs were a nice way to advertise because although it doesn’t catch the eyes of regular players, players that are more interested in what happens behind the scenes and are interested in game development may look at this and therefore want to play the game to compare the creation of the game to the actual game.

Finally, for Bloodborne, IGN created a post with the music that is used for Bloodborne, this allows people to pick out the song and adds intensity to both the game and the trailers that were produced. Such as for one song they had an entire orchestra and choir play the song to give the game a darker Victorian style to trailer by using Latin in the song consequently adding suspense at the same time. People who see this video and like the music will want to check of the game and trailer to see more. Also, this may increase sales for the songs which would be sold on iTunes to create a form of profit from a different target audience who like the music and not so much for the game itself, or they may be curious and as a result, give the game a try. 

Due to Bloodborne being apart of the blood-souls series, people generally expect it to be the same as the souls games. But Bandai Namco and From Software pushed the idea that it's different within their advertisements. This stems from concept design, choosing victorian fashion instead of medieval, soundtracks being more onto latin and choirs whereas the previous ones were only orchestras. Finally, that the game has new mechanics and features that separates itself from the games connected to the series. All parts of Bloodbornes advertising has a consistent style throughout, this is of the dark victorian theme that is portrayed heavily throughout the advertising methods. Even when Bandai Namco and From Software showed the creation of some characters, the creation videos still had the victorian elements. This consistent style allows the game to be presented to not only fans of the Souls franchise, but also fans of the victorian era and darker games. This is very effective because, Bloodborne actually did end up reaching a wider demographic when released and had a massive push in sales compared to the other Souls games on their releases, even managing to get playstation game of the year, similar to what God of War was able to get, although God of War II had already received that accolade, meaning the title wasn't as big as Bloodbornes accolade to the Blood-Souls franchise.

Another way that God of War was advertised was by more trailers, the full TV commercial advert for God of War contained no gameplay but actually followed more story onto the child character Atreus. It gave viewers a small portion of the plot if they were able to notice the small details in the trailer. This action-packed trailer was also able to reel in more viewers who watch TV more than YouTube as this is a TV advert and therefore, should appeal to them more.

Finally, the last way God of War was advertised was by adding a God of War website on the PlayStation store, this allowed users to see all kinds of information about the game, including: information, fan art, comic stories of Kratos, creations of the game and more. This allows users who aren’t too sure about whether or not they like the game, to go check out the website and see for themselves. It also gives them lore on the previous games meaning any new player is able to play this one without playing the prequels. This is a great way to bring in both new and old players and as a result, pushes for the consistent message that this is a new game with new features, stories and gameplay.

Comparison: In comparison, God of War and Bloodborne advertised rather differently considering the games are extremely similar. God of War featured orchestras for the E3 presentation, Bloodborne was a brief congratulations by the president of Sony’s worldwide studios. This shows how major both games are, one has an iconic face saying how good the game is, the other got an orchestra just for an E3 presentation. They then both took to places like IGN to show their games, the design of the games and further trailers. Bloodborne had more depth for this, yet God of War was heavily advertised on the PlayStation website with their one page there to show all the things with God of War, this immersion on God of Wars behalf allowed users to feel more connected to the characters. Whereas for Bloodborne they got to be more immersed in the style that was shown to the users.